A Woman's Life Page #3

"A Woman's Life" (French: "Une vie") by Guy de Maupassant tells the poignant story of Jeanne, a young noblewoman in the 19th century, as she navigates the complexities of love, marriage, and societal expectations. Spanning her life from a romanticized youth to a disillusioned adulthood, the novel explores themes of gender, class, and the harsh realities faced by women. Through Jeanne's experiences, Maupassant critiques the constraints imposed by society and highlights the emotional turmoil that often accompanies personal choices. The narrative is both a reflection on the individual's struggle for autonomy and a subtle commentary on the limitations placed on women of the era.

								

ground-floor, to the right, was the huge drawing-room hung with tapestry
with a design of birds and flowers. All the furniture was in tapestry,
the subjects of the designs being taken from La Fontaine's fables.
Jeanne was delighted at recognizing a chair she had liked when she was
quite a child, and which represented the history of the Fox and the
Stork. The library, full of old books, and two other rooms, which were
not used, came next to the drawing-room. On the left were the
dining-room, which had been newly wainscoted, the linen-press, the
pantry, the kitchen, and a little room with a bath in it.

A corridor ran the whole length of the first story, the ten doors of as
many rooms opening on to it, and Jeanne's room was quite at the end, on
the right. The baron had just had it freshly furnished by simply using
some hangings and furniture that had been stored away in a garret. Very
old Flemish tapestry peopled the room with strange characters, and when
she saw the bed Jeanne gave a cry of delight. At the four corners four
birds of carved oak, quite black and polished till they shone, supported
the bed, looking as though they were its guardians. The sides were
decorated with two large garlands of carved flowers and fruit; and the
four bed-posts, finely fluted and crowned with Corinthian capitals,
supported a cornice of entwined roses and cupids. It was a monumental
couch, and yet was very graceful, despite the somber appearance of the
wood darkened by age. The counterpane and canopy, made of old dark blue
silk, starred here and there with great fleurs de lis embroidered in
gold, sparkled like two firmaments.

When she had finished admiring the bed, Jeanne, raising her light,
examined the tapestry, trying to discover the subject of the design.

A young nobleman and a young lady, dressed in the strangest way in
green, red, and yellow, were talking under a blue tree on which white
fruit was ripening. A big rabbit of the same color as the fruit was
nibbling a little gray grass. Just above the figures, in a conventional
distance, five little round houses with pointed roofs could be seen, and
up at the top, nearly in the sky, was a red wind-mill. Great branches
of flowers twined in and out over the whole.

The next two panels were very like the first, except that out of the
houses came four little men, dressed in Flemish costume, who raised
their heads to heaven as if to denote their extreme surprise and anger.
But the last set of hangings depicted a drama. Near the rabbit, which
was still nibbling, the young man was stretched out, apparently dead.
The young lady, with her eyes fixed on him, was thrusting a sword into
her breast, and the fruit on the tree had become black.

Jeanne was just giving up trying to understand it when she discovered in
a corner a microscopic animal, which the rabbit could have eaten as
easily as a blade of grass, and which was meant for a lion. Then she
recognized the misfortunes of Pyramis and Thisbe; and, although she
smiled at the simplicity of the designs, she felt happy at being
surrounded by these pictures which would always accord with her dearest
hopes; and at the thought that every night this antique and legendary
love would watch over her dreams.

The rest of the furniture was of the most different styles, and bore the
traces of many generations. A superb Louis XVI chest of drawers, bound
with polished brass, stood between two Louis XV armchairs which were
still covered with their original brocaded silk. A rosewood escritoire
was opposite the mantelpiece, on which, under a glass shade, was a clock
made in the time of the Empire. It was in the form of a bronze bee-hive
hanging on four marble columns over a garden of gilded flowers. On a
small pendulum, coming out of the hive through a long slit, swung a
little bee, with enamel wings, backwards and forwards over the flowers;
the dial was of painted china and was let into the side of the hive. It
struck eleven, and the baron kissed his daughter and went to his own
room.

Then Jeanne regretfully went to bed, giving a last look round her room
before she put out her candle. Only the head of the bed was against the
wall, and on the left was a window through which a stream of moonlight
entered, making a pool of light on the floor, and casting pale
reflections on the walls over the motionless loves of Pyramis and
Thisbe. Through the other window, opposite the foot of the bed, Jeanne
could see a big tree bathed in a soft light. She turned over and closed
her eyes, but after a little while opened them again, for she still
seemed to feel the jolting of the carriage, and its rumbling was yet in
her ears.

For some time she lay quite still, hoping thus to soon fall asleep, but
the restlessness of her mind communicated itself to her body, and at
last she got out of bed. With her arms and feet bare, in her long
chemise, which made her look like a phantom, she crossed the flood of
light on the boards, opened her window and looked out.

The night was so clear that everything could be seen as plainly as in
broad daylight; and the young girl recognized all the country she had so
loved as a child.

First of all, just opposite her, was a big lawn looking as yellow as
gold under the light of the night. There were two enormous trees before
the château, a plane-tree to the north, a linden to the south, and quite
at the end of the grass, a little thicket ended the estate which was
protected from the hurricanes by five rows of old elms twisted, torn,
and sloped like a roof, by the sea wind which was constantly blowing.

This kind of park was bounded on the right and left by two long avenues
of immense poplar-trees (called peuples in Normandy) which separated
the squire's residence from the two farms adjoining, one of which was
occupied by the Couillards, the other by the Martins. These peuples
had given the names to the château.

Beyond this enclosure lay a large piece of uncultivated ground covered
with gorse, over which the wind rustled and blew day and night. Then the
coast suddenly fell a hundred yards, forming a high, white cliff, the
foot of which was washed by the sea; and Jeanne gazed at the vast,
watery expanse whose waves seemed to be sleeping under the stars.

In this repose of nature, when the sun was absent, the earth gave out
all her perfumes. A jasmine, which had climbed round the lower windows,
exhaled its penetrating fragrance which united with the subtler odor of
the budding leaves, and the soft breeze brought with it the damp, salt
smell of the seaweeds and the beach.

At first the young girl gave herself up to the pleasure of simply
breathing, and the peace of the country calmed her as would a cool bath.
All the animals which wake at evening-time, and hide their obscure
existence in the peacefulness of the night, filled the clear darkness
with a silent restlessness. Great birds fled silently through the air
like shadows; the humming of invisible insects could be heard, and
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