Excerpt of Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
(Page 2 of 9)
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The sun came up, fiery red, in a cloudless sky. A shell was
fired, now so close to Paris that from the top of every monument
birds rose into the sky. Great black birds, rarely seen at other
times, stretched out their pink-tinged wings. Beautiful fat
pigeons cooed; swallows wheeled; sparrows hopped peacefully in
the deserted streets. Along the Seine each poplar tree held a
cluster of little brown birds who sang as loudly as they could.
From deep beneath the ground came the muffled noise everyone had
been waiting for, a sort of three-tone fanfare. The air raid was
over.
2
In the Péricand household they listened in shocked silence to
the evening news on the radio, but no one passed comment on the
latest developments. The Péricands were a cultivated family:
their traditions, their way of thinking, their middle-class,
Catholic background, their ties with the Church (their eldest
son, Philippe Péricand, was a priest), all these things made
them mistrustful of the government of France. On the other hand,
Monsieur Péricand's position as curator of one of the country's
national museums bound them to an administration that showered
its faithful with honours and financial rewards.
A cat held a little piece of bony fish tentatively between its
sharp teeth. He was afraid to swallow it, but he couldn't bring
himself to spit it out either.
Madame Péricand finally decided that only a male mind could
explain with clarity such strange, serious events. Neither her
husband nor her eldest son was at home: her husband was dining
with friends, her son was not in Paris. Charlotte Péricand, who
ruled the family's daily life with an iron hand (whether it was
managing the household, her children's education or her
husband's career), was not in the habit of seeking anyone's
opinion. But this was of a different order. She needed a voice
of authority to tell her what to believe. Once pointed in the
right direction, there would be no stopping her. Even if given
absolute proof she was mistaken, she would reply with a cold,
condescending smile, "My father said so . . . My husband is very
well-informed." And she would make a dismissive little gesture
with her gloved hand.
She took pride in her husband's position (she herself would have
preferred a more domestic lifestyle, but following the example
of our Dear Saviour, each of us has his cross to bear). She had
come home between appointments to oversee her children's
studies, the baby's bottles and the servants' work, but she
didn't have time to take off her hat and coat. For as long as
the Péricand children could remember, their mother was always
ready to go out, armed with hat and white gloves. (Since she was
thrifty, her mended gloves had the faint smell of stain remover,
a reminder of their passage through the dry-cleaners.)
As soon as she had come in this evening, she had gone to stand
in front of the radio in the drawing room. Her clothes were
black, her hat a divine little creation in fashion that season,
decorated with three flowers and topped with a silk pom-pom.
Beneath it, her face was pale and anguished, emphasising the
marks of age and fatigue. She was forty-seven years old and had
five children. You would have thought, to look at her, that God
had intended her to be a redhead. Her skin was extremely
delicate, lined by the passing years. Freckles were dotted over
her strong, majestic nose. The expression in her green eyes was
as sharp as a cat's. At the last minute, however, it seemed that
Providence had wavered, or decided that a shock of red hair
would not be appropriate, neither to Madame Péricand's
irreproachable morals nor to her social status, so she had been
given mousy brown hair, which she was losing by the handful
since she'd had her last child. Monsieur Péricand was a man of
great discipline: his religious scruples prohibited a number of
pleasures and his concern for his reputation kept him away from
places of ill repute. The youngest Péricand child was only two,
and between Father Philippe and the baby, there were three other
children, not counting the ones Madame Péricand discreetly
referred to as the "three accidents": babies she had carried
almost to term before losing them, so that three times their
mother had been on the verge of death.
Excerpted from Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Copyright © 2006 by Irene Nemirovsky. Excerpted by
permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All
rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced
or reprinted without permission in writing from the
publisher.
