Sebastien Roch E-Book

Octave Mirbeau

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

We follow Sebastien life from an unspoilt child, corrupt adolescence and his senseless death on the battle field.

Das E-Book Sebastien Roch wird angeboten von Dedalus und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

COPYRIGHT

Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,

24-26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE

email: [email protected]

www.dedalusbooks.com

ISBN printed book 978 1 873982 43 3

ISBN e-book 978 1 907650 54 9

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Dedalus is distributed in Australia by Peribo Pty Ltd.

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Publishing History

First published in France in 1890

First published by Dedalus in 1996

First ebook edition in 2013

Translation copyright © Nicoletta Simborowski 2000

The right of Nicoletta Simborowski to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Printed in Finland by W. S. Bookwell

Typeset by RefineCatch

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

OCTAVE MIRBEAU CHRONOLOGY

1848

Born February 16, in Trévières (Calvados)

1859

Sent for schooling by the Jesuits in Vannes

1870

Joined the army

1885

Conversion to anarchism. Stopped writing for the pro-monarchist newspaper Le Gaulois and started writing for the radical paper La France.

1886

Published Letters from my Cottage and Le Calvaire

1888

Published Abbé Jules

1890

Published Sébastien Roch

1894

Dreyfus affair

1898

Published Torture Garden

1900

Published The Diary of a Chambermaid

1901

Published Twenty-one days in the Life of a Neurasthenic

1903

Business is Business, Mirbeau’s most notable play is performed. Adapted for the English stage in 1905. A bitter satire on an unscrupulous financier who deals ruthlessly with his financial associates and his family.

1917

Died February 16

These pages are respectfully dedicated to Edmond de Goncourt, the venerable and magnificent master of the modern novel.

O.M.

CONTENTS

Title

Copyright

Octave Mirbeau Chronology

Dedication

Book One

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Book II

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

The Translator

The Editor

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

Around 1862, the school of St Francis Xavier in the picturesque town of Vannes was at the height of its renown, and was, as it still is, run by the Jesuit fathers. Today, the school is just one of several diocesan seminaries, a decline in fortunes that is due to one of those caprices of fashion which affect and shape governments, female royalty, hats and schools, rather than to the recent wave of political persecutions, which, in any case, led only to a brief change of personnel – since restored to their posts. At that time, however, there were few such flourishing schools, either religious or lay. As well as the sons of the noble families of Britanny, Anjou and the Vendée, who formed the basis of its usual clientèle, this famous institution attracted students from every right-minded corner of France. It even attracted students from other Catholic countries, from Spain, Italy, Belgium and Austria, where the impulsiveness of revolutions and the cautiousness of political parties had, in the past, forced Jesuits to seek refuge, and where they have put down the deepest of roots. This popularity derived from the Jesuits’ curriculum, reputed to be paternalistic and conventional, and derived, above all, from their educational principles, which offered exceptional privileges and rare pleasures – an education in lofty ideals, both religious and worldly, well-suited to young gentlemen born to cut a dash in the world and to carry on the tradition of proper doctrine and perfect manners.

It was no mere chance that, on their return from Brugelette, the Jesuits had settled in the very heart of Brittany. No other physical or social setting could have been more congenial to their aims of moulding minds and manipulating souls. There, the mores of the Middle Ages are still very much alive, memories of the Chouan revolt are respected as though they were articles of faith. Of all the areas in Brittany, taciturn Morbihan has remained the most doggedly Breton, in its religious fatalism, its stubborn resistance to change, and the harsh, unspeakably sad poetry of its soil that delivers up to the voracious and omnipotent consolations of the Church men brutalised by poverty, superstition and sickness. These moors, these rocks, this barbaric, suffering land, planted with pale wayside altars and sown with sacred stones, exude a rough mysticism and an obsession with legends and epic history, ideally suited to impressing young, delicate souls and to imbuing them with that spiritual discipline and that taste for the marvellous and the heroic which form the very basis of the Jesuit strategy, by which they hope to impose their all-encompassing power upon the world. The school’s prospectuses – masterpieces of typography – adorned with pious drawings, alluring views, sonorous names, prayers in rhyme and certificates of hygiene, were full of praise for the moral superiority of Breton society, while lyrical descriptions of the surrounding countryside and various historic monuments were sure to excite the interest of archaeologists and the curiosity of tourists. Along with these glorious evocations of local history, of Breton battles and martyrs, these prospectuses also pointed out to families that, by a great stroke of good fortune, owing to the proximity of Sainte-Anne-d’Auray, miracles were by no means uncommon at the school – especially around the time of the baccalaureat examinations – that the students went sea-bathing at a special holy beach, and that they dined on lobster once a week.

Faced with such a prospectus and despite his modest means, Monsieur Joseph-Hippolyte-Elphège Roch, the ironmonger in Pervenchères, a little town in the Department of Orne, dared to entertain the proud thought of sending his son Sébastien, who had just turned eleven, to the Jesuits in Vannes. He mentioned it to the parish priest, who gave his hearty approval:

‘Goodness, Monsieur Roch, that’s a bold idea… When a student graduates from a place like that, you know… Well!… When a student graduates from a place like that… Oooph!’

That favourite exclamation of his became a long, whistling exhalation, whilst, at the same time, he opened his arms wide in a sweeping gesture that embraced the whole world.

‘Of course, I know, I know,’ agreed Monsieur Roch, who echoed the priest’s gesture, only on a still grander scale. ‘Of course, you don’t have to tell me that. But it is very expensive … too expensive really.’

‘Too expensive?’ replied the priest. ‘Indeed. But, listen… All the nobility, all the élite…that’s quite something, Monsieur Roch! The Jesuits…my word…I beg you, now, make no mistake about it…I myself have met a general and two bishops…well, they went there, you see! Not to mention marquesses, my friend, there’ll be plenty of them there, plenty! That kind of thing costs money, though, oh yes.’

‘Of course, I’m not denying that,’ protested Monsieur Roch, impressed. ‘And of course you get what you pay for!’

Then he added, puffing up with pride:

‘Anyway, why should they offer it cheaper? For, let’s be fair, Father, I’m no different. Look at this lamp, for example, it’s a fine lamp you’ll agree. Well, I’d certainly sell it for more than I would an ugly one …’

‘Exactly!’ went on the priest, patting Monsieur Roch’s shoulder affectionately, encouragingly. ‘My dear parishioner, you have put your finger on it. Oh yes, the Jesuits! My goodness, that’s no small thing.’

They walked along together for some time beneath the lime trees outside the priest’s house, engaged in wise, wordy talk, mapping out for Sébastien a splendid future. The sun filtered through the leaves, dappling their clothes and the grass along the avenue. The air was heavy. They proceeded slowly, hands behind their backs, stopping every few steps, red-faced and sweating, their souls filled with grandiose dreams. A little lame dog trotted behind them, its tongue hanging out…

Monsieur Roch said again:

‘With the Jesuits on your side, you’re bound to go a long way.’

To which the priest added his enthusiastic support.

‘You certainly are! Because they have fingers in every pie, those fellows! Oh, yes indeed, people have no idea.’

And then, in a confidential tone, his voice trembling with respect and admiration, he murmured:

‘You know, people say they tell the Pope what to do…as simple as that!’

Sébastien, who was the subject of all these marvellous plans, was an attractive child, fresh-faced and blond, with a healthy complexion from hours spent in the sun and the fresh air, and very gentle, honest eyes, which, until then, had only ever shone with happiness. He had the spry greenness, the supple grace of young shrubs full of sap that have sprung up in fertile soil; he shared too the untroubled candour of their vegetable lives. At the school he had attended since the age of five, he had learned nothing; he had merely run about, played and developed strong muscles and a healthy constitution. His dashed-off homework, his lessons – quickly learned and even more quickly forgotten – were merely a mechanical, almost physical task, requiring no more mental effort than a sheep would when leaping. They had failed to develop in him any cerebral impulse, any spiritual feelings. He enjoyed rolling in the grass, climbing trees, watching for fish by the river’s edge, and all he asked was that nature should be an eternal playground for him. His father, absorbed all day in the many details of a successful business, had not had the time to sow the first seeds of intellectual life in that virgin mind. It did not even occur to him, preferring instead, in his moments of leisure, to pontificate to the neighbours who gathered outside his shop. A lofty figure obsessed with matters of transcendental stupidity, he could never have brought himself to take an interest in the naive questions of a mere child. One should add straightaway that had he done so he would have been utterly at a loss, for his ignorance equalled his pretensions, and these knew no bounds. One stormy evening, Sébastien wanted to know what thunder was. ‘It means the Good Lord is unhappy,’ explained Monsieur Roch, taken aback by this unexpected question. He extricated himself from many other situations which taxed his knowledge by resorting to this unchanging aphorism: ‘There are some things a lad your age doesn’t need to know.’ Sébastien would not persist, for he had little taste for unravelling life’s secrets or for making any further pointless incursions into the moral domain. And he would go back to his games, without enquiring any further. At an age when children’s minds are already stuffed with sentimental lies, superstitions and depressing poetry, he was lucky enough not to have suffered any of the normal distortions which are part of what people call a family upbringing. As he grew, far from becoming a sickly child, his complexion became still rosier; far from stiffening up, his mobile limbs became more supple, and his eyes retained their depth of expression, like a reflection of wide, open spaces, the same expression that fills the mysterious eyes of animals with a look of infinity. But local people said that for the son of a man who was as spiritual, wise and ‘well-to-do’ as Monsieur Roch, Sébastien was rather backward, which was most unfortunate. Monsieur Roch did not worry. It did not cross his mind that his child, flesh of his flesh, could belie his birth and fail to achieve the brilliant destiny that awaited him.

‘What’s my name?’ he would sometimes ask Sébastien, fixing him with an aggressive stare.

‘Joseph, Hippolyte, Elphège, Roch,’ the child would reply, as if reciting a lesson learned by heart.

‘Always remember that. Keep my name – the name of the Roch family – always in your thoughts, and all will be well. Say it again.’

And in a gabble, swallowing half the syllables, the young Sébastien would start again:

‘J’seph..p’lyte … phège … Roch.’

‘Very good!’ the ironmonger would say, taking pleasure in the sound of a name which he considered to be as fine and magical as a charm.

Monsieur Roch lived in the Rue de Paris, in a house easily identifiable by its two storeys and its shopfront, painted dark green with a broad red border. The window display gleamed with copperware, porcelain lamps and hosepipes with bronze fittings, whose rubber tubing, loosely coiled into garlands, created intriguing and appealing decorative shapes alongside the funeral wreaths, lacy lampshades and red leather, gilt-studded bellows. The house was the only one in the street to have two storeys and a slate roof and it was, thus, a source of great pride to him, as was the shop itself, the only one in the area to display a dazzling crest inscribed upon a black marble background, with gold, relief lettering. His neighbours envied the air of superiority and rare comfort lent to this luxurious accommodation by the roughcast façade in two shades of yellow, and the windows, their frames embellished with mouldings, painted the dazzling white of new plaster. But they were proud of the house on behalf of the town. Monsieur Roch was not in any case just an ordinary individual; he was an honour to the district as much on account of his character as his house. In Pervenchères he enjoyed a privileged position. His reputation as a rich man, his qualities as a fine talker, and the orthodoxy of his opinions raised him above the status of an ordinary tradesman. The bourgeoisie mingled with him with no fear of demeaning themselves; the most important local officials willingly paused at the door of his shop to chat with him on ‘an equal footing’; everyone, according to social status, showed either the most cordial friendship towards him or the most respectful consideration.

Monsieur Roch was fat and round, pink and fleshy, with a tiny skull and a square, flat, gleaming forehead. His nose was geometrically vertical, and, without diversions or projections, it continued the rigid line of his forehead between two entirely smooth, unshadowed cheeks. His beard formed a woolly fringe linking his two ears, which were vast, deep, involuted and soft as arum lilies. His eyes, sunk into the fleshy, bulbous capsules of their lids, reflected the regularity of his thoughts, his obedience to the law, his respect for established authority, and a particular kind of tranquil, regal, animal stupidity which sometimes achieved a kind of nobility. This bovine calm, this heavy, ruminant majesty impressed people greatly, as they felt they recognised in him all the characteristics of good breeding, dignity and strength. But what really earned him universal esteem, even more than his physical characteristics, was his ability, as a dogged reader of newspapers and legal journals, to explain things by repeating garbled, pompous phrases, which neither he nor anyone else understood, but which nevertheless left his listeners with a sense of admiring unease.

His conversation with the priest had excited him a great deal. All day he was more serious than usual, more preoccupied, distracted from his work by a host of chaotic thoughts which wrestled long and hard with each other inside his narrow skull. In the evening, after dinner, he kept little Sébastien by his side for a while and observed him on the sly, deep in thought, without addressing a word to him. The following day, he merely said confidentially to a few select customers:

‘I think something of significance might be about to happen here. Be prepared for some important news.’ The result was that people went home intrigued, and indulged in the most improbable conjectures. The rumour went from house to house that Monsieur Roch was about to remarry. He was obliged to clear up this flattering misunderstanding and inform Pervenchères of his plans. Besides, whilst he liked to arouse public curiosity by means of ingenious little mysteries that led to comment and discussion about himself, he was definitely not a man to keep secret for many days something from which he could derive direct and immediate admiration. However, he added:

‘It’s still just an idea. Nothing’s been settled yet. I’m pondering, weighing everything up, considering.’

There were two powerful motives behind his extravagant choice of the school in Vannes: Sébastien’s future, in that he would get a ‘smart’ education there and could not fail to be shaped in the right way so that he would achieve great things; but, mainly, his own vanity, which would be delightfully flattered whenever people referred to him as ‘the father of the little chap who’s being educated by the Jesuits’. He was fulfilling a duty, more than a duty, he was making a sacrifice which he intended should weigh heavy on his son whilst giving himself the opportunity to flaunt his superiority in the face of everyone else. It would all greatly increase his standing locally. It was tempting. It also merited serious and lengthy consideration, for Monsieur Roch could never resign himself simply to taking a decision. It was always necessary to go over everything again and again, looking at things from every angle, until, finally, he got lost in an absurd, unlikely tangle of complications which had nothing whatever to do with the matter in hand. Although he knew how much he was worth down to the last centime, he was determined to count up his funds once more, go through his inventory of stock, check all incoming revenue in minute detail. He made calculations, balanced budgets, came up with irrefutable objections, then countered them with equally irrefutable arguments. But it was not the healthy state of his accounts that eventually made his decision for him, it was the words of the parish priest, continually ringing in his ears: Not to mention marquesses, my friend, there’ll be plenty of them there, plenty!’ As he composed the letter to the Rector of the school in Vannes, it seemed to him that he was gaining immediate admission to France’s nobility.

However, it was not as easy as he had at first supposed, and his self-respect was put to some harsh tests. The Reverend Fathers, at the height of their popularity and obliged to enlarge their premises every vacation, proved very severe in their choice of students and rather fussy. In theory, they only took as boarders the sons of the nobility and those whose social position might bestow honour on their roll. They asked for more time from everyone else – the small fry, the obscure, hard-up bourgeoisie – after which, more often than not, they would refuse a place, unless, of course, they were offered some little genius, and these boys they generously took on, with an eye to their future prospects. Monsieur Joseph-Hippolyte-Elphège Roch, though passing for rich in Pervenchères, was not at all in the same league as those favoured by fortune, as those whom an accident of birth placed beyond any competition; he may have been a churchwarden, but he was unquestionably amongst the second rank, and Sébastien showed absolutely no signs of genius. The first year, the Jesuits responded to Monsieur Roch’s repeated approaches with polite but specious objections: overcrowding, the pupil’s extreme youth and a whole series of questions beginning, ‘Has Monsieur considered….?’ It was a cruel disappointment for the vainglorious ironmonger. If the Jesuits refused to take his son, what would people in Pervenchères think of him? His position would surely be diminished. Already he thought he discerned a touch of irony in the eyes of his friends when they enquired: ‘So, you’re not sending Sébastien away after all?’ He put a brave face on it and replied: ‘It’s still just an idea. Nothing’s been settled yet. I’m pondering, weighing everything up, considering. As for the Jesuits, well, I haven’t made my mind up yet … I fear they may be overrated … what do you think?’ But his heart was heavy. Poor Sébastien would probably have been reduced to taking intellectual sustenance from the vulgar and leathery dugs of a parish school or a regional lycée, if his father, in a series of memorable letters, had not laid vigorous claim to a glorious family history at the time of the Revolution.

He explained that in 1789, in a desire to please God and as attested by a black marble memorial plaque, the Count of Plessis-Boutoir – whose vast domain encompassed all of Per-venchères and its neighbouring counties – had paid for the restoration of the parish church, a Romanesque structure dating from the 12th century, renowned for the fine, sculpted tympanum above the main door and for the admirable design of its arcature. The Count brought some stonemasons from Paris, amongst whom was a young man, by the name of Jean Roch, originally from Montpellier, and, according to flattering, but sadly unconfirmed theories, a descendant of St Roch who lived and died in that town. This Jean Roch was undoubtedly an artisan of rare talent. He was responsible for the repair of two capitals depicting the Massacre of the Innocents, and of the symbolic beasts adorning the portal. He settled in the area and married, for he was a level-headed man, and founded the present Roch dynasty, creating several important works of art, including the choir of the Lady Chapel in the local convent of a teaching order of nuns, which connoisseurs consider to be an artistic marvel. In 1793, the revolutionaries, armed with pickaxes and burning torches, attempted to demolish the church, and Jean Roch and a handful of companions defended it. After a heroic struggle, he was captured by the ruffians, beaten till he bled, and then tied to a donkey so that he was facing its rump and holding its tail upright in his hand, like a candle. They then released him and the donkey into the streets, where both were bludgeoned to death with sticks. Monsieur Roch, recalling every detail of the tragic death of this martyred ancestor, whom he compared to Louis XVI, to the Princess of Lamballe and to Marie-Antoinette, begged the Jesuits to take into account ‘such forebears and credentials’ which for him constituted true nobility. He also explained how, if Jean Roch had not been sacrificed at the height of his talent – not that he would dream of complaining about this – Robert-Hippolyte-Elphège Roch, his son, founder of the hardware store, and Joseph-Hippolyte-Elphège Roch, the undersigned, his grandson, who carried on the business, would not have vegetated in obscure trades, where they had, however, worked hard, by their probity, love of God and fidelity to the old beliefs, to honour the traditions of their venerable father and grandfather. Then there was the story of his own life, recounted with grandiloquent bitterness and comic sadness: his youthful aspirations stifled by a father who, though very devout, it was true, was miserly and narrow-minded; his resignation to a kind of work unworthy of him; the brief joys of his marriage; the sorrows of widowerhood; the terror of his paternal responsibilities; finally the hope which a refusal would destroy – to revive through his son his own noble, defunct ambitions, his fine long-vanished dreams: for Monsieur Roch had always dreamed of being a civil servant. These tales, these supplications, bristling with parentheses and larded with the most extraordinary phraseology, overcame the Jesuits’ initial reluctance and, at last, the following year, they consented to take charge of young Sébastien’s education.

The morning that Monsieur Roch received the news was one of the most joyful moments of his life. But for him joy was an austere business. In this serious man, so serious that no one could boast of ever having seen him laugh or smile, joy manifested itself only by a redoubling of his seriousness and a twitching of the mouth which made him look as if he were crying. He went out into the street, his head held high, ands stopped at every door, dazzling his neighbours with his sententious accounts and knowledgeable exegeses of the Society of Jesus. Mouths gaped in respectful astonishment. People surrounded him, proud to hear him discourse on St Ignatius of Loyola, of whom he spoke as if he had known him personally. And escorted by numerous friends, he went first to the presbytery, where interminable congratulations were exchanged, then to his sister, Mademoiselle Rosalie Roch. She was a shrewish, spiteful old maid, paralysed in both legs, with whom he argued even more than usual over the happy event he had come to announce to her.

‘That’s just like you,’ she cried, ‘you always were too big for your boots. Well, I’ll tell you, you’ll make your son unhappy with your stupid ideas.’

‘Be quiet, you silly old fool! You don’t know what you’re talking about. First of all, the way you talk, anyone would think you actually knew something about the Jesuits. And where might someone like you have learned that? Ask the priest if you like, he may just know a bit more than you. The priest will tell you that the Jesuits are a great power, he’ll tell you that they even tell the Pope what to do …’

‘But don’t you see, poor imbecile, that people put such stupid ideas in your head just to make fun of you? I’d like to know how come you’re so rich though? Where did all that money come from?’

‘What money?’

And Monsieur Roch drew himself up to his full height and put on his most serious voice.

‘I earned that money,’ he said very slowly, ‘by hard work and in-tel-li-gence, in-tel-li-gence, do you understand?’

When he was back in his shop and had taken off his suit and slipped on his grey cotton overall, he called Sébastien, to whom, while he was sorting out some brass hooks, he addressed a pompous speech. Monsieur Roch, naturally eloquent and scornful of casual conversation, never expressed himself other than in the form of solemn harangues.

‘Listen,’ he commanded, ‘and remember what I am about to say to you, for we are entering upon a very serious stage in your life, a decisive moment, if you like … Listen carefully …’

He was even more majestic than usual, against the sombre background of the shop, full of ironware, where the pots stuck out their fat, black bellies and the brass saucepans gleamed, their round, homely brightness creating a transient halo around him. The largeness of his gestures, when not sorting the hooks, made his shirt puff out in the gap between waist-coat and trousers.

‘I did not keep you informed of the negotiations undertaken between the Reverend Jesuit Fathers in Vannes and myself,’ he began. ‘There are some things a lad your age doesn’t need to know. These negotiations …’

He emphasized this word which, in his eyes, ennobled the whole process and conferred on himself the importance of a diplomat dealing with matters of peace or war, and his voice gurgled slightly as he enunciated the word, savouring every syllable.

‘These negotiations, difficult and sometimes painful as they were, have now, happily, reached a satisfactory conclusion. Henceforth, you may consider yourself an alumnus of the college of St Francis Xavier. This school, which I have chosen above all others, is situated in the county town of Morbihan. Do you know where Morbihan is? It is in Brittany, that most excellent of regions! Thanks to me, you are going to be educated alongside the flower of French youth. It may even be, if my information is correct, that you will have the sons of princes as your schoolmates. You will be surrounded only by fine examples of the wealthy and the illustrious of the land, if I dare express myself thus. That, my dear child, is not given to everyone. And that places on you important responsibilities … Besides, did you know that a Jesuit, even the least amongst the Jesuits, is almost a bishop? He does not have the title, I admit, but he does have the power, and, I permit myself to add, the distinction. As for the Jesuits considered as a whole, a brief word will suffice. They even tell the Pope what to do. I am not sure whether I am making myself clear, whether you realise what the Jesuits actually are. You do, don’t you? Well, try by your dedication to work, your piety, your behaviour in general, try to deserve the great honour to which you have been called. Above all, do not forget the enormous sacrifices which I am making for your education, and thank the Lord for having such a father such as I, because I’m being bled dry, you know …’

And, leaving aside the hooks for a moment, he indicated with four rapid clicks of the fingers imaginary stigmata on his two hands and feet.

‘Bled dry, I say.’

After a brief pause during which he savoured the look of horror on his son’s face, he continued slowly, in a slightly different tone of voice.

‘This very day, I’m going to sort out your clothes with old Madame Cébron. You will need suitable clothing for I do not want to expose you to shame in front of your new friends and I do realise that, bearing my name, the name of the Roch family, and living amongst the élite, in a world which is essentially aristocratic, you need to cut a respectable figure … anyway Madame Cébron and I will sort through my old things and see which of them, once altered to fit you, would prove most suitable and stand up best to wear and tear. Concentrate on being relaxed in manner and well-groomed. Elegance accords well with tidiness. In fact, I still have my wedding suit. Ah, your poor mother!’

Overcome by tenderness just long enough to allow this emotional note momentarily to interrupt the unusual length of his speech, he immediately went back to sorting the hooks, trotting out advice and insisting, above all, on his own lofty qualities and paternal virtues. Sébastien was no longer listening. He was not sure what he was experiencing: it felt like grief, a terrible tearing sensation, the pain of which left him gasping, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. Of course, he was perfectly used to his father’s eloquence. It had always seemed to him just another sound of nature, and he had never paid it any more attention than the humming of the wind in the trees or the gurgle of water flowing ceaselessly from the spout in the municipal fountain. Today, it fell upon his body with the crackling roar of an avalanche, the thud of rolling boulders, the violence of a torrent, the boom of thunder, that blinded and deafened him, leaving him with an unbearable feeling that he was slipping into a ravine, tumbling down an endless flight of stairs.

Dizzy with panic, he gazed at Monsieur Roch’s stomach, vast and threatening beneath the cotton overall, then at the smaller paunches of the cast iron pots which, ranged along the top shelf near the ceiling, seemed to be turning on their trivets and giving vent to furious rumblings. The red glow of the copper saucepans, where reflections cavorted and danced, took on the unlikely appearance of angry stars. When he had exhausted his supply of both words and hooks, Monsieur Roch concluded thus:

‘That is why, my child, right up until the day of your departure, it will be necessary to break off all relations with your friends here. I am not claiming that one should be proud with small children, but there are limits to everything. And society imposes on its members certain hierarchies which it is dangerous to transgress. Those mischievous lads, for the most part sons of poor and simple workers – I am not blaming them, note, merely observing – are no longer on the same level as you. Between them and you from now on there is an abyss. Do you understand the significance of what I am saying? An abyss, I tell you.’

In order to illustrate that abyss, he measured out the width of the counter separating him from Sébastien and said again, raising his voice:

‘An abyss, do you understand me, Sébastien, an unbridge-able abyss! And damn it, where would a country be without the aristocracy?’

Monsieur Roch climbed up on a stool, pulled out, one after the other, several numbered boxes filled with padlocks, and whilst he compared them with each other and tested their rusty locks, he gave a melancholy sigh:

‘Ah, I envy you! You’re still very young and you know nothing. But I envy you all the same. Where might I have got to if I had had a father like yours? Now you’re part of that aristocracy, you can do anything, anything! And look at me! A future ruined! Ruined …’

At that point, the door of the shop opened and a customer came in.

‘I’ll be with you this instant!’ cried Monsieur Roch, immediately climbing down both from his stool and from the idealistic heights where his imagination trailed vague, boundless dreams of glory for ever lost.

Despite these lofty sermons and brilliant promises, Sébastien felt neither proud nor happy. He was stunned. From his father’s words, from the morass of incoherent, discordant phrases, he retained only one definite fact, that he would have to leave his home town and set out for an unknown destination which neither the Jesuits nor the ancient frock coats in which old Madame Cébron was going to rig him out could succeed in making attractive or even comprehensible. On the contrary, his natural suspicion, proper to a small wild animal, peopled this place with a thousand dangers, a thousand confusing duties too onerous for him. Up until now, he had grown freely in the sunshine, the rain, the wind and the snow, fully and physically active, without thinking about anything, without imagining anywhere other than his home town, any house other than his own, any air other than the air he breathed. He had never got used to the idea of boarding school, or, rather, he had never seriously thought about it. The only relationship he had established between primary school and boarding school was this: that primary school was for small children and boarding school for big children, much bigger children than himself, and he had not considered that one day he might grow up. When his father had spoken of it, it had seemed so distant to him, so vague, that his mind, responsive only to what was immediate and present, did not dwell upon it; now, however, faced with the imminent threat, the implacable date, he trembled. He looked with dread upon this separation from himself and from everything he was used to as if it were a catastrophe. Neither could he understand why he was being asked to sacrifice the friendships he had had since his earliest childhood in favour of some sudden, mysterious necessity, and why he should do so at that precise moment, already painful enough, when he felt an even greater need of protection and of closer contact with those things that were most familiar and most dear. All this made him very sad and very vulnerable. With a heavy heart, he retreated into the room at the back of the shop, which served as their dining room, and at which, when not at school, he would sit to learn his lessons and prepare his homework.

It was a dark room where the sun never entered. It froze before his eyes as if he were entering it for the first time. He paused on the threshold, startled by the objects in the room and the furniture, amongst which he had lived all his life, but which, disconcertingly, he no longer recognised, for they had grown suddenly ugly, sullen and hostile. In the centre of the room was a table covered with an oilcloth, upon which were printed, in a circle and in chronological order, the ‘likenesses’ of all the kings of France, with their family trees, the dates of their accession to the throne and of their death. ‘One can learn even whilst eating,’ Monsieur Roch was wont to say, and, with his mouth full, in the cold silence of mealtimes, he would often recite the resounding names of Clotaire, Clovis and Pharamond, immediately followed by a gesture punctuating them with exclamation marks. There were a few straw-seated chairs and a walnut dresser, piled with chipped crockery, which stood facing an old wardrobe. Now everything reflected back at him the debased, ridiculous image of his father; now everything was reduced to grotesque, demeaning little scenes. Hanging on the green-papered walls mottled with damp was an arrangement of daguerrotype photographs of Monsieur Joseph-Hippolyte-Elphège Roch in various poses, each more oratorical and august than the last. In his mind’s eye, Sébastien could see his father pausing complacently in front of each one, comparing them, striking up the same poses and sighing with a shrug of the shoulders: ‘They say I look like Louis Philippe. Of course, he had rather more luck than I did.’ He could see his father lighting – as he did every evening with the same methodical, obsessive care – the tarnished zinc lamp that a customer had returned as faulty, an episode about which Monsieur Roch still felt an unforgiving bitterness and which, ten years on, he would still recount, in the same indignant tone, insisting: ‘Fancy daring to call it trash, as if a Roch could possibly sell trash! Trash! Me!’ And he cited in support of his argument the solid mechanism of the lamp, the pretty metal chains, the efficacy of the smoke extractor and the opinions of his friends. On the mantelpiece, between two blue vases won at the fair, there stood a photograph of the mother whom Sébastien had never known. She was a frail young woman, posing somewhat stiffly, her face almost faded away, her temples adorned with long, looped tresses of hair, and, in her hand, a lace handkerchief held affectedly in the tips of her fingers. He could hear his father saying as he did every day: ‘I really ought to put your poor mother back up in my room and put a clock in her place.’ All this he relived in a single moment, his heart dull with sorrow, disillusion and disgust, and all overlaid by the gloomy clarity of day coming in from outside, tinged by the grubby light shining through the glass bricks that chequered this dark cubbyhole. Sébastien looked out of the window, as if to catch a glimpse of sky. The sole, curtainless window looked out onto a narrow courtyard, and his gaze collided with the walls of the neighbouring houses, filthy, festering, covered in greenish mould, crazed with oozing fissures, pierced by the occasional squalid window offering a view of neighbouring yards piled high with rubbish and seething refuse. Pipes continuously disgorged stinking water; black mouths spewed forth a viscous sludge, flowing towards a common gutter, between piles of old metal and debris of all kinds. This repellent spectacle lit by the dingy, wretched light, this intimate view of familiar things, stripped of the veil of habit and revealed in their depressing, naked state, quickly changed his mood. Without his being aware of it, his father’s incoherent speech about the Jesuits and the princes’ sons had awakened in him a dream of something beyond, stirred something latent in his imagination which crept to the fore now when he was faced with the horror of reality revealed. At the very thought that he might have stayed here all his life, amid these glutinous shadows, staring at these hideous walls which hid the glory of the sky from him, a feeling of retrospective melancholy overtook him. Forgetting his previous tranquil insouciance, he convinced himself that he had been miserably unhappy and that what he was feeling at that moment he had always felt. Whilst he stagnated in that wretched life, others had been allotted joy, beauty and magnificence. He now knew – his father had told him so with such certainty and wonder – that he had only to stretch out his hand to grasp such marvels for himself. The idea of boarding school no longer frightened him. He was surprised to discover in himself an actual desire for that unknown world which, though still troubling, also drew him on, like the shadowy approach of some unspecified liberation.

Sébastien sat at the table, his back to the window and opened a schoolbook which he did not even attempt to read. His chin resting on his hand, his eyes grave, distant and dreamy, he mused at length on other skies, new friends, new teachers. Gradually, the objects in the room, the yard, the walls, all faded into the background, just as the things around us fade in the drowsiness of half-sleep, and the child saw himself transported into a land of light, a sort of enchanted palace, through airy vaults and colonnades where kind, charming beings glided towards him in a rustle of silks, whilst, incongruously, the vast bulk of his father moved about behind the blurred glass of the door separating the dining room from the shop.

The days passed, full of various anxieties. Sébastien stayed at home and only went out accompanied by Monsieur Roch, who kept a careful watch lest any of his son’s friends managed to come near: ‘The Jesuits wouldn’t like it. Get away with you!’ he would shout at them when, surprised at not seeing Sébastien out and about, they came to find him at the shop. The apprentice, a lad of fifteen, was ordered not to speak familiarly to the boss’ son any more and to show him greater respect. ‘From now on, you call him Monsieur Sébastien. Things have changed,’ explained the ironmonger. Even on his own account he had judged it necessary and dignified to treat his neighbours with a new loftiness, to keep them at a distance, without, however, depriving them of the daily gift of his conversation. On the contrary, his eloquence grew by the day and became more and more extravagant. He cranked out the same old advice, preposterous aphorisms, magisterial judgements that merely threw the child into deep confusion. Exhausted with hearing him repeat at every moment: ‘I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear. Do you understand the full significance of what I am saying?’, their walks, visits and more frequent one-to-one conversations became a torment to Sébastien. Eventually, merely to escape it all, he started to long for the day of his departure. But alone in his little room in the evening, surrounded by familiar things of no consequence but to which he attached naive and precious memories, he would once again be gripped by terror of the school, and he would have liked the brutal hour never to come when he would have to say goodbye to all that had become an integral part of himself, half his flesh and half his soul. Thinking hurt him even more than the painful choices facing him. Since thinking had been introduced into his brain, he had become consumed with anxiety. By injecting the seed of a new life into him, this brusque violation of his intellectual virginity had also injected him with the germ of human suffering. His peaceful lack of awareness had been destroyed, his senses had lost the simplicity of their perceptions. The least word, object or fact, which before had had no moral significance or consequence, now, like a series of brutal slashes, opened up in his mind infinite and fearful horizons. All kinds of questions, pregnant with mystery, presented themselves before him, and he was too feeble to grasp them. Beyond the limits imposed by the physical reality of his childhood, he could see the rudiments of shifting ideas, the embryonic contours of life in the outside world, a whole unexplained, discordant machinery made up of laws, duties, hierarchies, relativities, each interlocking with the next, set in motion by a multitude of gears in which his frail personality would inevitably become caught and mangled. This caused him violent headaches and, sensitive child that he was, nearly drove him to a nervous breakdown.

The house adjoining the hardware shop also belonged to Monsieur Roch. The post office was based there. The postmistress, Madame Lecautel, was the widow of an alcoholic general who, it was said, had died insane, and she was considered an educated, superior sort of woman. She was tall and thin and had a sad face, as if constantly suffering beneath the perpetual black of her widow’s weeds. However, compared to the local women, she seemed unusually distinguished, and she aroused the kind of respectful, gossipy sympathies that people accord to those who once led a brilliant existence and have now fallen into misfortune. She had a daughter, Marguerite, who was the same age as Sébastien. The two children had formed quite a warm friendship. Monsieur Roch, proud of this relationship with his son, encouraged him to visit her. On his son’s account, he outdid himself, showering Madame Lecautel with tiresome favours and treating her with obsessive politeness, gallantly referring to her as ‘my beautiful lodger’. None of this, however, made him any the readier to do the repairs she asked of him. For her part, sensing the state of moral abandon in which the boy found himself, reserved and silent as he was, Madame Lecautel had taken a motherly interest in him. It was agreed that every Thursday and Sunday he should spend a few hours at her house. Often, when the weather was fine, and her post office was closed, she would take him out for walks with her daughter.