At times, Renée, already nearly grown, weary of this limitless horizon, and bursting with curiosity acquired at school about matters of the flesh, would cast a glance in the direction of the swimming school at Petit’s floating bathhouse, moored to the tip of the island. Through the flapping linen hanging from lines that did duty for a roof, she hoped to catch a glimpse of men in bathing suits that revealed their naked torsos.

3

Maxime remained at school in Plassans until the holidays of 1854. He was then thirteen years and some months old and had just finished the seventh grade. It was at that point that his father decided to have him come to Paris. His idea was that a son of that age would set him up, would permanently establish him in the role he was playing of a wealthy widower now remarried, a man of serious disposition. When he announced his plan to Renée, whom he prided himself on treating in a most courtly manner, she replied casually: “Fine, send for the boy. . . . He’ll amuse us a little. Mornings are so deadly boring.”

The boy arrived a week later. He was already a tall, thin, mischievous youth with a girlish face, a delicate, insolent look, and soft blond hair. But good God, how oddly he was turned out! His hair cropped to the ears, so short that the whiteness of his scalp seemed barely covered by a faint shadow, he wore his pants too short and sported a teamster’s boots and a horribly threadbare tunic so big for his size that it made him look almost hunchbacked. In this getup, surprised by the new things that greeted his eyes, he looked around, not at all timidly but with the savage cunning of a precocious child, wary of revealing too much of himself right away.

A servant had fetched him from the station, and he was waiting in the main drawing room, delighted by the gold on the furniture and ceiling and deeply pleased with the luxurious surroundings in which he was now to live, when Renée, returning home from her tailor’s, swept in like a gust of wind. She tossed aside her hat and the white burnoose she had wrapped around her shoulders to protect her from the already-biting cold. To Maxime, struck dumb with admiration, she seemed splendid in her marvelous costume.

The child thought it must be a disguise. She had on a ravishing skirt of blue faille with big flounces, over which she had thrown a sort of French Guard’s jacket of soft gray silk. The flaps of the jacket, lined with blue satin darker than the blue of the skirt, were lifted up in a provocative manner and held in place by bows of ribbon. The cuffs of the flat sleeves and wide lapels stood out, lined with the same satin. And to add an ultimate zest to the ensemble, a daring dash of originality, two rows of large imitation sapphire buttons set in blue rosettes adorned the jacket front. It was ugly and adorable.

When Renée noticed Maxime, she was surprised to find him as tall as she. “That’s the little boy, I presume?” she inquired of the servant.

The child devoured her with his eyes. This lady, whose skin was so white, whose bosom could be glimpsed through the gap in her pleated blouse, this sudden and charming apparition with her high coiffure, her elegant gloved hands, and her small men’s boots with pointed heels that dug into the carpet, delighted him—she seemed the good fairy of this warm, gilded apartment. A smile began to form on his lips, and he was just gauche enough to retain a mischievous youthful grace.

“My, how funny he is!” Renée exclaimed. “But what a fright! Look at the way they’ve cut his hair! . . . Listen, my young friend, your father probably won’t be back before dinner, and I shall be obliged to move you in. . . . I’m your step-mama, monsieur. Would you like to kiss me?”

“I would,” came Maxime’s forthright answer. And with that he kissed the young woman on both cheeks, holding her by the shoulders in a way that rumpled her French Guard’s jacket a bit.

Laughing, she freed herself and said, “My God! That shaved head—what a riot!”

Then she turned back to him with a more serious expression. “We’ll be friends, won’t we? . . . I want to be a mother to you. I thought it all over while waiting for my tailor, who was otherwise occupied, and I said to myself that I ought to be very kind and bring you up quite properly. . . . It will be nice!”

Maxime went on staring at her as brazenly as a tart with his big blue eyes. Then, suddenly, he came out with a question: “How old are you?”

“Never ask such a thing!” she cried, putting her hands together. “The poor thing doesn’t know what he can and cannot say! I’ll have to teach him everything. . . . Fortunately, I’m still young enough to say how old I am. I’m twenty-one.”

“I’ll soon be fourteen. . . . You could be my sister.”

He did not finish his thought, but his eyes made it clear that he had expected his father’s second wife to be much older. He was standing quite close to her and staring at her neck so attentively that after a while she almost blushed. Yet she was too flighty to stick to one subject for long, and as she walked off she began talking about her tailor, forgetting that she was speaking to a child.

“I would have liked to be here to welcome you. But can you believe that Worms brought me this outfit this morning? . . . I tried it on and think it looks rather good. It’s quite chic, don’t you think?”

She had gone over to a mirror. Maxime walked around behind her so as to examine her from various angles.

“But when I put on the jacket, I noticed that there was a big crease right here on the left shoulder. Do you see it? . . . It’s very ugly. It makes me look as though one shoulder is higher than the other.”

He moved close to her, passed his finger over the crease as if to smooth it out, and then, naughty schoolboy that he was, allowed his hand to linger on the spot with a certain apparent comfort.

“Well,” she continued, “I simply couldn’t stand it. I ordered the carriage brought round and went to tell Worms what I thought of his inconceivable carelessness. . . . He promised me he’d fix it.”

She remained in front of the mirror, still contemplating her image and all of a sudden lost in reverie. After a while she placed a finger on her lips with an air of meditative impatience. Then, in a very low voice, as if talking to herself, she said, “Something is missing. . . . Something is definitely missing.”

Turning abruptly, she faced Maxime and asked, “Is it really all right? . . . Don’t you think something is missing, a trifle, a bow somewhere?”

The schoolboy, reassured by the young woman’s friendly manner, had regained all the poise of his impudent nature. He moved away, drew near, squinted, muttering all the while: “No, no, nothing is missing. It’s very pretty, very pretty. . . . If anything, there is a bit too much.”

He blushed a bit for all his audacity, drew still closer to Renée, and tracing an acute angle on her bosom with his fingertip said, “If it were up to me, I’d scoop out the lace like this and add a necklace with a big cross.”

She clapped her hands, beaming.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed. “That’s it! . . . A big cross was just what I had on the tip of my tongue.”

She opened up her blouse, vanished for two minutes, and returned with the necklace and cross. Then she stationed herself once more in front of the mirror, murmuring, “Oh, now it’s perfect, quite perfect! . . . So, my little boy with the shaved head is not stupid at all! Did you dress the women in your province? . . . Clearly we shall be good friends. But you must mind what I say. First of all, you must let your hair grow, and you must never wear that dreadful tunic again. And you will faithfully heed all my lessons in good manners. I want you to be a smart young man.”

“Of course,” the boy said naïvely, “since papa is rich now, and you’re his wife.”

She smiled, and with her usual audacity said, “Then let’s begin by addressing each other familiarly. I’ve been switching between tu and vous. It’s silly. . . . Do you promise to love me?”