JEAN'S MOTHER
I followed the woman up the stairs to another passage like the one below. Through a half-open green
door I saw some more stairs. A smell of cooking came up them; they were the stairs used by the
servants to bring up food.
We came to the last door in the passage. The servant opened it and said, "I met Monsieur le Comte
coming upstairs to see you."
It was a large room with a big double bed with curtains round it. It was very hot. Two small dogs
ran towards me making a lot of noise.
There were three people in the room--Blanche; an old priest with a round pink face and a black cap
on the back of his head; beyond him there was a very big armchair and in it a very large old woman
was sitting. She was very fat and her face was deeply lined, but her eyes, her nose and her mouth
were surprisingly and terribly like my own--and Jean's.
She held out her arms. I knelt down beside her chair and she put her arms round me.
"You have been amusing yourself," she said. "Everyone's upset and anxious and angry. Marie-Noel's
said to be ill. They all make me sick! I was the only one who was calm. I knew that you would come
when you were ready to come home, and not before."
Blanche closed the book which she was holding. "You don't wish me to go on reading, mother?" she
said.
The Comtesse turned to the priest and said, "Since Jean has come home, we will not have our usual
meeting. He will have much to tell me."
"Of course, Madame la Comtesse," said the priest. "You must be very glad to have him back again. I
hope everything went well for you in Paris."
He knelt down and began to say a prayer very quickly, followed by Blanche, while the mother put her
hands together and bowed her head. I knelt too. The servant was also kneeling, with her eyes shut.
The priest stood up. He made the sign of the cross. "Good night, Madame la Comtesse, good night,
Monsieur le Comte, Mademoiselle Blanche, good night, Charlotte."
So the servant's name was Charlotte.
Charlotte asked, "Will Monsieur le Comte have his dinner up here?"
"Of course, you fool!" said the Comtesse. "Go and get it."
"Come here," she said to me. "Come here. Well now, did you do it? Did you settle with Carvalet?
"Did I do what?"
"Did you fix the agreement with Carvalet?"
Jean had gone to Paris on business. I remembered that there were papers in the writing-case in his
bag. His friend, who called out to me in the street, seemed to think that his visit to Paris was
wasted. The matter was clearly important, and the look in her eyes brought back to me what Jean had
said about greed:"Give people what they want." So no doubt he would satisfy his mother now.
"It's all right," I said. "Everything is arranged."
"Ah!" she said. "You made an agreement with them?"
"I did."
"Paul is such a fool. He always complains and expects the worst. Anyone would think that we are
completely ruined. Have you told Paul?"
"No. He was just going out."
"I should have thought that he would have waited long enough to hear that ... What's the matter with
you? You look ill."
"I drank too much in Le Mans."
"In Le Mans? Could you not have stayed in Paris to enjoy you success?"
"I did."
"Have you brought me the little present which you promised?"
Her eyes became small. There was a feeling of eager desire and expectation.
"Did I promise you a present?"
There was a frightened look in her eyes.
"You didn't forget, did you?"