The First Snowfall
The long promenade of La Croisette winds in a curve along the edge of theblue water. Yonder, to the right, Esterel juts out into the sea in thedistance, obstructing the view and shutting out the horizon with itspretty southern outline of pointed summits, numerous and fantastic.To the left, the isles of Sainte Marguerite and Saint Honorat, almostlevel with the water, display their surface, covered with pine trees.And all along the great gulf, all along the tall mountains that encircleCannes, the white villa residences seem to be sleeping in the sunlight.You can see them from a distance, the white houses, scattered from thetop to the bottom of the mountains, dotting the dark greenery with speckslike snow.Those near the water have gates opening on the wide promenade which iswashed by the quiet waves. The air is soft and balmy. It is one ofthose warm winter days when there is scarcely a breath of cool air.Above the walls of the gardens may be seen orange trees and lemon treesfull of golden fruit. Ladies are walking slowly across the sand of theavenue, followed by children rolling hoops, or chatting with gentlemen.A young woman has just passed out through the door of her coquettishlittle house facing La Croisette. She stops for a moment to gaze at thepromenaders, smiles, and with an exhausted air makes her way toward anempty bench facing the sea. Fatigued after having gone twenty paces, shesits down out of breath. Her pale face seems that of a dead woman. Shecoughs, and raises to her lips her transparent fingers as if to stopthose paroxysms that exhaust her.She gazes at the sky full of sunshine and swallows, at the zigzag summitsof the Esterel over yonder, and at the sea, the blue, calm, beautifulsea, close beside her.She smiles again, and murmurs:"Oh! how happy I am!"She knows, however, that she is going to die, that she will never see thespringtime, that in a year, along the same promenade, these same peoplewho pass before her now will come again to breathe the warm air of thischarming spot, with their children a little bigger, with their hearts allfilled with hopes, with tenderness, with happiness, while at the bottomof an oak coffin, the poor flesh which is still left to her to-day willhave decomposed, leaving only her bones lying in the silk robe which shehas selected for a shroud.She will be no more. Everything in life will go on as before for others.For her, life will be over, over forever. She will be no more. Shesmiles, and inhales as well as she can, with her diseased lungs, theperfumed air of the gardens.And she sinks into a reverie.She recalls the past. She had been married, four years ago, to a Normangentleman. He was a strong young man, bearded, healthy-looking, withwide shoulders, narrow mind, and joyous disposition.They had been united through financial motives which she knew nothingabout. She would willingly have said No. She said Yes, with a movementof the head, in order not to thwart her father and mother. She was aParisian, gay, and full of the joy of living.Her husband brought her home to his Norman chateau. It was a huge stonebuilding surrounded by tall trees of great age. A high clump of pinetrees shut out the view in front. On the right, an opening in the treespresented a view of the plain, which stretched out in an unbroken levelas far as the distant, farmsteads. A cross-road passed before the gateand led to the high road three kilometres away.Oh! she recalls everything, her arrival, her first day in her new abode,and her isolated life afterward.When she stepped out of the carriage, she glanced at the old building,and laughingly exclaimed:"It does not look cheerful!"Her husband began to laugh in his turn, and replied:"Pooh! we get used to it! You'll see. I never feel bored in it, for mypart."That day they passed their time in embracing each other, and she did notfind it too long. This lasted fully a month. The days passed one afterthe other in insignificant yet absorbing occupations. She learned thevalue and the importance of the little things of life. She knew thatpeople can interest themselves in the price of eggs, which cost a fewcentimes more or less according to the seasons.It was summer. She went to the fields to see the men harvesting. Thebrightness of the sunshine found an echo in her heart.The autumn came. Her husband went out shooting. He started in themorning with his two dogs Medor and Mirza. She remained alone, withoutgrieving, moreover, at Henry's absence. She was very fond of him, butshe did not miss him. When he returned home, her affection wasespecially bestowed on the dogs. She took care of them every eveningwith a mother's tenderness, caressed them incessantly, gave them athousand charming little names which she had no idea of applying to herhusband.He invariably told her all about his sport. He described the placeswhere he found partridges, expressed his astonishment at not havingcaught any hares in Joseph Ledentu's clever, or else appeared indignantat the conduct of M. Lechapelier, of Havre, who always went along theedge of his property to shoot the game that he, Henry de Parville, hadstarted.She replied: "Yes, indeed! it is not right," thinking of something elseall the while.The winter came, the Norman winter, cold and rainy. The endless floodsof rain came down tin the slates of the great gabled roof, rising like aknife blade toward the sky. The roads seemed like rivers of mud, thecountry a plain of mud, and no sound could be heard save that of waterfalling; no movement could be seen save the whirling flight of crows thatsettled down like a cloud on a field and then hurried off again.About four o'clock, the army of dark, flying creatures came and perchedin the tall beeches at the left of the chateau, emitting deafening cries.During nearly an hour, they flew from tree top to tree top, seemed to befighting, croaked, and made a black disturbance in the gray branches.She gazed at them each evening with a weight at her heart, so deeply wasshe impressed by the lugubrious melancholy of the darkness falling on thedeserted country.Then she rang for the lamp, and drew near the fire. She burned heaps ofwood without succeeding in warming the spacious apartments reeking withhumidity. She was cold all day long, everywhere, in the drawing-room, atmeals, in her own apartment. It seemed to her she was cold to the marrowof her bones. Her husband only came in to dinner; he was always outshooting, or else he was superintending sowing the seed, tilling thesoil, and all the work of the country.He would come back jovial, and covered with mud, rubbing his hands as heexclaimed:"What wretched weather!"Or else:"A fire looks comfortable!"Or sometimes:"Well, how are you to-day? Are you in good spirits?"He was happy, in good health, without desires, thinking of nothing savethis simple, healthy, and quiet life.About December, when the snow had come, she suffered so much from theicy-cold air of the chateau which seemed to have become chilled inpassing through the centuries just as human beings become chilled withyears, that she asked her husband one evening:"Look here, Henry! You ought to have a furnace put into the house; itwould dry the walls. I assure you that I cannot keep warm from morningtill night."At first he was stunned at this extravagant idea of introducing a furnaceinto his manor-house. It would have seemed more natural to him to havehis dogs fed out of silver dishes. He gave a tremendous laugh from thebottom of his chest as he exclaimed:"A furnace here! A furnace here! Ha! ha! ha! what a good joke!"She persisted:"I assure you, dear, I feel frozen; you don't feel it because you arealways moving about; but all the same, I feel frozen."He replied, still laughing:"Pooh! you'll get used to it, and besides it is excellent for thehealth. You will only be all the better for it. We are not Parisians,damn it! to live in hot-houses. And, besides, the spring is quite near."About the beginning of January, a great misfortune befell her. Herfather and mother died in a carriage accident. She came to Paris for thefuneral. And her sorrow took entire possession of her mind for about sixmonths.The mildness of the beautiful summer days finally roused her, and shelived along in a state of sad languor until autumn.When the cold weather returned, she was brought face to face, for thefirst time, with the gloomy future. What was she to do? Nothing. Whatwas going to happen to her henceforth? Nothing. What expectation, whathope, could revive her heart? None. A doctor who was consulted declaredthat she would never have children.Sharper, more penetrating still than the year before, the cold made hersuffer continually.She stretched out her shivering hands to the big flames. The glaringfire burned her face; but icy whiffs seemed to glide down her back and topenetrate between her skin and her underclothing. And she shivered fromhead to foot. Innumerable draughts of air appeared to have taken uptheir abode in the apartment, living, crafty currents of air as cruel asenemies. She encountered them at every moment; they blew on herincessantly their perfidious and frozen hatred, now on her face, now onher hands, and now on her back.Once more she spoke of a furnace; but her husband listened to her requestas if she were asking for the moon. The introduction of such anapparatus at Parville appeared to him as impossible as the discovery ofthe Philosopher's Stone.Having been at Rouen on business one day, he brought back to his wife adainty foot warmer made of copper, which he laughingly called a "portablefurnace"; and he considered that this would prevent her henceforth fromever being cold.Toward the end of December she understood that she could not always livelike this, and she said timidly one evening at dinner:"Listen, dear! Are we, not going to spend a week or two in Paris beforespring:"He was stupefied."In Paris? In Paris? But what are we to do there? Ah! no by Jove! Weare better off here. What odd ideas come into your head sometimes."She faltered:"It might distract us a little."He did not understand."What is it you want to distract you? Theatres, evening parties, dinnersin town? You knew, however, when you came here, that you ought not toexpect any distractions of this kind!"She saw a reproach in these words, and in the tone in which they wereuttered. She relapsed into silence. She was timid and gentle, withoutresisting power and without strength of will.In January the cold weather returned with violence. Then the snowcovered the earth.One evening, as she watched the great black cloud of crows dispersingamong the trees, she began to weep, in spite of herself.Her husband came in. He asked in great surprise:"What is the matter with you?"He was happy, quite happy, never having dreamed of another life or otherpleasures. He had been born and had grown up in this melancholydistrict. He felt contented in his own house, at ease in body and mind.He did not understand that one might desire incidents, have a longing forchanging pleasures; he did not understand that it does not seem naturalto certain beings to remain in the same place during the four seasons; heseemed not to know that spring, summer, autumn, and winter have, formultitudes of persons, fresh amusements in new places.She could say nothing in reply, and she quickly dried her eyes. At lastshe murmured in a despairing tone:"I am--I--I am a little sad--I am a little bored."But she was terrified at having even said so much, and added veryquickly:"And, besides--I am--I am a little cold."This last plea made him angry."Ah! yes, still your idea of the furnace. But look here, deuce take it!you have not had one cold since you came here."Night came on. She went up to her room, for she had insisted on having aseparate apartment. She went to bed. Even in bed she felt cold. Shethought:"It will be always like this, always, until I die."And she thought of her husband. How could he have said:"You--have not had one cold since you came here"?She would have to be ill, to cough before he could understand what shesuffered!And she was filled with indignation, the angry indignation of a weak,timid being.She must cough. Then, perhaps, he would take pity on her. Well, shewould cough; he should hear her coughing; the doctor should be called in;he should see, her husband, he should see.She got out of bed, her legs and her feet bare, and a childish idea madeher smile:"I want a furnace, and I must have it. I shall cough so much that he'llhave to put one in the house."And she sat down in a chair in her nightdress. She waited an hour, twohours. She shivered, but she did not catch cold. Then she resolved on abold expedient.She noiselessly left her room, descended the stairs, and opened the gateinto the garden.The earth, covered with snows seemed dead. She abruptly thrust forwardher bare foot, and plunged it into the icy, fleecy snow. A sensation ofcold, painful as a wound, mounted to her heart. However, she stretchedout the other leg, and began to descend the steps slowly.Then she advanced through the grass saying to herself:"I'll go as far as the pine trees."She walked with quick steps, out of breath, gasping every time sheplunged her foot into the snow.She touched the first pine tree with her hand, as if to assure herselfthat she had carried out her plan to the end; then she went back into thehouse. She thought two or three times that she was going to fall, sonumbed and weak did she feel. Before going in, however, she sat down inthat icy fleece, and even took up several handfuls to rub on her chest.Then she went in and got into bed. It seemed to her at the end of anhour that she had a swarm of ants in her throat, and that other ants wererunning all over her limbs. She slept, however.Next day she was coughing and could not get up.She had inflammation of the lungs. She became delirious, and in herdelirium she asked for a furnace. The doctor insisted on having one putin. Henry yielded, but with visible annoyance.She was incurable. Her lungs were seriously affected, and those abouther feared for her life."If she remains here, she will not last until the winter," said thedoctor.She was sent south. She came to Cannes, made the acquaintance of thesun, loved the sea, and breathed the perfume of orange blossoms.Then, in the spring, she returned north.But she now lived with the fear of being cured, with the fear of the longwinters of Normandy; and as soon as she was better she opened her windowby night and recalled the sweet shores of the Mediterranean.And now she is going to die. She knows it and she is happy.She unfolds a newspaper which she has not already opened, and reads thisheading:"The first snow in Paris."She shivers and then smiles. She looks across at the Esterel, which isbecoming rosy in the rays of the setting sun. She looks at the vast bluesky, so blue, so very blue, and the vast blue sea, so very blue also, andshe rises from her seat.And then she returned to the house with slow steps, only stopping tocough, for she had remained out too long and she was cold, a little cold.She finds a letter from her husband. She opens it, still smiling, andshe reads:"MY DEAR LOVE: I hope you are well, and that you do not regret toomuch our beautiful country. For some days last we have had a goodfrost, which presages snow. For my part, I adore this weather, andyou my believe that I do not light your damned furnace."She ceases reading, quite happy at the thought that she had her furnaceput in. Her right hand, which holds the letter, falls slowly on her lap,while she raises her left hand to her mouth, as if to calm the obstinatecough which is racking her chest.
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