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Joy - Hate - Love
In Irene Nemirovsky’s novella “Storm in June,” colonial violence is portrayed as a force of nature, pulverizing a layer of fragile and temporal cultural constructs hegemonically disseminated by the Catholic church and French ruling class. Through destruction, integral abstractions such as religion, class, and even the most reserved sentiment of hospitality are abandoned. This reveals an image of civilization more genuine, more vulnerable, and more easily recognized as something natural and mammalian.
Culture is easily classified as the pinnacle of human achievement because it encompasses everything any society has ever thought, said, done, or made. But how durable are these accomplishments, especially in terms of ideology? What does it take for us to abandon our beliefs, at least momentarily? At Charlotte Pericand’s realization that she had no food with which to feed her children, “Christian charity, the compassion of centuries of civilization, fell from her like useless ornaments, revealing her bare arid soul. … Nothing else mattered anymore.”(53) There is only a certain amount of pressure any member of society can take before all senses of propriety and justice are abandoned. Now granted this is not genuine abandonment. It is simply a lapse: an easily mended tear in ones moral fiber, temporarily exposing the “savage” underneath.
The threat of starvation was the cross that Madame Pericand had to bear, but there are many other sources of pressure addressed in the text such as human predators or parasites like the family that stole food from Gabriel Corte, and Monsieur Corbin who fired the Michauds after selfishly endangering their lives. And it seems redundant to even mention the carnage dealt by the German invaders.
Though it is through a depiction of exodus and diaspora in this story that the humanity of the French is forsaken: “’They look so tired, so hot!’ everyone kept saying, but not one of them thought to … invite one of these wretches inside. … There were just too many of them. … It prevented the townspeople from being charitable. There was nothing human left in this miserable mob; they were like a herd of frightened animals. Their crumpled cloathes, crazed faces, hoarse voices, everything about them made them look peculiarly alike, so you couldn’t tell them apart.” (50) Why is it only within the context of a vast multitude of humans, which clearly contains in fact more humanness, that we as observers begin to negate the humanness of the individuals who make up this mob? Where does our humanity go in the face of so much to apply it to?
Perhaps the paradox lies within this concept of being humane. The concept of humanity places human nature upon a very optimistic pedestal. Not only does it imply an endless outpouring of good will and hospitality toward our fellow man, it additionally connotes a goodwill and stewardship over certain species of animals that have been imbued with cultural significance. In modern America, these animals most notably include dogs, cats, and horses. Cows, pigs, and various birds, however, have been popular choices in other regions of the world. This word, so often infused with an indisputable sense of obligation, makes shepherds of all people.
Humanity creates a bond between the self and the other that is simultaneously intimate and universal. Here we witness a complex distribution of power where the self carries its superiority like a weight, and is morally obligated to act the part of the savior to the ill begotten other. Through observance of the cultural institution of humanity, we enter a relationship very much the same as the xenia (pact) as described by Jacques Derrida in his lecture, “Foreigner Question,” with the self playing the role of the host and the other playing that of the hostis (xenos/enemy) with all people.
Why is it that these intersocietal disasters occur repeatedly throughout history? This is a question Jeanne poses to Maurice Michaud to which he answers: “Certain laws govern the world and they’re neither for nor against us. When a storm strikes, you don’t blame anyone: you know the thunder is the result of two opposite electrical forces, the clouds don’t know who you are. … It all seems caused by … one circumstance or another, but it’s like in nature: after the calm comes the storm; it starts out slowly, reaches its peak, then it’s over and other periods of calm, some longer, some shorter, come along. It’s just been our bad luck to be born in a century full of storms, that’s all.” (177, 178) Even within the realm of culture there are natural processes of upheaval. There are cycles which will inevitably run their course through a society or between societies.
While Nemirovsky equates these upheavals with natural disasters, Oedipus Rex attributes them to the destructive force of time in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus: “Time obliterates, and crushes all to nothing. … the same wind of friendship cannot blow forever, holding steady and strong between two friends, much less between two cities. For some of us soon, for others later, joy turns to hate and back again to love.” (Sophocles, 322) The only stratum seemingly unaffected by this crushing force of time is the world itself. Throughout the text, Nemirovsky interjects descriptions of natural beauty throughout the French countryside that have a lofty, disengaged air achieved by rarely associating the scene directly with the characters themselves, but instead periodically mentioning it as an offhand side note. It seems to note the timelessness and invincibility of nature itself, as if to say that living things with all of their complexities of rapid growth and cognition are infinitely stunted by their impermanence, whereas the natural world is equally if not more complex, yet unconscious and eternal.
In the wake of the disintegration of the cultural institutions, there survives only an archaic framework of xenia. This bond between self and other, no longer filtered through the cultural prism, can be recognized and remembered as a law of nature. It can be recognized as this same intimate yet universal binary; now appointing the well being of the self as law over the life and rights of the other.
One of the most intriguing chapters in the book is narrated through the perspective of Albert, the Pericand children’s cat. We, the readers, accompany Albert on an evening spent stalking the village streets. Due to the circumstances, the needs of the children’s pet have understandably been forgotten, and so Albert must now rely on his feline instincts to sustain him. Through Albert’s night on the town we gain a new perspective on the issue of naturalism. Albert is very contented and at ease in his savagery. He revels in it. He is filled with desire at the fresh, warm scents of life which he has already translated into a fresh, warm scents of food. “He came back carrying a small bird in his mouth, his tongue slowly lapping at its wound. Eyes closed, he savored the warm blood. He had plunged his claws into the bird’s heart and clenched and unclenched his talons, digging deeper and deeper into the tender flesh that covered its delicate bones with slow and rhythmical movements until its heart stopped beating.” (106) This passage depicts animalism in a way that is sensual, erotic, and without remorse. This act of hunting was driven by a kind of primal urge that we as humans only still feel in traditionally erotic settings. Through this viewpoint, the barbarism depicted in the rest of the story seems much more commonplace and understandable from a naturalistic perspective.
In a later chapter, Charles Langelet succumbs to the “inhuman” laws of nature. In this chapter, Langelet steals a stock-pile of gasoline from a couple that is very much in need of the gas themselves. As he gives way to the animal within Nemirovsky likens him to Albert: “But he knew he had never felt such exquisite pleasure. A cat who sleeps on velvet cushions and is fed on chicken breasts and suddenly finds himself in the middle of the countryside, on the dry branch of a tree wet with dew, sinking his teeth into a trembling, bleeding bird, must feel the same terror, the same cruel joy, he thought, for he was too intelligent not to understand what was happening to him.” (120) This descent into the natural world is comforting only to Albert, who can rely on the excuse of being a cat, and Charles. What Charles and Albert have in common is that they do not love. Their worlds are driven by creature comforts alone, and this, in a way, shields them from the sorrow and guilt felt by other humans during this period in France.
The various human displays of savagery cited from the text are, as have been mentioned, limited to bouts of discomposure, and are immediately repented for after a level of stasis has been regained. This not only applies to individuals scrounging for dignity, but also whole nations. Hubert wisely concludes during his post-war introspection that all of the carnage he has witnessed will never be retold; that this portion of history will be forged to depict the more devout and courageous France than he, himself, will ever be able to envision again.