Arnaud du Tilh/The Returned Martin Character Analysis

She made a step forward, uncertainly, and Martin, hearing it, turned and advanced upon her, his hands outstretched and a fearsome expression on his long, young face. He had disliked being married, and, in order to express his dislike of the affair, and also to express the power of his newly acquired sovereignty, he cuffed Bertrande soundly upon the ears, scratched her face and pulled her hair, all without a word.

[…]at times a curious fear assailed her, a fear so terrible and unnatural that she hardly dared acknowledge it in her most secret heart. What if Martin, the roughly bearded stranger, were not the true Martin, the one whom she had kissed farewell that noonday by the side of the freshly planted field? Her sin, if such indeed were a fact, would be most black, for had she not experienced an instinctive warning?

“my father was arrogant and severe. Just also, and loving, but his severity sent from home his only son. For eight years I have traveled among many sorts and conditions of men. I have been many times in danger of death. If I return to you with a greater wisdom than that which I knew when I departed, would you have me dismiss it, in order again to resemble my father? God knows, my child […] that a man of evil ways may by an act of will so alter all his actions and his habits that he becomes a man of good.”

Yet even this love was intensified, like her pleasure in the cry of the wolves, by the persistent illusion, or suspicion, that this man was not Martin.

The illusion, if such it was, did not pass away at the termination of her pregnancy, as he had prophesized it would do, but she had grown used to it. It lent a strange savor to her passion for him. Her happiness […] shone the more brightly, was the more greatly to be treasured because of the shadow of sin and danger which accompanied it.

But as time went on she found herself more and more surely faced with the obligation of admitting herself to be hopelessly insane or of confessing that she was consciously accepting as her husband a man whom she believed to be an imposter. If the choice had lain within her power she would have undoubtedly chosen to be mad.

[…] Bertrande could not but admit that this man was wise, subtle, and, if not learnèd, infinitely skilled in argument. The priest valued him, the children loved him, and these virtues of his which entrenched him with those who should have supported her, but made her the more bitter against him. Passionate as had once been her love for this stranger, so passionate became her hatred of him, and her fear.

“At last,” she cried suddenly in a strange hoarse voice, “at last, dear God, Thou wilt save me!”

She pressed her hands to her temples, then turned, and ran from the room.

“Go with her,” said Martin, his face immediately full of concern. “Go with her quickly, my sister. Do you not see? She is ill.” To the priest he said, “You understand to what a pass it has come? I would give half my farm if this soldier from Rochefort had never come to Luchon. This will unsettle her reason.”

But this time the sun shone from the east, as it should do, and Bertrande marveled that she had ever felt confused about the direction. In the same fashion she marveled that she should have permitted herself to be deceived concerning the identity of the man who had called himself her husband.

“I also found it curious, upon remarking the prisoner at sword practice with my son, that Martin Guerre should fence so awkwardly; he was known to be distinguished in the art.”

[…] A brief smile flitted across the face of one of the judges, and Bertrande, seeing it, exclaimed:

“You may smile, my lord, and my testimony may seem innocent to you and of small importance, but I swear by God and all His holy angels that this man is not my husband. Of that I am certain, although I should die for it.”

“Well, we shall inquire, Madame, we shall inquire,” said the justice.

Can you not see, it is in this love that he has wronged me most, that he has damned my soul? I have sinned, through him, and you will not understand it even long enough to give me absolution! No, Father, I cannot believe him to be other than the rogue, Arnaud du Tilh.

The living dove turned its head this way and that, struggled a little, clasping a pale cold claw over the hand that held it, and relaxed, although still turning its head. The blood seemed to be clotting too soon, the wound was shrunken, and the old woman enlarged it with the point of the knife which she had in her lap. The dove made no cry. Bertrande watched with pity and comprehension the dying bird, feeling the blood drop by drop leave the weakening body, feeling her own strength drop slowly away like the blood of the dove.

It would not be possible for her to appeal this decision. It waited for her, behind those doors, in the quality of a doom. […] She saw herself as borne forward helplessly on a great tide of misunderstanding and mischance to commit even a greater sin than that of which she had been afraid.

Rising to her feet, she gazed steadily into the face of her husband and seemed there to see the countenance of the old Monsieur, the patriarch whose authority had been absolute over her youth and over that of the boy who had been her young husband. She recoiled from him a step or two in unconscious self-defense, and the movement brought her near to the author of her misfortunes, the actual Arnaud du Tilh.

The return of Martin Guerre would in no measure compensate for the death of Arnaud, but knowing herself at last free, in her bitter, solitary justice, of both passions and of both men.

She made a step forward, uncertainly, and Martin, hearing it, turned and advanced upon her, his hands outstretched and a fearsome expression on his long, young face. He had disliked being married, and, in order to express his dislike of the affair, and also to express the power of his newly acquired sovereignty, he cuffed Bertrande soundly upon the ears, scratched her face and pulled her hair, all without a word.

[…]at times a curious fear assailed her, a fear so terrible and unnatural that she hardly dared acknowledge it in her most secret heart. What if Martin, the roughly bearded stranger, were not the true Martin, the one whom she had kissed farewell that noonday by the side of the freshly planted field? Her sin, if such indeed were a fact, would be most black, for had she not experienced an instinctive warning?

“my father was arrogant and severe. Just also, and loving, but his severity sent from home his only son. For eight years I have traveled among many sorts and conditions of men. I have been many times in danger of death. If I return to you with a greater wisdom than that which I knew when I departed, would you have me dismiss it, in order again to resemble my father? God knows, my child […] that a man of evil ways may by an act of will so alter all his actions and his habits that he becomes a man of good.”

Yet even this love was intensified, like her pleasure in the cry of the wolves, by the persistent illusion, or suspicion, that this man was not Martin.

The illusion, if such it was, did not pass away at the termination of her pregnancy, as he had prophesized it would do, but she had grown used to it. It lent a strange savor to her passion for him. Her happiness […] shone the more brightly, was the more greatly to be treasured because of the shadow of sin and danger which accompanied it.

But as time went on she found herself more and more surely faced with the obligation of admitting herself to be hopelessly insane or of confessing that she was consciously accepting as her husband a man whom she believed to be an imposter. If the choice had lain within her power she would have undoubtedly chosen to be mad.

[…] Bertrande could not but admit that this man was wise, subtle, and, if not learnèd, infinitely skilled in argument. The priest valued him, the children loved him, and these virtues of his which entrenched him with those who should have supported her, but made her the more bitter against him. Passionate as had once been her love for this stranger, so passionate became her hatred of him, and her fear.

“At last,” she cried suddenly in a strange hoarse voice, “at last, dear God, Thou wilt save me!”

She pressed her hands to her temples, then turned, and ran from the room.

“Go with her,” said Martin, his face immediately full of concern. “Go with her quickly, my sister. Do you not see? She is ill.” To the priest he said, “You understand to what a pass it has come? I would give half my farm if this soldier from Rochefort had never come to Luchon. This will unsettle her reason.”

But this time the sun shone from the east, as it should do, and Bertrande marveled that she had ever felt confused about the direction. In the same fashion she marveled that she should have permitted herself to be deceived concerning the identity of the man who had called himself her husband.

“I also found it curious, upon remarking the prisoner at sword practice with my son, that Martin Guerre should fence so awkwardly; he was known to be distinguished in the art.”

[…] A brief smile flitted across the face of one of the judges, and Bertrande, seeing it, exclaimed:

“You may smile, my lord, and my testimony may seem innocent to you and of small importance, but I swear by God and all His holy angels that this man is not my husband. Of that I am certain, although I should die for it.”

“Well, we shall inquire, Madame, we shall inquire,” said the justice.

Can you not see, it is in this love that he has wronged me most, that he has damned my soul? I have sinned, through him, and you will not understand it even long enough to give me absolution! No, Father, I cannot believe him to be other than the rogue, Arnaud du Tilh.

The living dove turned its head this way and that, struggled a little, clasping a pale cold claw over the hand that held it, and relaxed, although still turning its head. The blood seemed to be clotting too soon, the wound was shrunken, and the old woman enlarged it with the point of the knife which she had in her lap. The dove made no cry. Bertrande watched with pity and comprehension the dying bird, feeling the blood drop by drop leave the weakening body, feeling her own strength drop slowly away like the blood of the dove.

It would not be possible for her to appeal this decision. It waited for her, behind those doors, in the quality of a doom. […] She saw herself as borne forward helplessly on a great tide of misunderstanding and mischance to commit even a greater sin than that of which she had been afraid.

Rising to her feet, she gazed steadily into the face of her husband and seemed there to see the countenance of the old Monsieur, the patriarch whose authority had been absolute over her youth and over that of the boy who had been her young husband. She recoiled from him a step or two in unconscious self-defense, and the movement brought her near to the author of her misfortunes, the actual Arnaud du Tilh.

The return of Martin Guerre would in no measure compensate for the death of Arnaud, but knowing herself at last free, in her bitter, solitary justice, of both passions and of both men.