Jacque Chardonne: Les Varais (1929)

The novel Les Varais refers not to a family of that name but to a property in Charente, where the whole of this novel is set, and which is where Chardonne spent his childhood. He is the son of the writer Pierre-Henri Simon and was noted for his extreme right-wing views, although none of them appear in this early novel. Chardonne dedicates the novel to Maurice Delamain, also born in Barbezieux.

Les Varais was once buildings and vineyards but the owner Devermont turned the place into a dairy farm with bang up-to-date machinery. His son Frédéric is unmarried until he's about thirty, when he starts being interested in the elusive Marie who lives with her father not too far away, although she is very aloof and hardly seems interested in men. However, when she meets Frédéric she finds him different from other men she's encountered. So they marry and live happily in Les Varais, where Devermont is pleased that her father has a prosperous wine trade.

But years later things go drastically wrong: the manager Condé says the banker Ladvèze wants to see him, and his words are very strong. Les Varais is losing money fast, which the banker puts down to Devermont and all his new machinery, and says there's really no choice: unless Frédéric takes over the business it will collapse. Unfortunately, Devermont will not listen to this and Frédéric must continue to take more money from Marie's inheritance to make good the loss.

But it doesn't make good the loss and the dairy continues to lose huge amounts of money. The accountant's figures seem to make perfect sense from what Frédéric can tell. Unlike other people though he doesn't suspect Condé of stealing huge amounts from the farm. The result is that Frédéric becomes a morose, angry and almost mad man: not the shadow of the man she married. And the married couple wilt away.