As soon as they were in the house the servant asked to have the money
handed over to her. Jeanne gave all but six hundred francs, which she
held back; but Rosalie soon saw through her tricks, and she was
obliged to hand it all over. However, she consented to her sending
this amount to the young man.
A few days later he wrote: "You have rendered me a great service, my
dear mother, for we were in the greatest distress."
Jeanne, however, could not get accustomed to Batteville. It seemed to
her as if she could not breathe as she did formerly, that she was more
lonely, more deserted, more lost than ever. She went out for a walk,
got as far as the hamlet of Verneuil, came back by the Trois-Mares,
came home, then suddenly wanted to start out again, as if she had
forgotten to go to the very place she intended.
And every day she did the same thing without knowing why. But one
evening a thought came to her unconsciously which revealed to her the
secret of her restlessness. She said as she was sitting down to
dinner: "Oh, how I long to see the sea!"
That was what she had missed so greatly, the sea, her big neighbor for
twenty-five years, the sea with its salt air, its rages, its scolding
voice, its strong breezes, the sea which she sought from her window at
"The Poplars" every morning, whose air she breathed day and night, the
sea which she felt close to her, which she had taken to loving
unconsciously as she would a person.
Winter was approaching, and Jeanne felt herself overcome by an
unconquerable discouragement. It was not one of those acute griefs
which seemed to wring the heart, but a dreary, mournful sadness.
Nothing roused her. No one paid any attention to her. The high road
before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby.
Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with
his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon;
sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a
woman, who came near, passed by, and disappeared in the distance.
As soon as the grass began to grow again, a young girl in a short
skirt passed by the gate every morning with two thin cows who browsed
along the side of the road. She came back every evening with the same
sleepy face, making a step every ten minutes as she walked behind the
animals.
Jeanne dreamed every night that she was still at "The Poplars." She
seemed to be there with father and little mother, and sometimes even
with Aunt Lison. She did over again things forgotten and done with,
thought she was supporting Madame Adelaide in her walk along the
avenue. And each awakening was attended with tears.
She thought continually of Paul, wondering what he was doing--how he
was--whether he sometimes thought of her. As she walked slowly in the
by-roads between the farms, she thought over all these things which
tormented her, but above all else, she cherished an intense jealousy
of the woman who had stolen her son from her. It was this hatred alone
which prevented her from taking any steps, from going to look for him,
to see him. It seemed to her that she saw that woman standing on the
doorsill asking: "What do you want here, madame?" Her mother's pride
revolted at the possibility of such a meeting. And her haughty pride
of a good woman whose character is blameless made her all the more
indignant at the cowardice of a man subjugated by an unworthy passion.