The Dream (Oxford World's Classics), page 8
The weeks and months slipped by. Two years later, Angélique had turned fourteen, and was becoming a woman. When she read the Legend, she heard a ringing in her ears, and the blood beat in the delicate blue veins around her temples; and she was filled now with a tender fellow-feeling for the virgins.
Virginity is the consort of the angels, the custody of all virtue, the conquest of the devil, and the dominion of faith. It offers grace and is invincible perfection. Lucy is made so heavy by the Holy Spirit that a thousand men and five pairs of oxen cannot fulfil the proconsul’s order and drag her off to a house of ill repute. A governor who wishes to kiss Anastasia is struck blind. During their torments, the innocence of the virgins shines brightly and, when iron combs rake their white skin, rivers of milk, instead of blood, stream out. The story of a young Christian woman is repeated in ten different places: she flees her family disguised in a monk’s robes and is then accused of wronging a local girl, and bears the calumny without protesting her innocence, but triumphs at last when she is suddenly revealed to be an innocent member of the other sex. Eugenia is brought before a judge, whom she recognizes as her father, and so tears open her robe, revealing herself.* The battle to remain chaste is eternally fought afresh, and goading desire continually strikes anew. And so it is wise for the male saints to fear women. The world is strewn with pitfalls, and hermits go to the deserts, where there are no women. They struggle bitterly, flagellate themselves and throw themselves naked into brambles or snow. A recluse helping his mother to cross a ford wraps his fingers in his cloak. A bound martyr, tempted by a girl, bites off his own tongue, and spits it in her face. Francis declares that he has no greater enemy than his own body. Bernard cries out ‘Stop thief!’ to defend himself against the lady of the house. When Pope Leo* administers the host to a woman, she kisses his hand, and so he cuts it off at the wrist, but the Virgin Mary restores it. They all extol the idea that husbands and wives should live apart. Alexis, who is married and very wealthy, advises his wife to remain chaste, and then goes away.* Couples marry only as a precursor to dying. Justina is tormented by the sight of Cyprian, resists, converts him, and walks with him to their execution.* Cecilia is loved by an angel, and reveals this secret on her wedding night to Valerian, her husband, who agrees not to touch her, and to be baptized so that he may see the angel. He found her ‘within her chambre spekyng with an aungell, and this aungell had two crownes of roses, whiche he helde in his hande, of whiche he gave one to Cecylye and the other to Valeryan sayenge: Kepe ye these crownes with an undefouled and a clene body.’* Death is stronger than love;* it offers up a challenge to life. Hilary* beseeches God to call his daughter Apia to heaven, so that she may avoid marrying; she dies, and her mother asks the father to have her called up to heaven as well; which is done. The Virgin Mary takes the fiancés of women for herself. A nobleman related to the king of Hungary renounces a young woman of great beauty as soon as Mary enters the contest. ‘Anone appered tofore hym the gloryous virgyn Marye and sayd to hym: I am fayre and gracyous. Wherfore levest thou me and takest thou an other wyfe?’* and he betroths her.
Among all these female saints, Angélique had her favourites: those whose lessons touched her heart, and moved her so deeply that she changed her ways. She was captivated by the wise Catherine, who is born in the purple, and displays immense learning at the age of 18 when she argues with the fifty orators and grammarians ranged against her by the emperor Maximian.* She confounds them and reduces them to silence. ‘They were abasshed and wyst not what to saye, but were styll. And the emperour was replenysshed with felony agaynst them, and began to blame them by cause they were overcomen so fouly of one mayde.’* The fifty then declare to him that they are converting. ‘And whan the tyraunt herde this thynge he was esprysed with grete woodnes and commaunded that they all shold be brent in the myddes of the cyte.’* To Angélique, Catherine seemed the invincible philosopher, whose wisdom was as noble and as dazzling as her beauty, the one saint she would have liked to be, so that she too could have converted men, and been fed by a dove in prison, before having her head cut off. But it was Elizabeth, daughter of the king of Hungary,* above all, who served as an enduring exemplar. Every time her pride revolted, or she was seized by violent anger, Angélique thought about this woman, a model of kindness and simplicity, who is full of piety at the age of 5, and refuses to play games, and sleeps on the floor in homage to God; later she is the obedient and abstemious wife of the landgrave of Thuringia, presenting a cheerful face to her husband although she weeps floods of tears every night, and at the last is a chaste widow, happy to live as a pauper after being driven from her lands. ‘Her clothynge was course and vyle, she ware a russet mantell, her gowne of an other foule colour. The sleves of her cote were broken and amended with peces of other colour.’ The king, her father, sends out an earl to fetch her back. ‘Whan the erle sawe her syt in suche an habyte and spynnyng, he escryed for sorowe and sayd: There was never kynges doughter that ware suche an habyte, ne seen spynnyng woll.’* She is the perfect embodiment of Christian humility, and lives among beggars, eating only black bread, and dresses their wounds without the slightest repugnance, wears coarse clothing like them, sleeps on the hard ground, and follows processions in bare feet. ‘She wasshed otherwhile the dysshes and the vessel of the kechyn, and she hyd her otherwhile that the chamberers shold not let her. And she wold say: Yf I coude fynde an other lyfe more despysed I wold have taken it.’* And so Angélique, who had previously stiffened with anger when she was made to scrub the kitchen, now toiled away at menial chores whenever the brutal urge to bully and humiliate stirred inside her. In the end, one saint was dearer to her than any other, dearer even than Catherine and Elizabeth, and this was Agnes, the child martyr. Her heart thrilled whenever she came across her in the Legend, for this virgin, with her cloak of long hair, had protected her in the cathedral doorway. How pure the flame of love burns within her when she is accosted at the school gate by the governor’s son and turns him down! ‘Go fro me thou fardell of synne, nourysshyng of evylles, and morsell of deth, and departe.’* How finely she glorifies her lover! ‘I am now embraced of hym of whom the moder is a virgyn, and his fader knewe never woman. The sonne and the mone mervayle them of his beaute, by whose odour deed men ryse agayn to lyf.’* And when Aspasius* commands a soldier to ‘put a swerde in her body’, she ascends into paradise to be united with her ‘whyte and rody spouse’.* For several months now, in times of distress, when the blood was throbbing feverishly in her temples, Angélique had appealed to Agnes, and begged for her help—and all at once she seemed to feel refreshed. Agnes was constantly to be glimpsed around her, and it dismayed her that she often did and thought things that must grieve the saint. One evening when she was covering her own hands with kisses, something she still occasionally liked to do, she suddenly blushed deeply and looked around, ashamed, even though she was alone, for she knew that the saint had seen her. Agnes was the guardian of her body.
At fifteen, Angélique was thus a delightful girl. Admittedly, not even the cloistered, hardworking life she led, the cathedral’s peaceful shadow, and the Legend with all its lovely saints were enough to shape her into an angel or a creature of absolute perfection. She still flew into violent tempers and new faults reared up unexpectedly from the ungoverned recesses of her soul. Afterwards, however, she was thoroughly ashamed: she was striving so hard to be perfect! And she was, at heart, so compassionate, spirited, unworldly, and pure! On the way home from one of the long walks that the Huberts took twice a year, on Whit Monday and Assumption Day, she had pulled up a sweet-briar, and for fun had replanted it in their narrow garden. She clipped it and watered it, and it grew back straighter, and sprouted larger, sweet-scented roses—for which she had been waiting, with her customary passion, having been loath to make a graft to it, as she wished to see whether by some miracle it would flower. She danced around it, chanting with delight: ‘It’s me! it’s me!’ And if anyone teased her about the rosebush that she had plucked from the roadside, she would laugh too, her face a little pale as tears began to well. Her violet eyes were a little more gentle, her lips, parting slightly, revealed small white teeth, and her blonde hair, delicate as sunlight, haloed her long, oval face with gold. She had grown taller, but not thin, and still held her neck and shoulders with proud grace. She had a rounded bust and a supple waist, and was bright, healthy and exceptionally beautiful; her soul was chaste, her flesh innocent, and she bloomed with immense charm.
The Huberts’ affection for her deepened with every passing day. The idea of adopting her had occurred to them both, but neither said anything for fear of reviving their perpetual sorrow. And so the morning when the husband came to his decision in the bedroom, his wife collapsed into a chair and burst into tears. Wouldn’t adopting a child amount to giving up on ever having one of their own? Of course, at their age, they could never count on it happening; and so she agreed, won over by the lovely idea of making the girl her daughter. When they spoke of this to Angélique, she threw herself into their arms, choking on her tears. It was decided: she would stay with them in this home that she had already filled with her presence, and that had been rejuvenated by her youthful spirit and made merry by her laughter. But as soon as they took the first step, they were dismayed by an obstacle that arose. When they consulted the magistrate, Monsieur Grandsire, he explained that it was completely impossible for them to adopt Angélique, as any adoptee was required by law to be of age. Seeing how much this news upset them, Monsieur Grandsire suggested the expedient of establishing an unofficial guardianship:* any individual over 50 could legally take charge of a minor aged under 15 by becoming the child’s unofficial guardian. The ages of the parties were suitable and they took up this suggestion, delighted; and it was even agreed that they would then confer adoption on their ward in their will, as permitted by the civil code. Monsieur Grandsire said he would take charge of the husband’s application and the wife’s authorization, and then wrote to the Director of Welfare Services, the legal guardian of all children in care, whose consent was required. The matter was investigated, and the documents were at last filed in Paris with the relevant magistrate. Only the final report remained to be delivered, constituting the deed of guardianship, when the Huberts were struck by a belated misgiving.
Before adopting Angélique in this way, shouldn’t they make an effort to locate her family? If the mother were still alive, what right had they to decide the girl’s fate without knowing for certain whether she had been abandoned? And then there was also that unknown factor, the degenerate stock from which the child perhaps came, which had caused them concern before, and which now returned to worry them. It tormented them so much they could no longer sleep.
Hubert left abruptly for Paris. It was a great disruption in his peaceful existence. He lied to Angélique, saying that he was required in person to make the final arrangements for the guardianship. He hoped to know everything within twenty-four hours. But in Paris the days went by, and obstacles arose at every step. He spent an entire week there, was sent from one official to the next, and traipsed endlessly about, distraught and on the verge of tears. At first he received a very brusque reception at the Child Welfare Services. The administration had a rule that children could not be informed about the circumstances of their birth until they reached the age of majority. He was sent away three mornings in a row. He had to be persistent, and explained his case in four different offices; he grew hoarse presenting himself as her unofficial guardian, until at last a deputy chief clerk, a tall, curt fellow, deigned to inform him that no precise documentation whatsoever existed in the matter. The administration knew nothing: a midwife had brought in Angélique Marie without giving the mother’s name. At his wits’ end, he was just about to set off for Beaumont again when an idea struck him, and he returned for a fourth time—and asked to see the birth certificate, which would naturally record the midwife’s name. Another ordeal ensued. At last he obtained a name—Madame Foucart, and even learnt that in 1850 this woman had been living in the Rue des Deux-Écus.
And so he ran around town once more. One end of the Rue des Deux-Écus had been pulled down, and none of the shopkeepers in the neighbouring streets could remember a Madame Foucart. He consulted a directory, but her name was not to be found. Peering up at the shop signs, he realized he had no choice but to go up and speak to the different midwives; and this was in fact how he found out what he wanted. He had the good luck to come across an old lady who cried out that certainly she knew Madame Foucart! Such a worthy woman, who’d had so many strokes of bad luck! She lived in the Rue Censier, on the other side of Paris. He rushed over there.
Having learnt from experience, he resolved to make a more diplomatic approach. But Madame Foucart, an enormous woman mounded onto two short legs, did not allow him to ask his questions in the careful order he had prepared. As soon as he mentioned the child’s Christian names and her date of admission, Madame Foucart broke in and related the whole story in a flood of rancour. Oh, so the little girl was still alive! Well she could be proud to have an utter whore for a mother! Yes indeed, Madame Sidonie,* as she was known since she became a widow, a woman with very good family connections, whose brother was a government minister, it was said—although that didn’t stop her from engaging in the most shameful activities! And she explained how she had come to know her—when the slut was running a shop in the Rue Saint-Honoré selling fruit and olive oil from Provence, soon after arriving from Plassans, which she and her husband had left in order to seek their fortune. With her husband dead and buried, she had given birth to a child fifteen months later, without knowing exactly where she had got it, for she was as dry as an invoice, as cold as an overdue notice, and as brutal and uncaring as a bailiff’s officer. A mistake can be forgiven, but ingratitude! After the shop had gone under, hadn’t she, Madame Foucart, provided for her during her confinement; hadn’t she gone so far as to take the child off her hands by placing it with the authorities? And her reward for all this was that when she, in turn, had fallen on hard times, she hadn’t even been able to get a month’s rent out of her, let alone the fifteen francs she had lent her from her own purse. These days Madame Sidonie had a little shop and three upstairs rooms in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière where, under the pretence of selling lace, she sold all sorts of things… Oh yes, indeed, if you had a mother like that, you were better off not knowing her!
An hour later Hubert was loitering outside Madame Sidonie’s shop. He caught sight of a thin, pale woman, of uncertain age and rather sexless, wearing a threadbare black dress covered in all sorts of stains from her dubious activities. Never had any memory of her daughter, born of a chance encounter, warmed her mercenary heart. He made discreet enquiries and learnt things that he never repeated to anyone, not even his wife. Yet still he hesitated, and he came back one last time to walk past the mysterious narrow-fronted shop. Shouldn’t he make himself known and obtain her consent? It was up to him, a man of propriety, to decide whether he had the right to sever this tie once and for all. Abruptly he turned around and, that evening, went back to Beaumont.
Hubertine had in fact just learnt at Monsieur Grandsire’s office that the legal document granting unofficial guardianship had been signed. And when Angélique threw herself into Hubert’s arms, he saw clearly from the expression of pleading enquiry in her eyes that she had understood the real purpose of his journey. So he said to her simply:
‘My child, your mother is dead.’
Angélique, in tears, hugged them fiercely. Nobody ever mentioned the matter again. She was their daughter.
Chapter 3
That year, on Whit Monday, the Huberts took Angélique on a picnic to the ruins of Hautecœur Castle,* which stand above the Ligneul two leagues downstream from Beaumont. And after a day spent running about and laughing in the open air, the next morning, when the old clock in the workroom struck seven, the young girl slept on.
Hubertine had to go up and knock on her door.
‘Come on, lazybones!… The rest of us have already finished breakfast!’
Angélique dressed quickly and went down to breakfast by herself. A little later, coming into the workroom where Hubert and his wife had just sat down to their tasks, she said:
‘I was in such a deep sleep! And we promised that chasuble for Sunday!’
