The Misunderstanding

by Irene Nemirovsky

  Another bad night, with an almost physical sense of heaviness, there, on her chest, and those horrible, upsetting dreams in which her lover was taken far away from her, dreams that woke her in tears. She sighed. How long ago they seemed now, those glorious mornings in Hendaye, when their love was so new! She even thought affectionately back to the calm days of the past when simply the absence of pain could pass for happiness, like a continuation of the peace you feel in childhood. But now she had distanced herself – willingly or not – from her husband, her daughter, her friends … She realised in terror that, in fact, all she had in the world – in the entire world! – was Yves. Perhaps that was the reason she clutched on to him with a kind of frustrated frenzy. Love born from fear of solitude is as sad and powerful as death. Her desire for Yves, his physical presence, his words, was becoming a kind of bleak madness. When they were apart, she tortured herself wondering what he was doing, whom he was with, where he was. When she leaned back in his arms, the suffering she would feel the next day gradually ate away at her happiness like a slow poison. In her heart, even in the heat of his caresses, she thought always of how quickly time was passing, how very quickly (could this be their last time together?) … Sometimes, when the clock chimed seven, she would cling to him so tightly, pale and trembling, as if she were drowning, that it would frighten him. And when she tried to explain what she was feeling, he would sigh and say ‘my poor darling …’ and stroke her face, as if she were a sick child. But he didn’t understand a woman’s need for security, that frantic desire for his presence and the terror of losing him, as if nothing else in the world could possibly exist without him.

  Yet even those moments of sharp, intense pain were rare. Most of the time their affair – like the affairs of three-quarters of the illicit couples in Paris – was limited to brief encounters between six and seven o’clock in the evening, when Yves got off work, filled with meaningless conversation, a few frustrated embraces … Saturdays: afternoons of loving moments, of silences, the introspective, disagreeable mask of the man removed as he takes his mistress, the way you drink wine, selfishly … So little, so little … monotony, boredom, anxiety, sadness, interspersed with sharp, intense pain, and then, boredom, anxiety once more … so little, so very little joy … She lowered her head, defeated … Last summer, at the beach, Francette sometimes amused herself by plunging both hands in the sea to try to catch a bit of foam; she would press her hands tightly together and squeal with delight; then she would run over to Denise as fast as her little legs would carry her; but when she opened her hands there was nothing left but a bit of water … So she would cry, poor thing … Then she would start all over again … And that was exactly what love was like.

  It was a sun-drenched June morning. To avoid seeing the blue sky, the young trees, the light of this beautiful day that was like an insult to her misery, Denise buried her head in the warm darkness of the pillow. But a gentle tapping at the door made her start.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called out.

  The calm voice of her mother replied: ‘It’s me, my darling.’

  Denise quickly composed herself, got out of bed and rushed to open the door. Madame Franchevielle was standing in the doorway, looking bright, young, exquisitely made-up and wearing perfume.

  ‘Still in bed, you lazy girl! I’ve come to take you to lunch …’ she said with a smile.

  Denise, who was not terribly eager to face her mother’s knowing looks, mumbled: ‘I’d love to … but … I was just about to go out … and … I’m sorry, Mama …’

  She was standing in front of her mother in her pyjamas, barefoot, absent-mindedly pushing the dark strands of hair off her forehead. She was very pale and shivered slightly.

  Madame Franchevielle looked at her more closely. ‘Are you ill, Denise?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘No, I’m not … not at all …’

  Her faint voice sounded utterly exhausted.

  Madame Franchevielle took Denise’s face in her hands. ‘Denise, what’s wrong?’

  Denise shook her head, pressing her lips together so as not to cry.

  Madame Franchevielle gently stroked her hair. ‘My dear child, are you in pain?’

  No reply. Then, with deliberate harshness, she looked deep into her daughter’s eyes and asked: ‘Is Yves cheating on you?’

  Denise didn’t even protest. A sad little smile appeared on her trembling mouth. ‘You think you’re shocking me, Mama? I know that you’re very intelligent – even too intelligent! … And besides, I can’t hide much, if anything, I’m afraid …’

  ‘He’s not cheating on you?’ her mother repeated stubbornly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does he love you?’

  ‘Ah! Now there’s the question …’

  Her voice was hoarse. She made a pleading gesture.

  ‘Mama, leave me be, just leave me be, you can’t help me …’

  She had gone over to the window, turning her back on her mother, and pressed her warm mouth against the glass.

  Then two arms lovingly embraced her. ‘Denise, don’t you trust your mama any more?’

  In the past, just saying those few words and softly stroking her forehead, the way you would calm a young headstrong animal, Madame Franchevielle had always managed to soothe Denise’s childhood tantrums, just as she did later with all her adult problems. Defeated once more, Denise told her everything … Her anxieties, her inexplicable suffering and, especially, how depressed she felt for no real reason, the mysterious shadows that hovered over their love, like the wispy clouds of summer, when you’re by the sea, clouds that spread from one end of the sky to the other, as far as you can see, and that finally block out the sun …

  ‘You think he doesn’t love you?’ asked Madame Franchevielle tentatively, making sure to soften the cutting tone of her voice.

  ‘I don’t know … I’m afraid …’

  ‘But are you sure that you love him the way you should?’

  ‘What are you saying, Mama?’ Denise exclaimed forcefully, indignantly. ‘I give him everything … my whole life … all my thoughts … even more … Look, when I wake up, even before I’m completely conscious, I feel something like a shock, deep inside me … the way I felt Francette, you know, when I was pregnant with her … and it’s so painful, yet so sweet, just as it was then … It’s almost as if I’m carrying my love inside me, like a child … You can’t know what it’s like, Mama …’

  ‘I do know, my little one, I do know …’

  ‘When I’m not with him I feel dead … it can’t be called living … time drags by so slowly, pointlessly … You can’t know what it’s like …’

  ‘But I do, I know only too well …’

  ‘You do?’ Denise asked, lowering her voice, just as her mother had when she asked the question. ‘Have you … been in love, Mama? Well, then, explain it to me … why am I so unhappy? I have a handsome lover who is young and faithful, any woman’s dream really … And yet I’m suffering … Look at me. I’m uglier, I know it. Why? Is love really a sickness, or am I “inventing bogeymen” as Francette would say when she tells herself fairy tales about wicked witches, “to scare myself”?’

  Madame Franchevielle shook her head thoughtfully. ‘It seems to me that your sickness has a name: egotism …’

  ‘You mean his?’

  ‘Yours as well …’

  Denise gave a start.

  ‘Now, if you listen to me without getting annoyed, you’ll see that I’m right. Try to imagine, for example, how different your states of minds are when you meet? There’s you, who have had nothing to worry about since morning apart from choosing which dress might please him the most, and him, preoccupied, tired, bored, tense, having worked hard all day long just to make ends meet … You’re a spoiled child; do you have any idea what that must be like? And you’re surprised there are problems! Egotist … Ah! Being in love is a luxury, my darling …’

  Denise thought about this, nervously wringing her hands.

  ‘Bu
t, Mama,’ she finally said, ‘what you’re telling me I’ve often thought myself … Listen, though … My chambermaid has a lover, a mechanic. He works all day long and harder than Yves; but in the evening he goes to her room on the sixth floor and they’re happy together … And what about all the others, so many of them, all the other men! My husband, our friends, all of them! The time for the kind of heroes you find in Bourget’s novels is gone, men who collected women and ties and had nothing better to do. Nothing better to do! Bourget’s heroes would starve to death now …’

  ‘No, they would work and some of them would be very unhappy. Harteloup will never get used to getting up every day at seven-thirty, waiting for a bus at the corner, in the rain, doing calculation, economising, being told what to do … It’s not his fault. You talk about the others, your husband? Yet you’re cheating on him … Yves seems cowardly to you … Perhaps he is. But you love him.’

  Denise had stopped listening. She slowly shook her head and murmured: ‘My love should feel like a kind of luxury he’s rediscovered …’

  ‘Who knows? Perhaps that is exactly the reason why it causes him such embarrassment? Like a visitor who is over-dressed in a shabby room? And you ask such different things of love. Good Lord! Your life has always been so peaceful, so pleasant, so secure … Of course you need the excitement of love, extraordinary pleasures, new kinds of pain, and words, words, words …’

  ‘And what about him? What does he need?’

  ‘Quite simply, peace.’

  ‘Mama, what should I do?’

  ‘Ah, what should you do? Love him less, perhaps? An excess of love is a great mistake, sometimes brings great suffering … My poor child … How difficult this all seems, doesn’t it? But that’s life … You will learn from life, just the way I did … Men don’t want to be loved too much, you know … Listen, I’ll tell you what made me understand that for the first time … Your poor little brother died … Do you still remember him, Denise?’

  ‘I was so young … You loved him so much.’

  ‘I adored him, Denise, as you can only adore a son … There’s a kind of wonder at this little man you’ve made … You can’t understand. He was my firstborn, my son … he was so beautiful … I was mad about him … I spent all my time stroking him, cuddling him, smothering him with kisses … One day, he was two and a half, the poor angel – he died three months later – I was hugging him frantically, and he pushed my arms away with both tiny hands and said: “Mama, you’re loving me too much, you’re suffocating me …” He was already a man, Denise.’

  Denise said nothing. Then she gave a hard, humourless little laugh and spoke with difficulty.

  ‘Everything you’re telling me … do you know what it makes me think, Mama? The wisest thing to do would be to cheat on Yves, since I haven’t the strength to give him up, or to love him less … This love that’s suffocating him, as you put it, if I shared that love between two men, it would be just right … It’s funny, it’s monstrous, but that’s the way it is …’

  Madame Franchevielle shook her head. ‘I once knew a woman,’ she whispered, staring off into the distance, ‘a woman who loved her lover just the way you love yours: madly, like the most wretched woman imaginable … She tormented him with her embraces, her anxieties, her jealous tenderness … And since she truly gave him everything – her whole heart, her whole life – she always felt as if she got nothing in return. You know very well that when it comes to love, both people feel as if they’ve made a fool’s bargain, where the other always wins. They both forget the third player, that scoundrel: love … And so, both of them suffered … Then one day …’

  ‘One day?’

  ‘Well, one day the woman took a friend, toyed with him, to pass the time. He wasn’t her lover. The idea of being physically unfaithful was unbearable to her. He was a friend. And she played at making him fall in love with her. She’d started out half-heartedly, doing just enough to take out her anxiety on some innocent man; then, little by little, she began to enjoy it … She became beautiful again. When a woman is happily in love she looks wonderful. Her lover noticed. He let her know it. Feeling guilty, she was more indulgent towards him, then, gradually, more indifferent, while he was happier … There you have it … That’s all.’

  Denise looked up. ‘Where is this woman now, Mama?’

  ‘Oh, she’s gone, my darling, long gone …’

  ‘Is she … is she still happy?’

  ‘As much as anyone can be, at least … She had learned one of life’s lessons: give very little and expect even less in return …’

  ‘And she never misses the time when she was just an awkward young woman in love? She never regrets having suffered?’

  Madame Franchevielle looked blankly away and said nothing. Then she let out a brief sigh and hesitated for a moment. But at last she replied.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘never.’

  19

  TOWARDS THE END of June, Yves had serious problems: he got into debt and, in order to catch up a bit, he played the Stock Market, following the advice of Moses, his colleague at work. He never understood how, in the space of two weeks, the same transactions earned the young Jew several thousands of francs while he lost at least the same amount. He was forced to go to moneylenders, got into more trouble and finally ended up doing what he should have done in the beginning: he wrote to Vendômois, told him everything and begged for his help.

  These were dark days for him. Worried and harassed, he found himself in exactly the same state of mind as a sick dog who lies down in a dark corner to suffer. Sometimes he even hated being with Denise, hated her physical presence; his poor, distraught soul wanted only peace. Too proud to share his problems with her, he remained stubbornly silent. And she didn’t dare question him, for she had already learned, to her cost, that nothing in the world could force him to admit anything once he’d made up his mind not to.

  Once he even fell asleep in her arms.

  All night long he had paced back and forth in his room, trying to work out how long it would take until he finally got a reply from Finland. Moreover, the idea that Vendômois might be put in an awkward financial position because of him – might possibly go into debt himself – that idea haunted him, filled him with remorse. But what wounded his own masculine pride most deeply was to find that he was so helpless in the battle he faced every day; no matter how cowardly he thought himself, he couldn’t help turning pale or stop his teeth from chattering at the idea of what would happen if Vendômois didn’t come to his aid. Towards morning he was less agitated. Then, as the dawn light flickered outside his windows, he felt horribly depressed, as if his soul had left his body. It was a hideous sensation, similar to that flash of dizziness just before you faint … He pressed both hands against his chest; the wild beating of his heart was painful. Then he walked over to the window and opened it; the cool morning air felt good; he leaned on the sill and stayed there for a long moment without moving, without thinking. Little by little, day broke; the sky was all pink; the birds sang at the tops of their voices in the trees of a neighbouring garden. A car drove past on the deserted road and the sound of its horn echoed for a long time through the empty streets as all of Paris slept. The city was slowly coming to life.

  Yves leaned out of the window and stared blankly at the pavement below. His entire body was trembling. Just a small effort … fall … end it all … it was very simple. His thoughts were painful and hazy, as in a dream. Fragments of memories floated through his mind, old, very old memories, the kind of memories that make you wonder if you aren’t actually dreaming … The beautiful mornings of his childhood, cool mornings in unexplored towns he’d travelled through, and then the wartime mornings. It was only there that he stopped himself, stood up straight, wiped his forehead with a trembling hand. He had been a soldier. A soldier doesn’t die that way. He forced his eyes closed so he wouldn’t see the street or its pink paving stones in the early morning light and, keeping his eyes tight shut, he quickly close
d the window. The horrible moment of weakness had passed; he started to feel alive again, or rather, the habit of living took hold of him once more. He mechanically followed his normal routine: he washed, shaved, got dressed, then went out.

  It was already very hot; it was the beginning of a beautiful summer’s day; women’s faces peered over the balconies; street sellers passed by with their little carts full of flowers, shouting: ‘Roses! Who wants some beautiful roses!’; tiny fountains of water from hosepipes sprayed from one side of the pavement to the other, glistening like liquid rainbows; young children went past on their bicycles, chasing each other and singing loudly; they had wicker baskets on their backs and their smocks fluttered in the wind. Yves tried hard to notice every last detail in the street, just as a sick man desperately tries to concentrate on the countless little things in his bedroom. Gradually he felt comforted, Lord knows why! The more he breathed in the cool air of that Paris morning, still relatively clean and fresh, the more a semblance of peace returned to his heart. The horrible despair of the night before seemed out of proportion to his problems; he felt ashamed. He walked past a public garden, a patch of green with an ugly statue in the middle; it was almost empty; they had just opened the gates; he went in and sat down for a moment. A young man and woman, employees in a shop, no doubt, walked slowly down the path. The man was intently telling her something. His girlfriend listened; she had a plain face but it was lit from within by a sort of warm emotional glow. Yves thought the man must be complaining about something unfair that had happened to him, or explaining his problems; she said nothing, she couldn’t help him, but she suffered with him and, because of that, the man’s burden was lightened. ‘He’s a happy man,’ thought Yves. ‘He can put the weight of his troubles on his companion’s shoulders.’ He recalled Denise’s anxious face; he imagined confiding in her. But no. What was the point? The humble working-class man was fortunate: he simply shared both his sadness and his joy with his woman … He stood up, his face darker once more. The garden was starting to fill up with nannies and children. He realised he’d be late for work. Almost running, he headed for the nearest metro.