At one moment she spoke to him as to a very little child, and she hurt his feelings: he thought her ridiculous. Again she would speak to him as to a companion of her thoughts, too old for his age, and she wearied him: he thought her a bore. Sometimes she let herself think out loud, carried on a monologue before him, as if he could understand it. Then he thought her queer, and he watched her with a severe, mocking look. He did not understand her; but people who do not understand never surrender their right to judge.
He had adopted an artificial attitude that was convenient for him because he could apply it to all cases: the impertinent, absent-minded politeness of a well-brought-up child who appears to listen because he must, but who is not in the least interested in all these things, who has his own concerns and, when you speak to him, waits till you have finished. At other times he amused himself playing at kissing her so as to give her pleasure. He knew that his mother was nearly bursting with happiness. The foolish woman responded with all her heart. When she fell into his snares, he had a sort of affectionate contempt for her. When she busied herself in a way that he had not foreseen, he was annoyed, but he had more respect for her.
He was incapable of playing one part very long. A child is too yielding and is always jumping from one thing to another. A moment after he had pretended to be so warm-hearted and had enchanted her with his effusions, he unblushingly betrayed his indifference in the harshest way. Annette was completely upset.
There came a time when she ceased to be deceived or provoked any longer, especially at the rare moments when a vague suspicion warned her that Marc was obstinately posing. Then, nervously and violently—we ask modern pedagogues to forgive us—she spanked him. Truly she was going against all good principles and affronting the dignity of her child! From the point of view of an Anglo-Saxon, poor Annette dishonored herself forever. But we old French people don't go quite so far as that. Qui bene amat. . . . The maxim still flourishes in bourgeois families that have preserved some tincture of Latin. We have all been "well loved." And at bottom we believe, three-quarters of the time, like Annette's boy, that we are getting more than our deserts. But it is also true that if, like him, we continue to love those who spank us, the spanking results in their losing a little of their prestige. Let us admit that perhaps it is for this reason that we—Marc and we—provoke them!
He had a fine time afterwards playing the part of the outraged victim. And Annette reproached herself for abusing her power. She felt that she was at fault. She would try to find a way back into his good graces. He would wait for her to come to him. . . .
The triumph of weakness! It is a weapon that women are expert in handling. But the most feminine of the two in this case was the child. This young morsel of flesh, still all bathed in the maternal milk, was more than half feminine, and it had all the wiles and tricks of a girl. Annette was disarmed. Beside the little rogue she was the strong sex. The stupid strong sex, which is ashamed of its strength and tries to win forgiveness for itself. The contest was not equal. The child made a fool of her.
[XXV]
But he was no artful comedian amusing himself. Like his grandfather, he had more than one nature. Very few had been able to see what lay hidden beneath the mocking mask of old Rivière, the drama concealed by that jesting cynicism, that appetite for play-acting which is sometimes characteristic of conquering spirits. Raoul had had his dark depths which he never revealed. They exist more often than one might suppose under the Gallic laugh. One keeps them to oneself. Annette, who had her own secrets, had never told them to her father, and his secrets she had known no more than she knew those of her son. They all remained walled up in their own inner lives. A strange reserve. People blush less at exposing their vices and their appetites—Raoul had fairly paraded his—than the tragedy of the soul.
Of this latter Marc had his share. A child who lives alone, without brothers or companions, has time to wander about these caves of life. Very deep and vast were the caves of the Rivières. The mother and the child might have met in them. But they did not see each other; they passed very close to each other more than once, imagining that they were very far apart. Both of them, with eyes bandaged, Annette's by the demon of passion that still held her, the child by the egoism that was natural to his age—both were in the dark. But Marc as yet was only at the entrance of the cavern; he was not, like Annette, seeking for the Way out, bruising himself against the walls; he was crouching on one of the first steps, dreaming of the future. Incapable of explaining it to himself, he was building his life.
He had not had to go far to find the redoubtable wall before which the terrified ego recoils. Death. The wall rose on all sides. Illness skirted it like an encircling road. It was vain to seek for a passage through it. The wall was massive and had no breach. It had not been necessary for any one to tell Marc that the wall was there. Instantly, in the shadow, he had scented it, like a horse with his mane rising. He had spoken to no one about it. No one had spoken to him. The whole world was in agreement on the subject.