Impossible to accept that I can have committed the whole of my life to love so selfish a man as that. I must certainly be being unfair! In any case Marie Lambert told me so. “His point of view ought to be known. There is never anything to be understood in these cases of separation when they are recounted by the wife.” It was the “masculine mystery,” far more impenetrable than the “feminine mystery.” I suggested that she should speak to Maurice; she refused—I should have less confidence in her if she knew him. She was very friendly; but with a certain amount of holding back and hesitation, nevertheless.
Certainly Lucienne is the person who would be most useful to me—Lucienne, with her penetrating critical sense. She has lived all these years in a state of half enmity toward me, and this would allow her to enlighten me. But by letter she would only say little commonplace things.
Thursday 10 December.
Couturier lives not far from Noëllie, and as I was going there I thought I recognized the car. No. But every time I see a big dark-green Citroën with a gray roof and red and green upholstery I think it is the one I used to call our car and which is now his car because our lives are no longer one. And it torments me. Before, I used to know exactly where he was, what he was doing. Now he might be absolutely anywhere—in the very place where I saw that car, for example.
It was almost indecent to go and see Couturier, and he seemed very embarrassed when I telephoned to say I was coming. But I want to know.
“I know you are primarily Maurice’s friend,” I said when I arrived. “I have not come to ask you for information—only to give me a man’s point of view about the situation.”
He relaxed. But he told me nothing at all. Men need change more than women. Fourteen years of faithfulness is in itself uncommon. It is the usual thing to lie—one does not want to cause pain. And when a man is angry he says things he does not mean. Maurice certainly loves me still: it is possible to love two people, in different ways.…
They all explain the usual to you—that is to say, what happens to others. And I am trying to use this master key! Just as though it was not Maurice, me, and the unique aspect of our love that was in question.
How very low I must have fallen! I had a spurt of hope when I looked at a magazine and saw that as far as romance was concerned Sagittarius would win a considerable victory this week. On the other hand it depressed me when I looked into a little astrology book at Diana’s—it would seem that Sagittarius and Aries are not really made for one another. I asked Diana whether she knew Noëllie’s sign. No. She is not pleased with me since our disagreeable talk, and she took a delight in telling me that Noëllie had spoken to her about Maurice at greater length. She will never give him up, nor he her. As for me, I am an admirable woman (she is fond of that formula, it seems), but I do not value Maurice at his true worth. I found it hard to control myself when Diana repeated that piece. Has Maurice complained of me to Noëllie? “You at least, you take an interest in my career.” No, he could not have said that to her: I won’t believe it. His true worth.… Maurice’s worth does not come down to his worldly success: as he knows very well himself, what he appreciates in people is something quite different. Or am I mistaken about him? Has he a trifling, social side that comes into flower when he is with Noëllie? I forced myself to laugh. And then I said that after all I should still like to understand what men see in Noëllie. Diana gave me an idea—have our three handwritings analyzed. She told me an address and gave me one of Noëllie’s letters—nothing in it. I went to find one of Maurice’s recent letters, wrote the graphologist a note in which I asked for a quick reply, and went and left the lot with the concierge.
Saturday 12.
I am taken aback by the graphologist’s analyses. The most interesting hand, according to him, is Maurice’s—great intelligence, wide culture, capacity for work, tenacity, deep sensitivity, a mixture of pride and lack of self-confidence, on the surface very open but fundamentally reticent (I summarize). As for me, he finds I have many qualities—poise, cheerfulness, frankness and a lively care for others; he also mentions a kind of emotional demandingness that might make me rather wearisome to those around me. That agrees with what Maurice reproaches me for—that I am encroaching and possessive. I know perfectly well that there is that tendency in me: but I have fought against it so strongly! I tried so hard to leave Colette and Lucienne free, not to overwhelm them with questions, to respect their privacy. And with Maurice how often have I not choked back my anxiety, bottled up my impulses, avoided going into his study in spite of my longing, and prevented myself from gazing lovingly at him while he read at my side! For them I wanted to be both present and unobtrusive: have I failed? Graphology shows tendencies rather than actual behavior. And Maurice went for me when he was in a rage. Their verdict leaves me still wondering. In any case, even if I am rather overzealous, overdemonstrative, overattentive—in short, rather a nuisance—that is not an adequate reason for liking Noëllie more than me.
As for her, although her portrait is more sharply distinguished than mine and contains more faults, it seems to me, all things considered, more flattering. She is ambitious; she likes display, but she has a delicate sensitivity and a great deal of energy; she is generous and she has a very lively intelligence. I don’t claim to be anything extraordinary, but Noëllie is so superficial that she cannot possibly be my superior, not even in intelligence. I shall have to get another expert opinion. In any case graphology is not an exact science.
I am torturing myself. What is the general opinion of me? Quite objectively, who am I? Am I less intelligent than I suppose? As for that, it is the kind of question it is no use asking anybody: no one would like to reply that I was a fool. And how can one tell? Everybody thinks he is intelligent, even the people I find stupid. That is why a woman is always more affected by compliments about her looks than by those about her mind—for she has inner certainties about her mind, those which everybody has and which therefore prove nothing. To know your limits you have to be able to go beyond them: in other words, you have to be able to jump right over your own shadow. I always understand what I hear and what I read: but perhaps I grasp it all too quickly, for want of being able to understand the full wealth and complexity of an idea. Is it my shortcomings that prevent me from seeing Noëllie’s superiority?
Saturday evening.
Is this the good fortune Sagittarius was promised this week? On the telephone Diana told me a piece of news that may be of decisive importance: it seems that Noëllie goes to bed with Jacques Vallin, the publisher. It was Mme. Vallin herself who told a friend of Diana’s—she happened to find some letters and she hates Noëllie. How to let Maurice know? He is so certain of Noëllie’s love that he would be knocked all to a heap. Only he would not believe me. I should have to have proof. But I can’t very well go and see Mme. Vallin, whom I don’t know, and ask her for the letters. Vallin is very wealthy. Of the two, Maurice and Vallin, he is the one Noëllie would choose if he were to agree to divorce. What a schemer! If only I could have any respect for her I should suffer less. (I know. Another woman, talking to herself about her rival, is saying, “If only I could despise her I should suffer less.” Besides, I myself have thought, I have too low an opinion of her to suffer.)
Sunday 13.
I showed Isabelle the graphologist’s replies: she did not look convinced—she does not believe in graphology. Yet, as I pointed out to her, the emotional demandingness shown in the analysis chimes in with the unkind things Maurice said the other day. And I know that in fact I do expect a lot from people: maybe I ask them too much.
“Obviously. Since you live very much for others, you also live a great deal through them,” she said. “But that’s what love and friendship is—a kind of symbiosis.”
“But for someone who doesn’t want the symbiosis, am I a bore?”
“When you like them and they don’t like you, you bore people. It depends on situation, not on character.”
I begged her to make an effort and to t
ell me what kind of a person she saw me as—what she thought of me. She smiled. “In fact I don’t see you at all; you are my friend: and that’s that.”
She maintained that when there is nothing at stake one either likes being with people or one does not like being with them; but one does not see them as being this or that. She likes being with me, that’s all.
“Candidly, quite candidily now, do you think me intelligent?”
“Of course. Except when you ask me that. If we are both of us half-wits each will think the other very bright—what does that prove?”
She told me again that in this business my virtues and faults are not in question—it is novelty that is attracting Maurice. Eighteen months: that’s still novelty.
Monday 14.
The hideous fall into the abyss of sadness. From the very fact of being sad one no longer has the least wish to do anything cheerful. Now I never put on a record when I wake up. I never listen to music anymore, never go to the cinema, never buy myself anything pleasant. I got up when I heard Mme. Dormoy come in. I drank my tea and ate a piece of toast to please her. And I look forward over this day, still another day that I must get through. And I say to myself.…
A ring at the bell. A delivery boy put a great bunch of lilacs and roses into my arms with a note saying: Happy birthday. Maurice. As soon as the door was shut I burst into tears. I defend myself with restless activity, horrid plans and hatred; and these flowers, this reminder of lost, hopelessly lost, happiness, knocked all my defenses to the ground.
Toward one o’clock the key turned in the lock and there was that horrible taste in my mouth—the taste of dread. (The same, exactly, as when I used to go to see my father dying in the nursing home.) That presence, as familiar to me as my own reflection, my reason for living, my delight, is now this stranger, this judge, this enemy: my heart beats high with fear when he opens the door. He came quickly over to me, smiling as he took me in his arms. “Happy birthday, darling.”
Gently I wept on his shoulder. He stroked my hair. “Don’t cry. I can’t bear it when you’re unhappy. I’m so very fond of you.”
“You told me that for the past eight years you had no longer loved me.”
“Oh, stuff. I told you afterwards it wasn’t true. I am fond of you.”
“But you’re not in love with me anymore?”
“There are so many kinds of love.”
We sat down; we talked. I talked to him as I might have talked to Isabelle or Marie Lambert, full of trust and friendliness, quite detachedly—as if it were not a question of ourselves at all. It was a problem that we were discussing, objectively, impersonally, just as we have discussed so many others. Once again I said how surprising his eight years’ silence was. Again he said, “You used to say you would die of grief.”
“You made me say it. The notion of unfaithfulness seemed to torment you so.…”
“It did torment me. That was why I remained silent—so that everything should be as though I were not deceiving you.… There was magic in it.… And of course I was ashamed, too.…”
I said that above all I should like to know why he had told me this year. He admitted that it was partially because his relationship with Noëllie called for it; but also, he said, he thought I had a right to the truth.
“But you didn’t tell me the truth.”
“Out of shame at having lied.”
He wrapped me in that dark, warm gaze that seems to open him to me to the very bottom of his heart—delivered up wholly and entirely, as it were, innocent and loving, as he used to be.
“The worst thing you did,” I said, “was to let me lull myself in a sense of false security. Here I am at forty-four, empty-handed, with no occupation, no other interest in life apart from you. If you had warned me eight years ago I should have made an independent existence for myself and now it would be easier for me to accept the situation.”
“But, Monique!” he cried, looking astonished. “I urged you as strongly as I possibly could to take that job as secretary of the Revue médicale seven years ago. It was right up your street and you could have reached a worthwhile position. You wouldn’t!”
The suggestion had seemed to me so untimely that I had almost entirely forgotten it. “I couldn’t see any point in spending the day away from the house and the children just for a hundred thousand francs a month,” I said.
“That was your answer then. I pressed you very hard.”
“If you had told me your real reasons—if you had told me I no longer meant everything to you and that I too should stand off a little myself, I should have accepted it.”
“I suggested your getting a job again when we were at Mougins. And again you refused.”
“At that time your love was enough for me.”
“It is not too late,” he said. “I can easily find you something to do.”
“Do you suppose that that would console me? Eight years ago I might have thought it less ludicrous—I should have had more chance of getting somewhere. But now.…”
We marked time for a great while over this. I feel no doubt that it would soothe his conscience if he got me something to do. I have not the least wish to soothe it.
I went back to our conversation of December 1—a date to remember. Did he really consider me selfish, domineering, encroaching? “Even though you were in a rage, you didn’t make that up entirely, did you?”
He hesitated, smiled, explained. I have the defects of my qualities. I am quick-witted and attentive, which is extremely valuable; but sometimes, when one is ill-tempered, it is wearing. I am so faithful to the past that the least forgetfulness seems a crime and one has a feeling of guilt if one changes a taste or an opinion. All right. But had he any grudges against me? He resented my conduct ten years ago, as I knew very well, for we had quarreled about it often enough; but all that is over and done with because he did what he wanted to do and in the long run I have admitted that he was right. As for our marriage, did he think I had forced his hand? Not at all: we had made the decision together.…
“What about your reproach the other day that I did not take an interest in your work?”
“I do rather regret it, that’s true; but I should think it even more regrettable if you were to force yourself to take an interest in it just to please me.”
His voice was so encouraging that I asked the question that harasses me most. “You are against me because of Colette and Lucienne? They are a disappointment to you and you hold me responsible?”
“What right have I to be disappointed? And what right would I have to hold it against you?”
“Then why did you speak to me with such hatred?”
“Oh, the position is not very easy for me, either! I grow angry with myself, and that very unfairly turns against you.”
“Still, you don’t love me as you did before; you’re fond of me, yes; but it’s no longer love as we knew it in our twenties.”
“It’s no longer the love of our twenties for you, either. When I was twenty I was in love with love at the same time that I was in love with you. I have lost the whole of that glowing, enthusiastic side of myself: that is what has changed.”
It was delightful talking with him, like two friends, as we used to do. Difficulties grew smaller; questions wafted away like smoke; events faded; true and false merged in a iridescence of converging shades. Fundamentally, nothing had happened. I ended up by believing that Noëllie did not exist.… Illusion: sleight of hand. In fact this comfortable talk has not changed anything in the very least. Things have been given other names: they have not altered in any way. I have learned nothing. The past remains as obscure as ever. The future as uncertain.
Tuesday 15.
Yesterday evening I wanted to return to that afternoon’s disappointing conversation. But Maurice had work to do after dinner, and when he finished he wanted to go to bed.
“We talked quite enough this afternoon. There is nothing to add. I must get up early tomorrow.”
“We didn’t
really say anything, when you come to look into it.”
He put on a look of resignation. “What more do you want me to say?”
“Well, there is after all something that I should like to know. How do you envisage our future?”
He was silent. I had driven him into a corner. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to give up Noëllie, either. As for everything else, I just don’t know where I am.…”
“She puts up with this double life?”
“She is obliged to.”
“Yes: like me. And when I think that at the Club 46 you dared tell me that there was nothing changed between us!”
“I never said that.”
“We were dancing, and you said to me, ‘Nothing is changed.’ And I believed you!”
“Monique, it was you who said to me, ‘All that matters is that there is nothing changed between us.’ I did not contradict you: I remained silent. At that particular moment it was impossible to go into things thoroughly.”
The Woman Destroyed Page 17
