Roman d'un Cycliste
By J.-H. Rosny189934 chapters1 imageFrench
Contents
- The novel opens at the Villa des Fleurs casino in Aix-les-Bains, introducing Philippe Granvyl, a restless young man embittered by a string of failed love affairs who measures every woman he meets against the heroines of Manon, Madame Bovary and Balzac.
- That evening Philippe notices two women in particular, the young Marthe Hauteroche and the pale, married Mme d'Ombreuse; his friend Landa identifies Marthe as General Hauteroche's daughter, whose parents will accept only a wealthy suitor.
- Philippe cycles up the hill above Aix at dusk, then returns home to his aunt Marceline, a neurasthenic, quarrelsome but doting woman with whom he lives, whose volatile moods and fierce attachment to him are laid bare in their brief, prickly exchange.
- On the jetty at Lac du Bourget, Philippe joins Mme d'Ombreuse and her elderly companion on a boat trip to the Hautecombe abbey, transfixed by her eyes while the old man expounds his theory of Chance and coincidence.
- After Mme d'Ombreuse's carriage departs, Philippe throws himself into a furious bicycle ride and challenges a fellow cyclist, the Englishman Bill Asquith, to an impromptu race that ends in a dead heat, watched approvingly by Marthe Hauteroche.
- The old gentleman muses on history and coincidence while Mme d'Ombreuse listens; she asks Philippe for legal advice on inheritance law, then announces she is leaving Aix for the Morvan, and that evening he finds and pockets a torn fragment of one of her letters.
- At the casino, Philippe listens to Lohengrin while fingering Mme d'Ombreuse's torn letter and fending off Moranne's jealous suspicion that he too desires her; wandering back that night, he is left tormented by the thought of her departure for the Morvan.
- Book Two returns to the social season at Aix, where Mme Hauteroche hosts a gathering that assembles an eclectic mix of guests from the resort's hotel salons.
- Philippe attends Mme Hauteroche's gathering and dances with Marthe, finding the evening pleasant, yet his thoughts keep returning to the absent Mme d'Ombreuse.
- Philippe settles into a daily routine with Marthe at Aix's casinos and salons, and their closeness soon prompts talk among their circle of an engagement, though he cannot stop comparing her to the still-absent Mme d'Ombreuse.
- On a countryside excursion by landau around Lac du Bourget with Mme Hauteroche and Marthe, Philippe reflects on Rousseau's old haunts near Aix while private tensions persist beneath the outing's pleasant surface.
- Book Three shifts the setting to the wild Morvan region, where Philippe has followed Mme d'Ombreuse.
- Granvyl cycles the road to Mont Beuvray under a stormy sky, pressing through the Morvan's forest scenery toward Saint-Léger in search of Mme d'Ombreuse.
- Philippe reaches Mme d'Ombreuse's house, la Hestraie, near Lac des Settons in the Morvan, where Pierre Livry, a jealous young rival for her affections, is introduced amid the household's mounting tension.
- Lalanne, the elderly friend who summoned Philippe to la Hestraie, reveals that Pierre Livry is the ward Mme d'Ombreuse's late husband entrusted to her as a boy, and confides his fear that Pierre's possessive love will ruin her.
- Torn by jealousy, Philippe declares his love to Mme d'Ombreuse, who admits her heart but says duty forbids her to answer; he flees on a reckless bicycle plunge down an unknown forest slope, crashing but surviving unhurt.
- Philippe and Pierre Livry meet by chance on the road and, after a tense standoff over Mme d'Ombreuse, challenge each other to an impromptu bicycle race toward the lake, which Philippe wins decisively.
- As a storm lashes la Hestraie, Lalanne rhapsodizes on the beauty of rain while Philippe and Mme d'Ombreuse sit in strained silence; showing him newly arrived lacquer panels, she presses him uneasily to admit what passed between him and Pierre on the road.
- Sleepless, Philippe wanders the moonlit forest and overhears Pierre and Mme d'Ombreuse parting, then finds her alone by the gate; in a quiet confession she tells him no harmony exists to let her love him, leaving him more devoted and more despairing than ever.
- Book Four turns to Philippe's household at Aix, where his aunt Marceline and her orphaned companion Héloïse take center stage.
- Marceline, Philippe's hypochondriac aunt, torments Héloïse, the orphan girl she keeps as a reader and companion, over a trivial matter; Philippe intervenes to defend her and vows to become her protector.
- At the near-empty casino, Lalanne tells Philippe that Pierre has been pursuing Mme d'Ombreuse even during her travels; on the road home Pierre confronts Philippe directly, warning that a duel to the death awaits if he approaches her again.
- The morning after, Marceline notices Philippe's pallor and questions him about the night before; he tells her only that he may soon be traveling far away, hinting at the looming duel.
- Book Five opens back in the Morvan, where Landa draws Philippe into a wild boar hunt while the duel with Pierre Livry still hangs over him.
- Landa has entangled Philippe in a battue against a lone wild boar terrorizing the Montsauche district, where hunters and peasants join forces to destroy the animal.
- One evening at la Hestraie, Lalanne, Mme d'Ombreuse and the orphan Héloïse share music and philosophy until Pierre Livry arrives unannounced and, jealous and possessive, extracts a promise that she will never again let Granvyl visit.
- The orphan Héloïse, entrusted with a letter from Granvyl, spends a sleepless night dreading the duel she senses is coming between him and Pierre Livry; at dawn she warns Lalanne, who rushes to act before it is too late.
- Landa fortifies Philippe with kola and cognac before the duel; the party drives by carriage into the Morvan forest to a clearing, where Pierre Livry arrives with his own seconds and the sword duel with Philippe begins.
- In the duel's aftermath, Landa privately congratulates himself while M. Raidillon, the fussy second who was scandalized by the whole affair, holds forth on servants and misanthropy over cognac and cigars.
- Riding in the coupé, Lalanne urges Mme d'Ombreuse to release herself from her sense of duty toward the grown Pierre Livry, arguing that her continued devotion now endangers rather than protects him and that only exile from him will resolve it.
- On a warm summer evening at la Hestraie, Lalanne and Landa muse on civilization and the tame stag returns to the garden; alone with Philippe afterward, Mme d'Ombreuse voices her remorse and gratitude that he spared Pierre's life in the duel.
- Wounded from the duel, Pierre lures Mme d'Ombreuse from the garden and drives her deep into the night toward la Pierre Qui Vire, confessing his desperate love and demanding she swear she does not love Granvyl; when she cannot lie, he threatens to vanish forever, and she despairingly resolves to die alongside him.
- Alarmed that Mme d'Ombreuse has vanished with Pierre, Lalanne and Philippe study a map of the Montsauche and Pierre Qui Vire district and race to find her, Philippe insisting on going ahead alone by bicycle.
- Months later at the Excelsior hotel in Nice, Philippe's circle reconvenes with Marceline, Lalanne, Moranne, Landa and the now-thriving Héloïse; Noëlle d'Ombreuse brings word that Pierre has recovered and found new love, and, freed at last from guilt, chooses Philippe as her husband.
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