A Winter's Journal

by Emmanuel Bove

  I've also noticed how aggrieved he becomes when something happens that focuses attention on the world he was once a part of. He is distressed when things that were once second nature to him are discussed by his entourage or in the newspapers without his opinion being solicited. Without saying a word, he'll observe those around him taking sides, with that disagreeable sensation which comes when you are better qualified than anyone to render an opinion, yet no one ever asks you to do so. That said, it sometimes happens that he does speak up, but before long he'll realize that twenty years have gone by, and that in spite of his efforts to appear well informed, there are strangers who know more than he does.

  Although he was once extremely quick to take offense, it now seems to him that nothing is worth the slightest show of anger. He is like those men who find the slightest criticism from a friend intolerable, yet remain silent when taken to task in public, as though they were weary of having answered too often and are saying: "I'm above this." And nothing, in effect, touches him anymore. All the same, he takes great pains to avoid letting others mistake his indifference for pride. His greatest fear is that he might offend someone. He always agrees with the person he is speaking to, and doesn't get flustered, even when he isn't treated with the respect that is his due. When his wife used to insist he take her to visit people from his past, he would refuse, pointing out their vanity, their stupidity; already, his judgments showed no indulgence for the very society which, in casting him off, had created this severity in him.

  Since the death of his wife and the marriage of his daughter, Curti has lived alone. His favorite evenings are the ones he spends at home with a musician friend who comes to play him his favorite pieces. He will give instructions to the effect that he is not at home to anyone and, locked away with the musician, will listen with rapt attention, never asking for another piece when the musician stops playing. His love of music is such that he would never dare ask for more, for fear of appearing profane and ignorant of the fact that inspiration is a fleeting thing. If it happens that he comes across a musician who takes his silence for incomprehension and stops playing, Curti will begin conversing casually in spite of his disappointment, without seeming to regret a thing.

  He always looks mournful, and things that make others laugh barely bring a spark of life to his face. It is curious to see how taken aback he is when someone who has suffered a stroke of bad luck seems to be taking misfortune in stride rather than being devastated by it. Such optimists leave him perplexed. I would like to relate an anecdote my wife told me which I think sheds some light on the man's character. One day, one of his friends said to him: "If you're not doing anything this evening, I'll come by and get you and we'll go to the theater." Curti, who wasn't free, had been forced to decline, but his refusal had left him feeling somehow dissatisfied with himself. The desires of others, no matter how insignificant, are like an obligation for Curti. No sooner was he back home than he set about finding ways he might be forgiven for his refusal, in spite of the fact it had been received with these words: "It doesn't matter in the slightest. I only thought of you on the odd chance you might be free. In fact, even if you'd been able to come, I think I might have been forced to cancel at the last minute." The next day, he decided to call his friend and extend an invitation of his own. But he didn't call. He was prevented from so doing lest he learn his friend had in fact gone to the theater without him. Had that been the case, his original distress would have given way to another, the one we feel when we realize that people have substituted others in the plans they had originally intended for us.

  When still a wealthy man, Curti came to the rescue of many a friend, and he instinctively turned to those people when he lost the better part of his fortune. They avoided him, however. As a young man, Curti had entertained vague notions of becoming a great orator. Ever since, he has used the phrase "a natural speaker," which, even today, comes up constantly in his conversations. The ingratitude of the people he once helped likewise left him using the following expression: "He refused to shake his hand." Although one doesn't need to go bankrupt to observe what little value men accord gratitude, it so happens that it was precisely the bankruptcy that taught Madeleine's father everything. As a result, his opinions of the world are both worse and not as bad as they might be; worse, because he accuses the world of being responsible, at least indirectly, for his downfall, and not as bad because had the downfall never occurred, nothing would ever have made him speak ill of others.

  November 4th

  I can't remember when I've ever felt so weary, sad, and defeated. It was a frightening sensation. I hate to talk about myself, but when I think of all the people I see every day, it does me good to forget them and turn my thoughts inward. In these moments of depression, I think no one loves me, that I'm a poor soul incapable of desiring anything, of attempting anything. It seems the entire world has joined forces against me. Its dreadful to live like this, never being loved, always giving everything and devoting oneself but never getting anything in return. I'll make the greatest sacrifices for Madeleine, yet she isn't happy. I feel I'm isolated, a victim, and that if I fell seriously ill I would be alone. Friends would come to see me, but what for? Because they have to stir themselves, because you need to go somewhere to avoid being bored, and rather than going elsewhere they would come to see me, which would not be uninteresting since I would be on the verge of expiring. I would prefer to have no one around me, to be surrounded with silence, if only I could be certain that, somewhere, there is a soul I love who loves me, a being for whom I am everything. As night fell, I sat down in my study and wept. I wept, I don't know why. There is nothing particularly awful about my life. I never had unfulfillable ambitions. I'm losing money, but that doesn't bother me. It hasn't changed my life. I'm not particularly bored. Why, then, did I weep? There are, in fact, entertainments that do distract me. Last night I went to the theater, and afterward Madeleine and I went out for a late supper. I was lighthearted; I wasn't thinking about anything. So! The man who is currently feeling so overwhelmed is a normal man after all. I am neither neurotic nor sentimental. I am nothing in particular. How can it be, then, that I'm such a wreck? Had someone come in unexpectedly while I was crying, I would have straightened up as though nothing were wrong, and with suitable lightheartedness would have done whatever it was they suggested, as though I'd never been unhappy. And yet none of this is an act. I am not mistaken. I weep. I suffer, have no way of helping myself, and so I live like everyone else. I am incapable of imagining another sort of life. More than anything, that is what astonishes me: that I can be crying one minute and yet be no different from any passerby the next. I have the same occupations as everyone around me, I go to the theater, I enjoy myself, yet deep within me there is always some unhappiness, some dissatisfaction. I love Madeleine, she makes me jealous, I feel my life would be over if she were to disappear, and yet, at the same time, there is something else in me. As soon as I'm alone, that "something else" stirs, obliterates all the rest, and I suffer. I can't be alone, but I hate company. I love Madeleine and at the same time I don't love her. Not a day goes by when I don't approach a friend to speak to him and then suddenly flee. What terrifies me is that I'm constantly unhappy, and yet always act like a happy man. I never embrace happiness entirely. Deep within myself, I scorn happiness. Now that I am somewhat older, it's true that I've begun accepting it as it comes, without dwelling too much upon the fact that this happiness isn't real. Nonetheless, at every step, at every event, a voice wells up within me; it tells me everything that happens to me is due to mere circumstance. I may love Madeleine deeply, but she's still just a woman I happened to meet. I'll never meet the one I love, because it's impossible I'll ever find her among so many people, or she may not have been born yet, or she may have died hundreds of years ago. Every action, every passion, is shadowed by a feeling that I am marooned in the midst of a meaningless world, and that everything that happens to me is but a miserable approximation of the life I should have lived. E
ven as I think this, I realize how ridiculous it is: things are no better elsewhere, either in the past or in the future. I have no reason to bear anyone a grudge. That is what's distressing. Happiness is impossible, and when I cry as I did yesterday, it isn't because I can't achieve happiness or because happiness is impossible, but because I'm unhappy with what I have, because I don't know which way to turn to avoid all these people, and suffer from belonging to a class which may be no worse than any other—indeed, I know it's no worse—but which disgusts me all the same. There is nothing to be done, therefore, nothing, nothing, Therein lies the heart of the problem. It's knowing that I will never be any happier than I am now, nor any unhappier, and that everything which might happen to me is going to seem devoid of any interest. And yet I continue to live, I take an interest in life, I love, and sometimes I'm happy.

  November 10th

  Although Madeleine usually likes having her coffee and sitting by the fire after dinner, tonight she suddenly grew melancholy, as if every aspect of her life were in vain and had no reason to be. She looked at me. I was just then searching for a newspaper out of a pile, and thinking that what we're looking for is always the last thing we find. Madeleine got up and went to her room. My mood at that particular moment was such that I didn't take offense. She was most chagrined by this, for it's just when she thinks she wants to be alone that she most wants me to put aside what I'm doing and speak affectionately to her. "He thinks only of himself. He would even rather read than be with me." Whenever she's on edge, she thinks that others would rather do anything than keep her company. That is how she feeds her melancholy. She draws the energy she needs for her unhappiness from the feeling that people around her don't understand her. She would like others to feel sad when she does, and be happy when she is happy, again at exactly the same moment. It doesn't occur to her that I could reproach her for being equally inadaptable. Once she's in her room, she breaks into tears. After a few minutes, she pulls herself together and returns to me, her face freshly made up. She thinks it a sign of her singularity to hide her worries from the world: not as those do who conceal them with the intention that they nonetheless be inferred, but instead concealing them entirely. Playing at concealing her feelings intoxicates her. Keeping her unhappiness to herself and misleading whoever she is with makes her feel so noble and grand that she becomes deeply happy. "Did you find your newspaper?" she asked me upon returning. "Yes. But are you sure you don't mind if I read?" My question caught Madeleine off guard, for a lack of interest can suddenly make her attitude seem slightly ridiculous. If one is tender with her just when she thinks she is utterly alone with herself, she is embarrassed. Therefore, to ensure she is left alone, she will resist the very tenderness whose absence first gave rise to her attitude. She refuses to acknowledge it. Were one to utter the very words she so desperately hoped to hear, she would do all she could to deform their meaning. She would make herself disagreeable, accuse me of sentimentality. What was lacking a moment ago has now become superfluous.

  Toward nine o'clock, the maid announced François Joly. He is one of the few men I respect. He must be in his fifties, and there is nothing attractive about his appearance. His honesty and rectitude have prevented him from being successful in life. You may recall that in 1912 a woman named Jeanne Hurtu gained notoriety as a result of a series of reckless speculations, the last of which landed her in court. This woman, of modest origins, was reputed to be a genius at business. As a way of demonstrating her good faith, she had taken it into her head not to choose a celebrated lawyer, and the instructing magistrate therefore appointed a public defender to her case. Fate designated Joly. The trial ended with Mme Hurtu's conviction: she, her lover, and her parents had all instructed Joly to mount the most minimal defense, for her innocence was meant to be self-evident without recourse to any vulgar strategies. As a consequence, Joly had merely limited himself to refuting a few inaccuracies. When it came to her appeal, however, she chose a different, and highly reputed, lawyer. This time, she was acquitted. Thanks to this affair, Joly became the laughingstock of his colleagues, and his career was seriously compromised. Far from complaining, however, he adopted a dignified attitude. He and an associate set up a practice, taking on only minor cases. Joly is something of a misanthrope. He believes everything is corrupt, with the rather odd exception of his clients' cases, which he handles with quiet professionalism. He lives alone in a gloomy apartment in the rue de Lille; alongside him, I seem an ambitious bon vivant. Apart from his legal briefs, all he cares about is friendship. For him, friendship is neither an accident nor a fortunate coincidence. He takes his time in choosing a friend, and when he speaks to him, he is obviously doing so in anticipation of the happiness that may follow. As a result, his friends are quite genuinely devoted to him, and don't hesitate to do him any favor at all. No one abuses his kindness, but this kindness is also a trifle sad, as feelings can be when they are neither very deep nor very pure. His professions of friendship are always marked by some detail which warns you that, basically, they are not terribly substantial.

  Joly had come to ask me if I didn't happen to know a good cardiologist, for his mother had been suffering with heart problems for the past several weeks, and her close friends and family were worried. Although he had just come from seeing his great friend Sarbelos, he hadn't mentioned a word about this illness to him. He had refrained from doing so so that he could ask me for a recommendation first, thinking thereby that I would hear him out seriously, for, in spite of everything, he thinks my life is somewhat frivolous. Joly wants to turn people into what he thinks they ought to be, and he seemed to think I would be impressed by the importance of his request. In other circumstances I would have shown real compassion, but for some reason I replied, "I'll be happy to," as if he'd invited me to a masked ball. As I was leafing through an address book, Madeleine struck up a conversation with our visitor. "Why don't you come to see us more often? It's always such a pleasure to see you. You should come and have lunch with us some day. We should decide on a date right away, otherwise we'll never do it." Madeleine was being friendlier than usual to Joly. She knows the esteem I have for him, and I sensed that her show of exaggerated friendliness was intended to be disagreeable to me, for she cannot accept that I have feelings for anyone but her. No sooner does she divine that I like or respect someone than she immediately appropriates those feelings as though they were her own and exaggerates them. Whatever the circumstances, she can't tolerate interest in anyone else but herself. She turns it into caricature. Though she has every reason to be friendly, she takes her revenge by exaggerating that friendliness, and does this with transparent innocence, so that if you were to challenge her, she would say with apparent sincerity, "But I don't understand you anymore! You tell me he's your friend. It's altogether natural that I be nice to him!" She's been behaving this way since before we were married. Despite having no real feelings for the person with whom she was behaving so affectionately, it would amuse her to put on this act, simply because I happened to be fond of him. She carried on this way for the rest of Joly's visit, and as he believed everything she was telling him, he no longer knew how to appear worthy of such friendliness. Once he'd gone, however, I found it impossible to keep from reproaching Madeleine. Perhaps because of the strange mood she was in that evening, rather than playing the innocent and saying what she usually does in such circumstances, Madeleine declared that she'd made a conquest of my friend to teach me a lesson, to show me what I was like, and that none of this had been her doing: she'd merely been imitating me.

  November 12th

  Although he is always afraid of intruding, Joly telephoned to tell me that his mother had been very pleased with my cardiologist. I found this somewhat disagreeable. I reproached Madeleine for having tried to seduce such a perfect human being and toyed with his feelings, even going so far as to say that I would never have thought her capable of such behavior. She didn't flinch. She heard me out, and when I was finished merely shrugged her shoulders with a
smile, implying I didn't know my friends, and that while men might well be models of rectitude, this wouldn't stop them from taking advantage of an "opportunity" if it arose. Her shrug and smile wounded me. It irritates me to see Joly put in such an awkward position, and at the same time I can't hold it against my wife. My only fear is that by some extraordinary stroke of fate, Madeleine will prove to be right. Whereas before I would gladly have seen Joly every day, I now find myself apprehensive at the thought he might come by. My own rectitude makes me abhor a situation in which a man and his wife are accomplices, where she has made him aware that a friend is courting her and yet he says nothing to the friend, allowing the latter to think he knows nothing. These are the depths into which I sink as a result of the trouble Madeleine creates. My love for her is so great, however, that it gradually became apparent to me that she might be blameless. The only aim of her friendliness had been to please me; at heart, the fault lay with me.