When I Was Old
Page 35
You have been good, my D. Courageous.
And never for a moment have you lost your sweetness. I’ve seen adorable, touching sides of your nature that I don’t believe I’ve appreciated before.
It’s not a new life we’re about to begin, of course, since all that has gone before has been good too, seventeen years, almost eighteen of happiness.
But we’ll fit together better than ever, more warmly, in every curve and corner? Come quickly! I am greedy for you, in every sense. You caught me off guard this morning on the telephone, and I told you the truth about what I was doing, but I won’t show you these lines until you return.
It has been hard, very hard, the hardest test of my life. But I know it was worth it, that it is worth it, and that our life together will be fuller than ever.
Soon, then, my D. Soon, dear girl whom I love and whom I keep lovingly and passionately within me.
End of the Third Notebook
* At the time of writing, Simenon lived in the Château of Echandens, near Lausanne.
* A famous restaurant on the Ile de la Cité, on the Seine.
* Translator’s note: in French, ‘La Faim du Monde’, ‘World Hunger’, sounds like ‘La Fin du Monde’, ‘The End of the World’.
* Translator’s note: Simenon’s grandfather’s name was Christian, while the French word meaning Christian is Chrétien.
* I hope it will be understood that this sentence is ironic and that I am mocking myself when I speak of a microscope.
* The sensational trial for murder of a distinguished Geneva lawyer, Pierre Jaccoud.
* In my schedule I forgot an appendectomy, about the month of August, I think. And it was after that that I went to Versailles to convalesce.
* The truth is I’ve only sold books at the beginning of my Paris career, most of them first editions found in bookstalls during my adolescence. Afterwards, I gave them away or even threw them away (these weren’t first editions any more!). They were replaced by others, then by others, and now there are only books I keep for my children.
* A sanatorium.
* This is obviously because each one is trying, unconsciously, to survive himself …
* Into a dictaphone, as she always does in the absence of secretaries.
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