For Mattlin the solution lay in numbers: by increasing the aggregate of women he slept with he felt he could eliminate the potential sources of frustration. For Hartmann the answer always seemed to lie in the next encounter. He did not accumulate in the same way as Mattlin but saw each lover as potentially definitive. The next woman, he was sure, would prove so complete, so satisfying, that she would at last extinguish the tormenting itch that made it hard to concentrate for so much of the working day. Mattlin valued the difference in each woman he made love to because, by isolating each new trait, he hoped to inoculate himself against the frustration it might otherwise have caused; Hartmann found in individual differences only varying and sometimes tantalising degrees of incompleteness.
The insoluble nature of his dilemma had been one of the factors that had reconciled Hartmann to marrying Christine. He knew he would never find a woman to end all desire, but there was much in his relationship with Christine, leaving aside the problem of her pregnancy, which disposed him to think they might be happy. There had been various outcomes and problems in his dealings with women, but the presence of sexual desire was something he had always taken as axiomatic. Yet now, with Christine, it had gone. Where once this feeling had been the most dependable presence in his life, now there was nothing.
Hartmann got up from the desk and turned out the lights. He went through to the hall, pulled the bolt across the front door and climbed the stairs to bed. Christine was still awake and smiled to him as he came in. He stood barefoot on the boards and gazed out across the lake to the swell of the woods on the other side. He was conscious of deferring an action, and knew that Christine would be aware of it too. When he climbed into bed he saw that she was naked – a sight which on countless previous occasions had caused a simple response in him. When he looked at her now, he felt something not unlike compassion. He saw her legs and arms, her heavy breasts and her face, eager and friendly, and he thought of all the difficulties of her life and of the way she had overcome them.
It occurred to him that really this was the normal way to view a naked woman. It was the way one would look upon a mother or a sister, or a work of art: with affection, with understanding, with an appreciation, even, of their elegance, but not through the filter of desire. It seemed that the way in which he had previously seen women was false. Here was this aggregation of flesh and skin and hair, not repulsive, but merely human, like his own body. No doubt its owner could view it with detachment, wishing it were different in some respects, but also with kindliness and respect. Why, then, shouldn’t he also see it in this way? Was this not the most civilised approach? It was not absence of sexual desire that was strange, he thought; on the contrary, the strangeness was in the leap of imagination and sustained belief, against all the evidence, that allowed men to see women through a veil of make-believe allure.
Christine wanted him to make love to her, and he felt baffled by his disinclination. It was as though he had cut himself and not bled, or opened his eyes and not seen. In his mind he thought of all the other women he knew, and in this mood he viewed them all in the same way. None was arousing. It didn’t occur to him to think of Anne or of what he had felt so strongly in the attic only a few days earlier.
3
T HE NEXT DAY Hartmann had a letter from Etienne Beauvais, a former colleague in Paris he had not seen for some years. Etienne had married and moved with his wife to a house near where her family had a large farm. He invited Hartmann to come for a weekend of shooting and ‘other country pursuits’. He concluded: ‘Bring yourself a companion. All is discretion here! Do come, Charles; it will be a jolly party and we haven’t seen you for a long time.’ Such
The insoluble nature of his dilemma had been one of the factors that had reconciled Hartmann to marrying Christine. He knew he would never find a woman to end all desire, but there was much in his relationship with Christine, leaving aside the problem of her pregnancy, which disposed him to think they might be happy. There had been various outcomes and problems in his dealings with women, but the presence of sexual desire was something he had always taken as axiomatic. Yet now, with Christine, it had gone. Where once this feeling had been the most dependable presence in his life, now there was nothing.
Hartmann got up from the desk and turned out the lights. He went through to the hall, pulled the bolt across the front door and climbed the stairs to bed. Christine was still awake and smiled to him as he came in. He stood barefoot on the boards and gazed out across the lake to the swell of the woods on the other side. He was conscious of deferring an action, and knew that Christine would be aware of it too. When he climbed into bed he saw that she was naked – a sight which on countless previous occasions had caused a simple response in him. When he looked at her now, he felt something not unlike compassion. He saw her legs and arms, her heavy breasts and her face, eager and friendly, and he thought of all the difficulties of her life and of the way she had overcome them.
It occurred to him that really this was the normal way to view a naked woman. It was the way one would look upon a mother or a sister, or a work of art: with affection, with understanding, with an appreciation, even, of their elegance, but not through the filter of desire. It seemed that the way in which he had previously seen women was false. Here was this aggregation of flesh and skin and hair, not repulsive, but merely human, like his own body. No doubt its owner could view it with detachment, wishing it were different in some respects, but also with kindliness and respect. Why, then, shouldn’t he also see it in this way? Was this not the most civilised approach? It was not absence of sexual desire that was strange, he thought; on the contrary, the strangeness was in the leap of imagination and sustained belief, against all the evidence, that allowed men to see women through a veil of make-believe allure.
Christine wanted him to make love to her, and he felt baffled by his disinclination. It was as though he had cut himself and not bled, or opened his eyes and not seen. In his mind he thought of all the other women he knew, and in this mood he viewed them all in the same way. None was arousing. It didn’t occur to him to think of Anne or of what he had felt so strongly in the attic only a few days earlier.
3
T HE NEXT DAY Hartmann had a letter from Etienne Beauvais, a former colleague in Paris he had not seen for some years. Etienne had married and moved with his wife to a house near where her family had a large farm. He invited Hartmann to come for a weekend of shooting and ‘other country pursuits’. He concluded: ‘Bring yourself a companion. All is discretion here! Do come, Charles; it will be a jolly party and we haven’t seen you for a long time.’ Such
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