I read the signs over and over. That little, ugly building in that bare, ugly street meant nothing to me. I could not connect its aspect with my mother. How could she live there? Surely, there must have been a mistake.
I resolved to enquire none the less.
The ground floor appeared to be entirely occupied by a store. The front door was locked, and the windows shut for the night. But, on the side of the building, I noticed a rickety stairwell that led to the first floor.
I walked up those steps with some trepidation. I didn't know whether I was more worried about not finding my mother there, or of discovering that she, in fact, lived in that establishment.
The sun was by now behind the horizon, and, as it was a moonless night, I moved with great caution.
I rang an old bell that hang on the side of the door and waited.
Finally, a woman opened the door. She was rather short and walked as if every bone in her body ached. Her hair was grey, and many lines departed from the sides of her eyes and deepened as she winced with some suspicion upon seeing me.
'Yes?'
'Does the Countess *** live here?' I asked.
She smirked:
'The countess… the countess…'
Then, she called with much vinegar in her voice:
'Your ladyship, a visitor?'
The old woman mumbled under her breath, with some impatience, that her ladyship had no consideration, that it was dinner time, and the whole house was busy serving her every need, and nobody needed a visitor at this hour.
As she now began to retreat into the house without as much as another word towards me, I followed her.
The house appeared to be furnished in that horrid way where lack of taste is compensated by a great quantity of items. Every surface held statuettes, frames, vases, boxes; every wall was covered with ornaments, drapes, pieces of furniture, paintings of risible quality and of no value.
Once more I asked myself how my mother had ended up here, and I was quite prepared not to find her and to beg the old woman to forgive me for disturbing her at that hour.
Finally, we entered the dining room. Here, a man and a woman sat at a table in the act of beginning to dine.
The man was quite portly, nearly bald except for some tufts of hair above his ears. The flesh hung loosely on the bones of his face; its complexion had the lifeless colour and the shine of wax; and heavy purple eyelids shaded his eyes. He looked at me with some curiosity but without any surprise, as if he always expected to be interrupted in his activities by strangers.
The woman was – what a shock that image gave me! – in fact my mother. She was dressed in very fine clothes, but she appeared much aged. Her hair contained much grey; her complexion had lost any trace of youth, and, in fact, had acquired the same sickly aspect of the man's. But what hit me most of all was her lost air, as if she couldn't recognise me.
'Yes?' the man asked, and, as he spoke, she looked at him, obediently waiting for him to deal with that intruder.
'I'm Eloise,' I said, timidly and quite lost at this frigid welcome.
Seeing that this introduction had no effect and that my own mother had no reaction to my name, I added, still addressing the man:
'I'm her daughter.'
The man looked at my mother and slapped his knee.
'You are indeed!' he cried. 'Cosette, bring another chair!'
Presently, the old woman dragged a chair, which appeared quite light, with a great grating noise and puffing with great vexation.
I was made to sit down at the table.
My mother didn't look at me, but now stared at her plate, awaiting permission to eat.
'I didn't know my poupette had a daughter,' the man said, and he turned towards her.
My mother nodded to him, saying that this was so, then returned to her observations of her untouched dinner.
Cosette now brought a plate for me too, which was filled with a clear soup where a few pieces of carrot floated adrift.
'Eat, eat!' the man said.
He spoke with the tone of the huckster on the public square that had to put on a great show to sell his wares.
I thanked him for this and began to eat, or, I should say, I began to drink, for that soup was not more nutritious than spring water.
Seeing that there was permission to do so, my mother too began to sip from her spoon.
'We always serve very healthy foods in this house,' the man said, pointing towards the plate before me. 'Young people are spoilt nowadays with rich meals, which is a sure recipe for long stays at the hospital, and an early grave. But not me, no sir!'
I made no comment but quickly eyed the large paunch he hid under his waistcoat.
The man, who was the Hubert Martin whose name crowned the front door of the business below, explained to me that my mother and he had married six months prior.
'I don't know how we couldn't have invited you, but, you see, the flame of young love' he said wanting to indicate him and my mother, 'cannot wait and is often shy of conventions… It was furthermore a very small ceremony: my little poupette, Colette, and the witnesses…'
I was surprised to hear that my mother had married this jovial, but ultimately vulgar man, and I also unable to comprehend why she hadn't informed me of this.
My mother said little. She listened to what was being said, but I wasn't too sure that the words reached her.
When I informed Mr. Martin that I had completed a year at the institute, that I had made many friends, my mother added in a very quiet voice:
'I'm glad… I'm glad…'
Just then, Mr. Martin studied me with great interest and asked me whether I had to return to this institute, which he understood to be quite expensive but, not giving me – or, maybe, not wanting to give me – the time to answer, added:
'But too many books only confuse the mind. Work! That's what's needed for the Youth. Good, old-fashioned work! Am I wrong?'
'You're right, darling,' my mother whispered.
I came to understand that Mr. Martin traded linen, buttons, yarn, needles, and other items for tailoring. He had a good commerce, and he supplied most of the boutiques that my mother and I had visited while we lived under Mr. LeClair's roof.
He had no children of his own and had lived with Colette, the old servant who also assisted him in the shop downstairs, for many years.
He spoke with much enthusiasm and had the habit of enlarging and magnifying his own status and abilities. So, his kitchen served the best food in France; the cloths from his shop ended up draping the wealthiest shoulders in the city, and so on. He appeared quite harmless, but I could see that he had a small mind, where profits and losses took the greatest share of his attention. I doubted he was a patron of the arts, that he enjoyed a night at the theatre, that he appreciated the latest novels.
In a word, he was shockingly unsuitable for my mother's temperament.
I so wished to speak to my mother and asked her how she came to live here, but, as soon as dinner finished, she excused herself, citing a very bad headache, and left.
Hubert then smiled at me and said:
'Not to worry, not to worry. We've been taking good care of your mother. Now, Cosette will prepare your room, and we will discuss your future tomorrow.'
Cosette, after having huffed and puffed greatly, after having slammed a great number of doors and cupboards, after having dropped various objects, arranged a spare room so that I could lodge in it.
'Your ladyship…' she said, curtsying and smiling in a manner that wasn't by any mean obsequious, and quickly retired.
I surveyed the room, which appeared to be dirtier, more cluttered, and more inhospitable than the Emperor's suite of the night before.
I undressed and dusted carefully my dress, which, as things stood, was my only possession at that point, and I got into bed.
I was exhausted, and I was quickly abandoning myself to sleep, when I heard the following words coming from the room next to mine:
'Look at it!'
It wasn't possible to confuse the boisterous voice of my host and to not hear his words, which continued thus:
'Isn't it the biggest you've ever seen? – Not very hard yet, I agree. – Why don't you put two fingers up my… Yes, you know how I like it!'
At that point, the wall behind my head began to shake, as if being beaten repeatedly.
'Oh, oh! – Pull it! – Ah ah! – Let's turn around! – Ah, la poupette, what things you like to do!'
Now and then, I could discern, much quieter and with not nearly as much animation, my mother's voice:
'Yes, darling. – For me, it's the same, darling. – Is this good enough, darling?'
I put my pillow on my face, hoping to drown those noises, and groaned with exasperation at that poor conclusion of such a poor day.
*
The next day, I woke up to find my mother in the living room.
'Hubert is downstairs. He begins work very early,' she told me.
I said that it was well, that I desired to talk to her, not with Hubert.
'I'm about to go out,' she said, almost trying to avoid having to converse with me.
'Let me accompany you,' I offered.
My mother was silent for a moment, debating this point in her mind, then she said:
'For me, it's the same.'
I asked her whether she had had breakfast.
'We don't eat breakfast in this house,' she said in a toneless voice. 'Hubert says it's bad for the liver.'
I pondered this point and, for a moment, thought I should inform her I had never heard this, but I decided against it. Instead, I said:
'You didn't pick me up from the school, and, having had to walk all the way here, I only have one dress, Mother. Would it be possible to purchase me something new to wear?'
She clasped her hands with impatience, as if she had expected this veiled accusation, but she quickly found her composure again and said:
'Hubert will find suitable fabric. A young woman doesn't need fancy dresses.'
This last motto, of whose truthfulness I doubted greatly, echoed Mr. Martin's grand statements I had already learned to recognise.
None the less, I said that would be very well, and that I didn't need much. Just to stay warm and keep my modesty.
So, we walked out. She, wearing a very smart dress, but which I recognised as being quite old by then, and I, wearing my dusty and torn one.
There was no carriage awaiting us, and we proceeded on food, in silence.
Mother took me to the more elegant streets of the city. She passed by various boutiques, where she admired the colourful displays in the windows, but she never walked into any one of them.
This appeared to me so sad, as I realised that she was not allowed to spend any money, that she had nothing to do all day but to think about the days when she could indulge her every whim.
She now often spoke to herself, in such a quiet voice that it was often hard to understand her.
When I enquired after something she had said, she appeared much surprised that I had heard her, as if I had been able to read her inner thoughts.
'Mother,' I asked, 'what has happened with Auguste?'
She didn't answer but stared at a little hat perched on a peacock's head inside a shop.
'Mother?' I asked again. 'Mother, why don't you live at our apartment any longer? Who is this Hubert you live with?'
'But he is my husband,' she said, calmly.
Then, she kept walking at a brisk pace, so that I had to run after her to catch up.
'Mother, please answer me honestly: why do you live in that horrid place?'
'It is an honest place. Honest work, cunning work, the best fabrics of France…' she said, repeating broken pieces she must have heard from her new husband.
'But, Mother,' I insisted, 'Auguste took good care of you.'
'Oh, Auguste doesn't want me,' she said, looking up towards the sky, searching for who knows what.
'I can talk to him…' I volunteered.
Mother took a deep breath, then said:
'I spent all my money. I sold the apartment so you could finish your year of school. I hoped Auguste would marry me, but, once the money was gone and I was finally ruined, he had me passed around among his friends, and, when they got bored with me, he asked me to leave. Hubert has taken me in. He has married me. I cannot ask for more. I know he will keep me until, if God has mercy, I die.'
Then, she wiped the tears that were beginning to fall from her eyes, and added:
'I wish not to speak of this anymore.'
She then pointed at a shop that sold wigs.
'Aren't they drole?' she asked me in a voice, once again, devoid of any emotion.
I was heartbroken and didn't speak for a while, now understanding what she had endured while I was away, and how she had come to take refuge in Mr. Martin's house.
'Your brothers have written to me,' my mother said eventually. Armand is climbing the ladder in Paris, while Blaise has established a florid commerce in Belgium. Isn't that splendid?
I said I was glad to hear that, but I secretly couldn't shake the great sadness and humiliation my mother's story had filled me with.
'Shall we look at them all again?' Mother asked then, wanting to see those pretty creations once more, like a penniless child who fogs up with their breath the shop windows on Christmas time, dreaming of a toy soldier or a little doll they will never receive.