In Love

Tete and Rosette had left the yellow house on Chartres the day after the embarrassing episode at the Cordon Bleu ball. Violette Boisier's fit of rage had quickly passed, and she forgave Rosette because she was always moved by thwarted love, but nevertheless she felt relieved when Tete announced that she did not want to abuse her hospitality any longer. It was better to put a little distance between them, she thought. Tete took her daughter to the boardinghouse where years ago the tutor Gaspard Severin had lived, while the little house Zacharie had bought two blocks from Adele was being remodeled. She continued to work with Violette as she always had, and started Rosette sewing with Adele, it was time for the girl to earn a living. She was powerless before the hurricane that had been unleashed. She inevitably had compassion for her daughter but could not get close enough to try to help her, Rosette had closed up like a mollusk. Rosette was not talking to anyone. She sewed in a hostile silence, waiting for Maurice with granite hardness, blind to the curiosity of others and deaf to the advice of the women around her: her mother, Violette, Loula, Adele, and a dozen nosy neighbors.

Tete learned of the confrontation between Maurice and Toulouse Valmorain from Adele, who had been told by Parmentier, and from Sancho, who made a quick visit to the pension to bring her news of Maurice. He told her that the youth was weakened by the typhus, but out of danger, and that he wanted to see Rosette as soon as possible. "He asked me to intercede and ask if you would see him, Tete," he added. "Maurice is my son, Don Sancho, he doesn't need to send me messages. I am waiting to see him," was her response. She could speak with frankness, since Rosette had gone to deliver some sewing. It had been several weeks since they had seen each other; Sancho had disappeared from the neighborhood. He hadn't dared be seen near Violette Boisier since she caught him with Adi Soupir, the same frivolous girl he had been close to earlier. Sancho won nothing by swearing he had run into her in the place d'Armes and invited her to have an innocent glass of sherry, that was all. What was bad about that? But Violette had no interest in competing with any rival for the artichoke heart of that Spaniard, least of all with someone half her age.

According to Sancho, Toulouse Valmorain had demanded that his son come speak with him as soon as he was on his feet. Maurice struggled to dress and went to his father's house, he didn't want to keep putting off a resolution. Until he clarified things with his father he was not free to present himself to Rosette. When he saw his son's yellow skin and the way his clothes hung off him-he had lost several kilos during his brief illness-Valmorain was frightened. The old fear that death was going to carry him off that had so often assaulted him when Maurice was a boy again squeezed his chest. Urged by Hortense Guizot, he was prepared to impose his authority, but he realized that he loved Maurice too much: anything was preferable to fighting with his son. On impulse, he opted for the placage he previously had opposed out of pride and his wife's advice. He saw lucidly that it was the only possible way out. "I will give you what is suitable, son. You will have enough to buy a bungalow for that girl and keep her as is expected. I will pray that there is no scandal and that God will pardon you both. I ask only that you never speak of her in my presence, or in your mother's," Valmorain told him.

Maurice's reaction was not what had been expected by either his father or Sancho, who was also in the library. He replied that he appreciated his father's offer of help, but that was not the destiny he would choose. He did not intend to continue to submit to society's hypocrisy or to expose Rosette to the injustice of placage, in which she would be trapped while he enjoyed total freedom. In addition, that would be a stigma for the political career he was planning to follow. He said that he was going to return to Boston and live among more civilized people; he would study law, and then, from Congress and newspapers, he would try to change the Constitution, the laws, and finally the customs not only in the United States but in the world.

His father stopped him, convinced that the delirium of typhus had returned. "What are you talking about, Maurice?"

"Abolition, monsieur. I am going to devote my life to struggling against slavery," Maurice replied firmly.

That was a blow a thousand times more grave to Valmorain than the matter of Rosette: it was a direct attack on the interests of his family. His son was more out of his mind than he had imagined; he intended nothing less than to destroy the foundation of civilization and of the Valmorain fortune. Abolitionists were tarred and feathered and hanged, as deserved. They were fanatic madmen who dared to defy society, history, even the divine word, because slavery appeared in the Bible. An abolitionist in his own family? Unthinkable! He let loose a yelling harangue without taking a breath, and ended by threatening to disinherit his son.

"Do so, monsieur, because if I inherited your estate, the first thing I would do would be to emancipate the slaves and sell the plantation," Maurice replied calmly.

The youth got to his feet, leaning on the back of the chair because he was still a little light-headed, said good-bye with a slight bow, and left the library, trying to hide the trembling in his legs. His father's insults followed him to the street.

Valmorain lost control; his anger turned him into a whirlwind; he cursed his son, he screeched that Maurice was as good as dead to him, and that he would not receive a single coin of his fortune. "I forbid you ever to step inside the house or use the Valmorain name! You are no longer a member of this family!" He could not go on because he collapsed, dragging with him an opaline lamp that shattered against the wall. Hortense and several domestics had come at the sound of his yelling; they found him turned purple with his eyes rolled back in his head, while Sancho, on his knees beside him, was trying to loosen the tie buried in the folds of the double chin.

Blood Ties

An hour later Maurice appeared, without notice, at Tete's pension. She had not seen him for several years, but to her that tall, serious youth with a wild head of hair and round glasses seemed unchanged from the child she had cared for. Maurice had the same intensity and tenderness he'd had as a boy. They hugged for a long while, she repeating his name and he whispering Maman, Maman, the forbidden word. They were in the small, dusty drawing room of the pension, which was kept in eternal darkness. What little light filtered through the shutters fell upon the rickety furniture, a threadbare carpet, and yellowed paper on the walls.

Rosette, who had so eagerly awaited Maurice, did not speak, stunned with happiness and upset to see him so shrunken, so different from the well-built youth she had danced with two weeks before. Mute, she watched as if the unexpected visit of her beloved had nothing to do with her.

"Rosette and I have loved each other forever, Maman, you know that. Ever since we were children, we have talked about marrying, do you remember," asked Maurice.

"Yes, son, I remember. But that is a sin."

"I never heard you use that word; have you become a Catholic maybe?"

"My loas are always with me, Maurice, but now I go to Pere Antoine's mass as well."

"How can love be a sin? God put it on us. Before we were born, we already loved each other. We aren't guilty because we have the same father. The sin isn't ours, it's his."

"There are consequences…" Tete murmured.

"I know that. Everyone insists on telling me that we can have abnormal children. We are ready to run that risk, aren't we, Rosette?"