Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks Page B

so bad that he could no longer make love to me. He said I castrated him. Naturally this made him feel worse and worse. So he would try to make himself excited by doing... strange things."
    "What?"
    "Not, not like the things you and I... " Isabelle stopped in confusion.
    "Did he hit you?"
    "Yes. To begin with it was to try to make himself excited. I don't know why this was supposed to help. Then I think it was out of frustration and shame. But when I protested he said it was part of making love and I must submit to it if I wanted to be a good wife and to have children."
    "Does he hit you very hard?"
    "No, not very hard. He slaps me on the face and on the back. He takes a slipper sometimes and pretends I am a child. Once he wanted to hit me with a stick, but I stopped him."
    "And he has hurt you badly?"
    "No. I have occasionally had a bruise, or a red mark. It isn't the damage I mind. It's the humiliation. He makes me feel like an animal. And I feel sorry for him because he humiliates himself. He is so angry and so ashamed."
    "How long has it been since you made love?" Stephen felt the first twinge of jealous self-interest cloud his sympathy.
    "Almost a year. It is absurd that he still pretends that's why he comes to my room. We both know he comes only to hit me now, or to hurt me. But we pretend." Stephen was not surprised by what Isabelle had told him, though he was incensed at the thought of Azaire hurting her.
    "You must stop him. You must end this. You must tell him not to come to your room."
    "But I am frightened of what he would do, or what he would say. He would tell everyone that I was a bad wife, that I wouldn't sleep with him. I think he already tells stories to his friends about me."
    Stephen thought of Bérard's secret glances. He took Isabelle's hand and kissed it, then held it against his face. "I will look after you," he said.
    "Dear boy," she said. "You are so strange."
    "Strange?"
    "So serious, so... removed. And the things you make me do."
    "Do I make you do things?"
    "No, not like that. I mean, I do things of my own accord but it is only because of you. I don't know if these things are right, if they are... allowed."
    "Like downstairs?"
    "Yes. I know, of course I know, I am unfaithful, but the actual things. I've never done them before. I don't know if they are normal, if other people do them. Tell me."
    "I don't know," said Stephen.
    "You must know. You're a man, you've known other women. My sister Jeanne told me about the act of love but that's all I knew. You must understand more." Stephen was uneasy. "I've known only two or three other women. It was quite different with them. I think what we do is its own explanation."
    "I don't understand."
    "Nor do I. But I know you mustn't feel ashamed."
    Isabelle nodded, though her face showed dissatisfaction with Stephen's answer.
    "And do you?" he said. "Do you feel guilty?"
    Isabelle shook her head. "I think perhaps I should feel guilty. But I don't."
    "And do you worry about that? Do you worry that you have lost something, lost the power to feel ashamed, lost touch with the values or the upbringing that you would have expected to make you feel a sense of guilt?"
    Isabelle said, "No. I feel that what I have done, that what we are doing, is right in some way, though it is surely not the way of the Catholic church."
    "You believe there are other ways of being right or wrong?" Isabelle looked puzzled, but she was clear in her mind. "I think there must be. I don't know what they are. I don't know if they can ever be explained. Certainly they are not written down in books. But I have already gone too far now. I can't turn back."
    Stephen folded his arms around her and squeezed her. He lay back on the bed with her head resting on his chest. He felt her body go limp as the muscles decontracted into sleep. There was the sound of doves in the garden. He felt his heart beat against her shoulder. The smell of roses came faintly from her scented neck. He settled his hand in