Places: The Dark Journey

Chanteilles Dark Journey, The (shahn-TAY) and Lorges (lorzh). Neighboring French provincial towns within relatively easy access to Paris by train. The towns are framed on both sides by rivers, portentously named the Sommeillante (sleepy) and the Preste (quick). Much of the novel’s action takes place on or near bridges that cross the rivers, where Paul Guéret waits for the young laundress Angèle. Guéret has moved to Chanteilles with his wife, Marie, in a futile search for a better life than the one they left behind in Paris. His marriage remains loveless, and the only job that he has found is that of tutor to the slow-witted only son of the wealthy Grosgeorge family.

Restaurant Londe (lohnd). Restaurant that is an important Lorges landmark, owned and managed by the imperious Madame Georges Londe, who maintains and relishes a jealous hold on her exclusively male clientele. Guéret stumbles into the restaurant more or less by accident, instantly arousing the insatiable curiosity of the proprietress, who has never seen him before. Determined to snare Guéret in the same net that holds her other customers, Madame Londe refuses to accept payment for his meal, insisting instead that he open an account by signing his name. Thus armed, Madame Londe also ensures that the newcomer will return because he is now in her debt.

From an elevated perch, Madame Londe presides over her establishment with the demeanor of a stern and scolding teacher, occasionally revealing secret knowledge of a customer’s recent purchases, business dealings, or family life. The main source of her information is young Angèle, a nonpaying boarder, who is possibly her niece, whom she regularly sends out on assignations with customers for the sole purpose of collecting gossip to keep them under her control. She does not know, or care, what Angèle has to do to gather the information that she covets; that, Madame Londe self-righteously assures herself, is none of her business.

Villa Mon Idée (vee-YAH moh-neh-dee). Large, pretentious home of the Grosgeorge family, where Guéret regularly meets with his pupil, the couple’s only child. Eva Grosgeorge, resentful of her older husband and harboring bitterness that is never fully explained, turns her resentment toward Guéret when her son André seemingly fails to respond to Guéret’s teaching. Her husband, in turn, shares his own marital and sexual problems with Guéret, inadvertently revealing himself to be one of Angèle’s “regulars” and precipitating the crisis that will result in Guéret’s beating of Angèle and, later, his murder of an elderly homeless man who stumbles upon his hiding place.

After several weeks at large, Guéret will return to the Chanteilles area, only to be spotted by Angèle and, soon thereafter, by the crafty Eva Grosgeorge, who first offers him shelter at Mon Idée, then hatches a scheme to turn him over to the police while he remains a virtual prisoner in Madame Grosgeorge’s upstairs sitting room. The name Villa Mon Idée literally means “my idea.”

*Paris. Capital of France, where Guéret and his wife formerly lived and worked. Marie Guéret, still employed as a seamstress by a Paris department store, still makes weekly trips to the capital in order to deliver her finished orders. Guéret himself may well have spent some of his time there while hiding out from the authorities and changing his appearance by growing a beard.