A Winter's Journal

by Emmanuel Bove

  When we succeed for months on end in adhering to the course we've set ourself, when an iron will keeps us from wavering for an entire year and we've already started thinking we're improved, transformed, and then, in a moment of anger, we become worse than ever, the most painful feeling overwhelms us, as though we were a laborer who, after a lifetime of hard work, sees the fruit of his efforts swept away in a night. We find ourselves back where we started. Today I reverted to being the man I used to be. What was it that made me a happy man yesterday? It was that each passing day distanced me that much more from the man I'd been, that time strengthened my will and made it increasingly unlikely I would fail. Now, however, it's going to be so hard for me to control myself! Whenever the temptation arises, I'll behave as I did today. I'll say to myself, "What's the use?" since yesterday, or the day before yesterday, or a week ago, I wasn't able to curb my emotions. I threw my suitcase off to one side and knelt down in front of Madeleine like a father in front of his child, begging her to forgive me. She was unmoved, however.

  December 9th

  I spent a miserable night. After dinner last night, Madeleine suddenly put her coat on and coldly announced, "I'm going to sleep at my father's." I tried to hold her back without being overly insistent, for fear of bringing on a fit of nerves. She left and I stayed here alone.

  After reading for an hour, I wandered through the empty apartment. Everything reminded me of Madeleine. At times she appeared before me, as though she'd never left. Then she would suddenly disappear like a ghost, and everything would be empty again. The space between the pieces of furniture seemed unusually vast. The objects she normally uses were more immobile. Everything seemed frozen. The lamps had lost a measure of their brilliance, and when I left one room to walk through several others before finally coming back to my starting point, I felt painfully alone, much the way I feel when I return home in the evening to find the house is empty. The idea of going to join Madeleine at her father's came to me after I'd already undressed. When I lived alone, it often happened that this urge to go out came over me after I'd readied myself for bed and laid out the evening newspapers I always read before falling asleep. At heart, I've never been a homebody. Wherever I've lived, its always been temporary. The night holds no terrors for me; I face it as naturally as the day. Tonight, however, I told myself no, and was further inclined to stay in by the thought of how tedious it would be to get dressed again. In addition, fear of seeing people again—night people, who are so little aware of others—and unease at the thought of being out in public made me hesitate further. I went to bed, turned on the little bedside lamp, and began to think. I was calm. I was thinking of the fevered pitch at which everything had happened during the day. I was entirely myself now, with no witnesses, no excitement. All at once, it struck me that rather than going to her fathers, Madeleine had taken the train. I pictured myself talking to her as she stepped into the railway carriage. "Madeleine, my darling Madeleine, you're quite mad to go off this way. You mustn't. Haven't you thought about the pain you're causing me?" In spite of this, she left. Then I went to meet her, in a hotel room in Brussels. "Will you never realize, my darling, how unreasonable you are? Does your husband have no part to play in your life? You treat him as though he were an absolute stranger." And then, still in my imagination, I met her one evening. "You see how useless it is to hide. You belong to me, and wherever you go, God will always put you on my path."

  Even though these imaginary situations differed, I spoke in the same flat, toneless voice, which made it clear there was no way of escaping me. Suddenly, I imagined Madeleine had returned. I heard the key in the lock. She approached our bed: "My darling, why did you frighten me this way? Since we have to live together, try to be patient." I listened to myself speak without quite realizing I was addressing someone who wasn't there. All at once, however, I understood I was hallucinating and that I was merrily allowing the vaguely rational ideas passing through my mind to take on a life of their own. To cut them short, I got up, turned on all the lights, and began wandering through the apartment, running my fingers along the furniture, walls, vases, and radiators as I passed, perhaps to reassure myself that nothing had changed. But everything that played a part in making my home so dear to me had vanished, as though I were now in a prison cell. Something then happened I find hard to believe. Although every fiber of my being was suffering, I suddenly became obsessed with assuring myself that the comforts of home still surrounded me. I went into the bathroom, mechanically lifted Madeleine's perfume to my nostrils, touched the hot water pipes with a distracted finger. Returning to my room, I sat on the bed to test the springs. I wanted to breathe new life into a gentleness I never thought about, and which I now feared I had lost. Hard as I tried, that gentleness had vanished. All the familiar objects were in place, but they lacked any warmth. Nothing had changed, and yet nothing existed anymore. I made an effort to forget everything and reclaim my surroundings, if only for a moment, even if it meant suffering afterward, but my efforts were in vain. I went back to bed after having carefully closed every door so that I would be in the smallest possible space. Putting a mirror within arms reach, I spread some newspapers out on the bed. Madeleine's absence now seemed less distressing to me. I felt as though I were living in a space designed for a single person. For a brief moment, I felt better, but then suddenly the solitude surrounding me grew enormous. "If I get up again," I thought, grappling with the urge to get out of bed yet again, "it will serve no purpose, and I'll be back in bed immediately." I stayed in bed, filled with that strange, disagreeable sensation born of not doing what we want because it's pointless. Without thinking, yielding to a need more urgent than the rational thought that had ordered me to stay in bed, I leaped up. In spite of my momentum, I remained immobile for a second at the foot of the bed. Remembering all the doors I'd closed, it occurred to me that if I now opened them, I would have to reclose them all immediately afterward. Without thinking any further, I got back into bed. For a long time, I struggled to convince myself that any movement would be in vain. Then I sprang out of bed like a madman, ran to open a door, went into the living room, where I turned on the lights, then on to the dining room, and from there to the next room. This wasn't because I needed freedom, or air, but rather to destroy everything I'd so carefully prepared. When I was as far as I could be from the bedroom in which I'd organized my night's peace and oblivion, I collapsed into an armchair and squeezed both hands against my temples, trying to cry. No tears came. As though incubating an illness, I felt hot, dry, tense, and unable to cry. Taking my lower lip between my fingers, I pulled it as hard as I could while turning it outward, trying to inflict pain. I was absolutely unrecognizable. At the peak of this crisis, I suddenly imagined Madeleine had come in. "Its over for me... I'm dying slowly...," I shouted. And then I was filled with tremendous happiness. Madeleine was here. What did my tears matter! Everything was for the best. I was coming out of a bad dream. But the approaching peace stopped just short of me. It had struck me that I was exaggerating my suffering, and that it was only to embellish it that I was doing battle with a ghost. I got up out of my armchair. It wasn't yet midnight. "I have to go to sleep right away," I thought, "otherwise my curiosity will keep growing, and I'll be up all night." So far, everything was normal. I never went to bed any earlier. But I'd reached the limit. If I exceeded it without falling asleep, I would be making an exception. I have reached an age at which we try to control our unhappiness and, above all, not disturb our habits, that age at which we've been deeply marked by life and dread exceptions of any kind, fearful of the excesses we remember from our youth. And yet I indulged in no excesses; but it's often the case that people who fear things the most are the very ones who've suffered from them the least. I returned to my room, closed the doors, and went to bed, telling myself sternly: "I must go to sleep. I must forget everything until tomorrow. I must go to sleep." I turned off the light, closed my eyes, and made a great effort to think of nothing as I tried to fall asleep. The stru
ggle for sleep is a terrifying thing. One has no grip. The mere desire to fall asleep keeps you awake. I was thinking of nothing, and yet, unbeknownst to me, my desire to fall asleep was keeping me awake. I turned this way and that repeatedly. From time to time, through the darkness, I heard the ringing of a distant clock. Everything was dark. My willpower was gone. And yet I wasn't asleep. How much time passed this way? I don't know. I completely lost all sense of time. I was as if asleep, and yet sufficiently aware to know that I was, in fact, awake. After endlessly tossing every which way in the bed, my drowsiness grew more pronounced. This filled me with a minute sense of joy. I was on the verge of drifting away when, imperceptibly, I had the sensation my brain was growing bigger and bigger, that my body was turning to lead, that my entire being was being inflated, and that the bigger it became, the less able I was to move about in order to resume my normal appearance. Nausea made me want to sit up, and yet I couldn't. Waking up earlier than usual is one of the symptoms doctors look for in patients suffering from systemic poisoning. At dawn, mysteriously warned that an illness is invading, we awaken to chase it away. I had been warned. I sensed I needed to regain consciousness, and yet it felt as if I were glued to my bed. I suddenly had the impression that all the doors were opening at once, even the front door (so it, too, had ceased defending me), that the apartment was brightly lit and Madeleine was advancing toward me. I was fighting for breath as I watched her approach. She drew closer, not even bothering to walk on tiptoe. I shrieked and sat bolt upright. My eyes were open. I looked for Madeleine everywhere, thinking she was hiding. For a moment, I was sure she was next to me. Then suddenly I saw nothing, as though a hand had been lowered over my eyes. Groping in the dark, I tried to turn on the light, but my hand was moving so quickly that I failed to find the switch. Although I was wide awake now, I had the impression the apartment was brightly lit, only to fall back into darkness a moment later. I finally switched on the light and looked at my watch. It was two in the morning. Still groggy, I leaned mechanically across the empty half of the bed in hopes that Madeleine would be there. There was, of course, no one. To reason with myself, I resumed speaking aloud, just as I'd spoken to Madeleine a little while ago: "You must go to sleep. Things will sort themselves out. Madeleine will be back tomorrow morning." I turned the light off, then fell asleep reflecting, rather strangely, that I had just had a real hallucination.

  December 10th

  Madeleine came home this morning, which surprised me. Although she'd left over something much more trivial the last time, I'd had to go get her. Today, however, whereas I'd been entirely in the wrong, she came back on her own. When she appeared, I felt slightly awkward. At first I pretended nothing had happened, asking her if she'd slept well and chatting about this and that. She made no reply, however. I then said, "I hope you weren't too hurt by my behavior." She gave me a withering look, as though it were fatuous of me to imagine I could upset her. I briefly considered telling her about the awful night I'd spent without her, but it was so obvious she would never believe me that I thought better of it.

  Now that I've calmed down, I'm amazed at how fearless I was. What amazes me is that, just like Maud, it never occurred to Madeleine to be arrogant in the face of my outburst. What would I have done then? I'm amazed I resorted to such violent tactics, thinking rather dimly that this was war. I'm even more amazed Madeleine didn't choose to raise her voice over mine, lose her temper, threaten me. What's surprising in great fits of temper is the potential we have suddenly to become as gentle as lambs, which a single word can unlock. If, while in the blackest rage, we happen to think of that weakness, that gateway to serenity, it's always startling to realize our adversary doesn't think we even possess such a potential.

  I was terribly depressed all morning. Although I had expected Madeleine to react to aggression with even greater aggression, she'd behaved instead like a poor, defenseless child. There is nothing more distressing than crushing someone's pride. When, wounded by their indifference, we get carried away, a voice cries out to us, warning that our reserves aren't going to be enough. Then, in the heat of anger, we acquire the strength we were lacking. But when we suddenly realize that our opponent has capitulated and collapsed miserably, we suddenly find ourselves alone with our disproportionate effort, as though we'd used a powerful catapult to launch ourselves across a tiny stream. We feel cruel, wicked, harsh, and ashamed of dominating the situation so totally. Pride won't allow us to ask for forgiveness; we're left perched atop positions we did everything to capture and which are now meaningless. Only then do we begin to realize how inhuman we were. Madeleine hasn't spoken to me yet. I watched her getting dressed this morning as though nothing had happened, and yet something in her face revealed she'd pulled herself together. Not once did she look at me. I felt so strong yesterday, but today, in her presence, it seems to me I'm weak. There is no sensation more unbearable than seeing loved ones resume life as normal after we've tormented them, secretly fortified by decisions they won't abandon, and which we can only guess at. We worry. We don't dare speak first, afraid of being told something terrible. Instead, we anxiously observe them preparing with a determined air for a new life we know nothing about. Watching Madeleine come and go as though she were alone in the house, I prayed with all my might for a visitor. We need others at times like this, because what we most want is to see the beloved face grow animated and relaxed, even for an outsider. And yet I betrayed none of these emotions. I realized how unfair it had been to inflict such a scene on Madeleine for some flowers an old man had given her, which, as she'd pointed out, should have made me proud. But I hadn't the courage to admit I'd been wrong, especially as I sensed my wife wouldn't accept my apologies. Had I begged her to forgive me, she would have reacted with scorn, for although she isn't vindictive, she does feel very strongly that an offense is irreparable. I dreaded hearing her say, "It's all over between us," and therefore watched her with a wariness I made no attempt to conceal, all the more so as she was paying so little attention to me. Although I hadn't the courage to speak to her, I could have broken down and cried in front of her without feeling ashamed. I finally dared ask why she was dressing with such care. She didn't reply. I went into my study for a moment, then came out again and, with studied indifference, asked, "Have you given the kitchen orders today?" I thought that, in spite of everything, this was the sort of question she would respond to. Her answer was not at all what I'd expected, however: "If you're having lunch here, you can give the orders yourself." She resumed her preparations. I fell silent and went back to my study. Just before noon, the maid came to tell me M. Spigelman was here to see me. I went to greet him happily. If I'd had to choose the one friend whose company I most valued just then, my preference would have been for Spigelman. I knew how indulgent, how conciliatory he was. I was never embarrassed to show myself as I really was with him, concealing neither my jealousies nor my fears. "Well then, how are you?" he asked immediately. "You were wrong not to follow my advice. Those shares I told you about went up, and they're still going up." M. Spigelman said this kindly, the way you might tell a friend you had a pleasant time without him. "And how is Madeleine?" he went on. "You have a treasure in that woman." With a gesture, I indicated things weren't going well at all. "Now what have you done to her?" he asked genially, as though this were merely a lover's spat. I sensed from his question that he was willing to consider any possibility, but not a separation, not deep-seated hatred. Although he lives alone and has no close relations, M. Spigelman deeply loves and respects family life. It is the only thing he gets sentimental about, the only fine thing in the world. It would never have occurred to him that something serious could come between Madeleine and me. "I'll patch things up," he said with a smile. I understood then that my happiness at seeing him was unfounded. "I suspect," he went on, "you've quarreled over something childish again, a hat." Although he is cunning and shrewd when discussing money, this man is like a child on the subject of love. I suddenly felt ashamed of what had gone on bet
ween Madeleine and me the night before. Had he witnessed the scene, he would have been terrified by it, he would have wondered if he wasn't dreaming. For some time now, I'd sensed he silently disapproved of my not having a child. For him, a household was made of two people who loved one another, who were united and never argued. "Where is Madeleine?" he asked me. "I don't know," I answered, afraid he would see her. "She's probably off in a corner, crying," he went on. "She's must be waiting for you to come and ask her forgiveness. I won't leave until you do." Poor innocent Spigelman! You would have been horrified if you'd understood the seriousness of what happened, realized there is no remedy for what separates Madeleine and me! All I could think of now was concealing the truth from him, changing the subject, diverting his attention from the two of us. "Listen, Spigelman, I'm delighted you dropped by, because it just so happens I was going to ask you to buy me some shares of that stock you recommended." The banker looked at me with a semitriumphant air. "It's too late now, too late. You should have told me a month ago. There's nothing interesting at the moment. How can you be so indecisive?" That last question left me reeling. It's true that I don't know what I want, and always choose the wrong moment to act. I make a terrible scene with Madeleine when she's done nothing wrong, but when she makes it clear I'm playing second fiddle to Roger, I say nothing. Although I felt miserable, I didn't have a chance to reflect on what a pathetic creature I was, because Spigelman said, "Come on, Louis, take me to your wife. We must be indulgent with one another." I was increasingly tense, and explained to Spigelman that my wife was perfectly fine but couldn't join us because she was resting. "I'm just an old man," he said. "I won't tire her. As a matter of fact, I'm certain you're in the wrong here, Louis. You never know what you want. Today you want to buy shares even though the market is bad, but when I encouraged you to buy, you wouldn't hear of it. You're capricious." As he spoke these words, he moved toward the door I'd come through a moment earlier. "May I?" he asked me. All I could do was nod my head in a sign of acquiescence. As soon as he'd left the room, an oppressive anxiety overcame me. I knew Madeleine well enough to know that she would lose her temper with a man foolish enough to meddle in her affairs and give her advice. In fact, Spigelman had barely left me when I heard my wife saying harshly, "Monsieur, it's not worth wasting your breath. My husband is a brute. Every woman he's ever been involved with has suffered. With me, however, its over. I hate him." A few seconds later, I saw Spigelman reappear, his face completely altered. He was crushed. The smiling, self-confident, peacemaker's air he'd had a moment earlier had disappeared. He seemed not to understand anything anymore, aghast at having glimpsed an abyss whose existence he had never suspected. He came over to me and said very gravely, "But after all, she's your wife, isn't she?" I lowered my head. Suddenly the door flew open and a radiant Madeleine cried out in a shrill voice, "Louis, I forbid you to continue talking about me. Wait until I'm gone, which will be very soon now." Then, speaking to the banker, she said, "As for you, Monsieur, I don't understand why you listen to him." Upon that she left, slamming the sitting-room door behind her. Madeleine's rages are chilling, and they last for hours. They are never caused by a word, or an act, but always by something that happened earlier, sometimes as long as a week ago. It isn't just one door she slams, then, but all of them, and for days on end. During those periods of frigid bitterness, she reveals a trait that distresses me even more than her anger: a sort of vulgarity. You sense she could slap you, and although she never uses crude language, could very politely call you a cheapskate, a hoodlum, a brute. I looked at Spigelman. His face told me that I had become a stranger in his eyes, and that he was wondering how he could ever have entrusted me with his friendship, especially as he holds marriage sacred above all things. Just as he loathes people who try to put on airs, he can't abide families where there is no harmony, couples who argue constantly. He was now thinking he'd been wrong about me. His eyes never left me, and looked like those of a father whose child has been found guilty of a crime. Something extraordinary happened then. Little by little, his features hardened. Though nothing he said was uttered in a disagreeable tone of voice, as he prepared to go he began talking about this and that, without making the slightest allusion to Madeleine. When I asked him not to make too much of what had just happened, assuring him this was merely one of those occasional disagreements between two people who love one another, thereby trying to imply that the next time he saw us this would all be forgotten, he said, "But of course, we all know how these things are. We've all had our little problems." He must have realized I thought he was lying, for he then felt compelled to add, "I've had worse happen to me." Having recovered from his shock, he was now trying, as any friend would have done, to make me think that he was just like me, but I didn't believe him. As I walked him to the front door, he said, "Dear Louis, you ought to come and see me about those stocks of yours: I may be able to do something for you. You never know, with the stock market. An opportunity will doubtless come up quite soon." After he'd left, I tried in vain to understand why he had urged me to come see him. Was it that he didn't want to lose a client, even if he'd given up on our friendship? Or had he suddenly had some inkling that such a violent scene must have been caused by financial problems and now wanted, as a mark of his friendship, to reconcile me with Madeleine by helping me play the market successfully? Had he spoken merely in order to say something, with no ulterior motive, just to break the silence? I wondered. After having examined what he'd said from every possible angle, I lost interest and grew despondent. It seemed to me that, through my own fault, I was losing all my friends, that Madeleine would never forgive me, that I was already abandoned. I didn't know what to do. Spigelman's last words kept coming back to me. It suddenly seemed strange to me that while still my friend, the banker had discouraged me from buying any shares, only to give contrary advice at the very moment when he no longer had any affection for me. This about-face surely proved that, not satisfied with abandoning me, he now wanted to injure me further by making me lose money. I decided to go out for a change of scene, to forget everything that had happened and try to pull myself together. My disgust with myself only intensified when I'd stepped out the door, however. Losing a friend, even one who means very little to us, is never easy. As I walked the crowded streets, I thought about my past, about myself, who I was. Though I can't explain why, it occurred to me that I often find myself regretting the opportunities I had as a young man to indulge in vices which, unfortunately, I didn't possess at the time. As we grow older, the complications involved in satisfying our desires make us regret our youth all the more. I sometimes find myself prey to such regrets, which is awful. With a mentality like that, anything is possible, and its ridiculous of me to then be surprised that a man like Spigelman would shun me. Everyone should shun me, and leave me to my fate. I'm astonished that people have any regard for me at all, and wonder how it is that anyone can take my life seriously. I would have found it perfectly logical if all my friends abandoned me, and was stunned to realize that the repercussions of my behavior affected my entourage. Madeleine was suffering because of me. How was this possible?