Four Novels by Marguerite Duras Page A

sorry to have used that expression, although I thought it would have been all right from me since my own work can hardly even be described as work. I only said that to try and make you tell me more. I wanted you to see that I found you mysterious, not that I was blaming you.”
    “I understand that and I’m sorry I took you up. I know there are people in the world who can judge what I do on its own merits and not necessarily despise it. I didn’t mind anything you said. To tell you the truth I was only half aware of what I was saying myself. I am afraid it always bores me to talk of myself in the past.”
    Again they were silent. This time the memory of winter became insistent. The sun would no longer reappear: it had reached the stage where it was hidden by the mass of the city’s buildings. The girl remained silent. The man started to talk to her again:
    “I wanted to say,” he went on, “that I would be very unhappy if you thought, even for an instant, that I was trying to influence you in any way. Even when we talked about that old woman we were, after all, only talking. . . .”
    “Please let’s not talk about that any more.”
    “All right, let’s not talk about it any more. All I meant was that by understanding people, by trying at least to put yourself in their place, by trying to determine what might make their waiting easier you make certain suppositions and hypotheses. But from there to giving advice is quite a step to take, and I regret having taken it unconsciously. . . .”
    “Please let’s not talk about me any more.”
    “All right.”
    “But I wanted to ask you something. What happened after you left that town?”
    The man was silent and the girl did not try to break his silence. Then, when she no longer seemed to expect a reply, he said:
    “I told you. I was unhappy.”
    “But how unhappy?”
    “I believe as unhappy as it is possible to be. I thought I had never been unhappy before.”
    “Did that feeling go eventually?”
    “Yes, in the end.”
    “You were never alone in that town?”
    “Never.”
    “Neither during the day nor the night?”
    “Never, not by day nor by night. It lasted eight days.”
    “And then you were alone again? Completely alone?”
    “Yes. And I have been alone ever since.”
    “I suppose it was tiredness that made you sleep all day in the wood with your suitcase beside you?”
    “No, it was unhappiness.”
    “Yes, you did say you were as unhappy as it was possible to be. Do you still believe that?”
    “Yes.”
    It was the girl’s turn to be silent.
    “Please don’t cry, I beg you,” the man said, smiling.
    “I can’t help myself.”
    “Things happen like that. Things that cannot be avoided, that no one can avoid.”
    “Oh, it is not that. Those things hold no terrors for me.”
    “You want them to?”
    “Yes, I want them.”
    “You are right, because nothing is so worth living as the things which make one so unhappy. Don’t cry.”
    “I’m not crying any more.”
    “You will see. Before the summer is out you will open that door and it will be forever.”
    “Sometimes it almost doesn’t seem to matter any more.”
    “But you will see. You will see. It will happen quite quickly.”
    “It seems to me you should have stayed in that town. You should have tried to stay by all possible means.”
    “I stayed as long as I could.”
    “No, I don’t believe you did everything. I cannot believe it.”
    “I did everything I thought could be done. Perhaps I didn’t go about it in the right way. Don’t think about it any more. You will see, before the summer is out things will have turned out all right for you.”
    “Perhaps. Who knows? Sometimes I wonder if it is all worth so much trouble?”
    “Of course it is. And after all, as you said yourself, since we are here—we didn’t ask to be but here we are—we must take the trouble. There is nothing else we can do, and you will do it. Before the summer is out you will have opened the