The Wife of Martin Guerre Read online

  “It was well done,” she answered, “but I am afraid for you.”

  “I am afraid for myself,” he said with a smile. “Without a doubt, he would flay me. Therefore I am going away. When he has had time to reflect, he will see that it was well done, and he will forgive me. Then I can return. You remember the bear?”

  He rubbed his hand reminiscently along his jaw while Bertrande also smiled a little.

  “You will have to be gone at least a week,” she said. “Perhaps longer. If I could send you word . . .”

  “Eight days should be enough,” said Martin. “It is done for the good of the house—he will see that. And it is better that you should not know where I am in case he asks you. I shall go to Toulouse, then further, so that you can answer honestly, ‘I do not know where he is.’ Embrace my little son for me, and do not be disturbed.”

  She kissed him on both cheeks, feeling the warmth of the sun upon his flesh, caressing with her hand the short smooth beard, and then, in a brief premonition of disaster, held to his arm and would not let him go.

  “Do not distress yourself,” he repeated tenderly. “I shall be safe. I shall enjoy myself, moreover. And I shall see you in a week.”

  So he went off. Once he turned to wave with a free, elated gesture, and then the shadows of the trees engulfed his figure. Bertrande returned to the farm, swinging the empty jug from a forefinger and thinking of the path which led down the valley beside the torrent falling and tumbling toward the Neste. Once she stepped aside to let pass a herd of swine being driven up into the oak forest to feed on acorns. She greeted the swineherd absently, thinking of Martin’s journey, and how he would pass village after village, ford the cold streams, follow the narrow passes beside the Neste and eventually emerge into the greater valley of the Garonne, see the level fields, the walled cities, broad roads traversed by bands of merchants and armed men. The woods were still after the passage of the beasts—no insects and few birds. She wished that she might have gone with Martin. At the farm she found Sanxi, and was glad that she had not gone.

  The afternoon passed as usual, but at suppertime, when Monsieur Guerre asked her where Martin was, and she answered, as had been arranged between them, “I do not know,” she trembled beneath the cold gray gaze, penetrating and clear as a beam of light reflected from a wall of ice.

  When it was learned that certain baskets of grain had been removed from the granary, the anger of Monsieur Guerre was terrible, as she had known it would be, and she was thankful that Martin’s shoulders were beyond the reach of his father’s heavy whip. At the end of a week the anger of Monsieur Guerre had not abated. Apprehensively Bertrande listened at the approach of every passer-by, started and turned cold each time the door to the house creaked on its broad hinges, and hoped that Martin might be fortunately delayed. Again and again she wished that some arrangement had been made between them by which she might meet and warn him. As week followed week, alarm at his prolonged absence began to mingle with the fear of his premature return. At the end of a month she was almost certain that some evil must have befallen him, and in great fear and agitation presented herself before the father of the family and confessed all that she knew of Martin’s design.

  Monsieur Guerre listened to her in silence, without moving a finger. Then he answered coldly:

  “Madame, that my son should have become a thief is the greatest shame I have ever been asked to bear. Since he is my son, my only son, and since the welfare of the house depends upon the succession of an heir, I consider it my duty to forgive him. When he returns and confesses his crime, and has borne his punishment, I shall withdraw my anger. Until that time, no matter how distant it may be, rest assured, Madame, my anger shall exist. You may return to your work, Madame.”

  It was terrible to her to be addressed in this manner by a man whom she so greatly respected. “For their children,” wrote the learned Etienne Pasquier a few years later, “fathers and mothers are the true images of God upon earth,” and this was not an opinion which Pasquier imposed upon his time, but one in which he had been schooled. Bertrande admitted the inflexible justice of Martin’s father, and regretted bitterly that she had fallen in with Martin’s plans for avoiding punishment. How much better if he had stayed and submitted! He would now be forgiven and all would be well. She now prayed that he return at once. But the winter deepened about the village of Artigues, the ways were blocked with snow, and as even the mountain torrent became locked under ice she abandoned all hope of seeing him that winter.

  It was lonely without him. The days, shortened by the double shadow of winter and of the steep mountain-sides, held little gaiety for the wife of Martin Guerre, and the nights were unutterably long. When spring came, the snow melted and all the valley was murmurous with the sound of rushing water. Still Martin delayed his return, and she said to herself:

  “It is too early to hope for him. All the streams are flooded, the fords are impassable. Men and horses have been drowned trying to cross La Neste in flood.”

  She said this, but still her heart unreasonably demanded that he return and that quickly. With the first fine weather, the young wheat sprouting, the vines beginning to put forth tufts of silvery, crumpled leaves, with the half-wooded, half-cultivated valley ringing, now far, now near, with birdsong, her own youth and beauty quickened; and together with her consciousness of her youth, her beauty, her desire deepened for her husband. Somehow, with the winter, had died the fear that Martin might have been hurt or killed. She was at that time too young to believe in the reality of death. The reviving season held only her love and her impatience.

  But spring went by, and Martin did not return. Through the deepening summer she looked for him in vain and only when the first heavy snow again closed the mountain passes did she admit to herself that her husband had left her. She knew that he had found the experience of liberty sweet, that to be master of his own actions was more precious to him than the society of his wife, the enjoyment of his son, or his share in the prosperity of the house. She believed that Martin was waiting until the time when he might return as head of the house, that he could not brook the idea of returning, not only to punishment, but to the continued rigors of his father’s authority. She said nothing of this to anyone, but the thought was not an easy one to live with.

  He had deserted her in the full beauty of her youth, in the height of her great passion, he had shamed her and wounded her, and when he returned, if he should return after the death of his father, his authority would be as great as his father’s then was, and to murmur against his treatment of her would then be improper in the highest degree.

  Martin’s absence weighed upon the whole family. Although his father never mentioned his name, it was evident to those who knew him well that he had aged since Martin’s departure. The second year after the disappearance of her son, Madame Guerre died. She was not an old woman, and it may have been possible, as her daughters believed, that the illness from which she suffered during the last year of her life was greatly aggravated by the prolonged absence of her son. Bertrande assumed her duties and mourned her, for whatever their differences, always unexpressed by Bertrande, on other matters, the deserted wife had felt that her mother-in-law retained no anger against Martin. With Monsieur Guerre it was quite another matter. However perfect his courtesy to her, Bertrande felt always in his presence the just, inflexible displeasure that he maintained toward her husband, and she was reminded, also, that she had shared in Martin’s plan. To his original offense, as time went by, Martin was also adding the greater offense of neglecting his inheritance.

  The displeasure of Monsieur Guerre had become as necessary and inevitable a part of his character as his spine was of his body. When he entered a room that displeasure entered with him. The household, meanwhile, had changed and was no longer gay. Martin’s elder sisters had married and lived elsewhere. The youngest, having married a cadet, or younger son, still lived at home and her husband had come to live with her. He was a quiet soul, deferri
ng easily to Bertrande and to Monsieur Guerre. His presence did not greatly enliven the scene. Sanxi, who was excessively healthy, did not know how to be unhappy, and whether he played or rested, the place where he happened to be was for his mother the only joyous spot on the farm. For the rest, the household waited. Work went on, but the feeling of expectation was always in the air.

  The fourth year after Martin’s departure his father, though an expert horseman, was thrown from his horse, and, his head striking against a rock as he fell, he was killed instantly. Bertrande, who had seen him ride away from the house, firm and erect in the saddle, could hardly believe the servants who came with the news an hour later. Still, there was something fitting in the manner of his death, which was abrupt, violent and absolute. The peremptory summons and the prompt obedience were like everything else in his way of living. It would have been difficult to conceive of him as grown old, yielding, little by little, perforce, his authority, hesitating and dwindling, and yet, if Martin had not returned, holding on to a life thoroughly exhausted in order not to leave the house without a master.

  The shock of his death threw the family into confusion. Something like a panic seemed to overpower the servants and to reduce the four sisters of Martin to helpless children. And yet at the end of the day, Bertrande, finding for the first time a moment to herself, was surprised to consider how completely his death had been accepted, how long he seemed to have been dead who was not yet buried, whose death, early that morning, has been almost as remote as the day of judgment.

  Pierre Guerre, the brother of Monsieur Guerre, had arrived in the afternoon and had announced his position as head of the family. He was a lesser man than his brother, shorter and broader of frame, with something of the family countenance but without the quality of great distinction that somehow had belonged to the old master. No less honest, but more simple, easier to approach, a good farmer, a solid soldier, Uncle Pierre had entered the kitchen and crossed with sober dignity to his brother’s chair by the hearth. He had assigned tasks, taken the legal matters into consideration, sent for the priest and made public the news of the death. The panic had subsided, the servants had gone about their business as usual, the older sisters had returned to their homes, and Bertrande had said to herself:

  “Now it will be safe for Martin to return.”

  She did not expect him to appear magically. She made her own estimate of the time that it might take the news, traveling uncertainly about the countryside, to reach him, and how long it would take him to make the journey home. And hope flourished and wore greener branches than in many a long day. But as the year which she had allowed passed on and drew to a close, her hope again declined, and there were times when despair took its place entirely. She no longer had the fine sense of immortality which she had felt before the death of Martin’s parents. Death had now become an actuality rather than a possibility. Death was something that not only could happen but that did happen.

  A new fear assailed her. When she thought of Martin as perhaps dead, his remembered features suddenly dissolved, and the more she strove to recollect his appearance, the vaguer grew her memory. When she was not trying to remember him, his face would sometimes reappear, suddenly distinct in color and outline. Then she would start and tremble inwardly and try to hold the vision. But the harder she tried, the dimmer grew the face. The same thing had happened to her, she now remembered, after her mother’s death. The beloved image had faded. An impression of warmth, of security, the tones of the voice, the pressure of the hand had remained, but she could not see her mother’s face. She had spoken of this to Madame Guerre, who had replied:

  “There are people like that. They do not remember with their eyes, but with their ears, maybe. With me, it is the eye, and I could tell you at any moment in which chest I have laid away anything that you might want. I do not remember where it is, I see it. I cast my eye, as it were, over all my arrangements, and I see where I have laid the article which you desire.”

  Once indeed Bertrande thought that Martin had returned. She was walking on the path to the lower fields and was near the place where she had said farewell to her husband almost five years before. A man coming toward her under the shadow of the trees moved with Martin’s gait and was so like him in build that Bertrande stopped, her hand on her breast and her heart leaping suddenly in such wild delight that she could hardly breathe. But the figure, approaching, lost its likeness to the man she loved. She saw presently that he was a stranger and that his features did not resemble those of Martin Guerre in the least. He did not even come near enough to pass her, but some few yards away turned off into the woods in the direction of Sode. Their eyes had met, like those of strangers who met in a narrow path, and he had saluted her, but without recognition.

  After he had gone, she stood there, ready to weep in her sick disappointment. The day was cool, a day toward the end of winter, and she wore a heavy black wool cape with a hood, and on her feet were the pointed wooden sabots of her mountains, but she seemed to be standing barefoot on the moss, and bareheaded. Martin’s hands were upon hers; she could see the familiar scars, the torn fingernail; and Martin’s head was bent and touching hers. She could not see his face for his cheek was against her forehead. From the pressure of his hands upon hers such peace and joy flowed into her body that all the woods seemed warm, bathed in autumnal sunlight. The moment faded and she stood alone again in the thin winter air. She realized then that she had not seen his face, and wondered if that might be of good or bad omen. But the touch of his hand had been very living, and she renewed her hope.

  If she heard of there being strangers in town, as there so often were, smugglers from Spain, or deserters from one army for another passing from kingdom to kingdom by way of the Port de la Venasque who delayed their wanderings to visit awhile in the rich mountain villages, she sent for them and entertained them overnight, giving them food, wine and a warm place to sleep. Of these she inquired for news of Martin. Had they, while serving with the Duke of Savoy or under the old Constable Montmorency or with the young Duke of Guise, heard of any man named Martin Guerre? Or bivouacked with him? Or perhaps fought by his side? None of these wanderers had met with such a man. They gave her, in return for her hospitality, other news, of how, before the death of the old king, Guienne, Angoumois and Saintonge had risen in insurrection because of the salt tax, of how at Angoulême the king’s tax collectors had been beaten to death and sent “to salt the fish of the Charente,” their flesh being flung into the river. She heard of the cruel revenge which Montmorency took under the new king, Henry, the second of that name, at Bordeaux, burning alive those who had killed the tax collectors, and oppressing and humiliating the whole city most grievously. She learned of the siege of Metz and of Henry’s continuance of the quarrels of his father with the Emperor from men who had fought with Guise under the walls of that city. The Emperor had said, “I see now that Fortune is a woman; she prefers a young king to an old emperor,” and, fatigued and ill, “his face all pale and his eyes sunk in his head, his beard as white as the snow,” had made his resolve to abdicate and withdraw to Yuste, there on the other side of the Pyrenees in the Spanish monastery of the Cordeliers. Her imagination traveled far afield, thinking that wherever there was fighting, there Martin was likely to be; but of Martin himself she learned nothing. She charged these wanderers, upon their leave-taking, with a message to her husband, if they should chance to meet him:

  “The old Master is dead. Come home.”

  She even made a journey once to Rieux, where her mother’s sister then lived, thinking that to that town, which was a bishopric, almost as many travelers must come as to Toulouse. The town lay in a green meadow in a curve of the Arize, near to the spot at which that turbulent stream hurls itself into the Garonne. Behind it stood the wall of the Pyrenees. The delicate, bold spire of the cathedral, rising above the tiled roofs of the houses, seemed less tall than it was because of the height of the mountains. At the inn and at the cathedral doors Bertrande made
her inquiries, and besought her aunt to question travelers whenever she might have the opportunity. She also begged that the death of Martin’s father be announced from the cathedral. But a nostalgia came upon her there—she had never before left the parish of Artigues. She missed Sanxi, and everything seemed strange. Even the room in which she slept in her aunt’s house seemed turned around, and the sun rose in the west and shone through western windows all the morning. Or so it seemed to Bertrande. After a few days she made her excuses to her aunt, and went home to Artigues.

  And time went by. Meanwhile Sanxi, who in his earliest infancy had given some slight promise of growing to look like his father, daily grew more and more to resemble the sisters of Martin Guerre, who had their mother’s features and proportions rather than those of their father. This was at first a grief to Bertrande, although in considering Sanxi with his fresh young face and thick smooth chestnut hair, he seemed to her so altogether remarkable and charming that she could not wish him otherwise in any detail. She began to listen instead for the tones of his father’s voice in the boy’s light treble. So, nourishing her devotion with hope and with imagination, she took charge of Martin’s household, tended his child, and waited.

  The house flourished, Sanxi grew, and Bertrande increased in beauty. Her sorrow and her new sense of responsibility ennobled her physical charm. She acquired unconsciously a manner of gracious command. Eight years after the departure of her husband she no longer had the first tender radiance which had so pleased the young man, but a greater and more mature beauty had taken its place.

  Eight years after the departure of Martin Guerre, Bertrande his wife was seated in the Chamber instructing her son in the catechism. The first warm days of summer were come, and neither mother nor son was paying as great attention as might have been paid to the lesson in hand. The room, large, dusky, cool, shut them effectively from the affairs of the kitchen and the courtyard. The wooden shutters were opened wide, but the window was high. It let in the sunshine but did not permit a view of the yard. The peace of the summer day without, the quiet half hour alone with Sanxi, the release from the continual round of practical duties had relaxed Bertrande. She looked at Sanxi’s cool young cheek beside her knee and thought, “At last I begin to be at peace.”