the year made me forget that there were ten other months, and my choice of Mandres showed me yet again just how fleeting our love was.
Often, on the pretext that I was going for walk or invited out somewhere, I didn’t have dinner at F … and would stay with Marthe.
One afternoon I found her with a young man in airman’s uniform. It was her cousin. Marthe, who I never called by the familiar
‘tu’
, got up and kissed me on the neck. Her cousin smiled at my discomfiture. “There’s nothing to worry about with Paul, my love,” she said. “I’ve toldhim everything.” I was embarrassed, and yet enchanted to think that Marthe had told her cousin all about her love for me. The young man, who was charming and shallow, and whose sole concern was making sure his uniform didn’t conform to regulations, seemed delighted at our affair. To him it was a great practical joke on Jacques, whom he despised for not being an airman or a barfly.
Paul reminded her about the childhood games that the garden here had witnessed. I was burning with questions, because what they were talking about showed me Marthe in a new light. Yet at the same time it saddened me. I was too close to my own childhood to have forgotten the games that are unknown to our parents; adults either can’t remember such games, or view them as an unavoidable evil. I was jealous of Marthe’s past.
When, laughing, we told Paul about the spiteful landlord and the Marin’s grand reception, in a moment of drollery he offered us his bachelor apartment in Paris.
I noticed that Marthe didn’t dare tell him that we were planning to live together. I had the feeling that although he encouraged our relationship as a form of amusement, if there were to be a scandal, he would just follow the crowd.
Marthe got up from the table and served dinner. The servants had gone to the country with Madame Grangier, because Marthe, discreet as ever, insisted that she preferred living
à la
Robinson Crusoe. Believing their daughter to be a romantic, and that you should no more argue with a romantic than you should with a lunatic, her parents left her to herself.
We lingered over dinner. Paul fetched the best vintagesfrom the cellar. We were in high spirits, something we would probably regret, for in a sense Paul was party to our adultery. He sneered at Jacques. By keeping quiet there was a danger that I might make him see how tactlessly he was behaving; so I thought it best to join in the game rather than humiliate this glib cousin of hers.
By the time we noticed how late it was, the last train to Paris had already gone. Marthe offered Paul a bed for the night. He accepted. I gave her such a look that she added: “And you’re staying too, my love, naturally.” It made me feel as if I was in my own house, married to Marthe, and that one of my wife’s cousins had come to stay, when, outside our bedroom door, Paul said goodnight to us and kissed his cousin on both cheeks in the most natural way possible.
XXV
WHEN THE END OF SEPTEMBER CAME, I SENSED that to leave this house was to leave happiness behind. Just a few months’ grace, then we would have to choose between living a lie or living with the truth, unable to relax wherever we were. Since the important thing was that Marthe’s parents didn’t abandon her before our child was born, I eventually dared ask if she had told Madame Grangier that she was pregnant. She said yes, and that she had also told Jacques. So I couldn’t help noting that she sometimes lied to me, because in May, after Jacques had been staying, she had promised that he hadn’t had any contact with her.
XXVI
IT WAS GETTING DARK EARLIER AND EARLIER now; the evenings were too chilly to go for a walk. It was difficult for us to meet at J.… In order not to cause a scandal we had to behave like burglars, keep a lookout in the street to make sure the Marins and the landlord were not at home.
The melancholy of that October, its chilly nights, although not
Often, on the pretext that I was going for walk or invited out somewhere, I didn’t have dinner at F … and would stay with Marthe.
One afternoon I found her with a young man in airman’s uniform. It was her cousin. Marthe, who I never called by the familiar
‘tu’
, got up and kissed me on the neck. Her cousin smiled at my discomfiture. “There’s nothing to worry about with Paul, my love,” she said. “I’ve toldhim everything.” I was embarrassed, and yet enchanted to think that Marthe had told her cousin all about her love for me. The young man, who was charming and shallow, and whose sole concern was making sure his uniform didn’t conform to regulations, seemed delighted at our affair. To him it was a great practical joke on Jacques, whom he despised for not being an airman or a barfly.
Paul reminded her about the childhood games that the garden here had witnessed. I was burning with questions, because what they were talking about showed me Marthe in a new light. Yet at the same time it saddened me. I was too close to my own childhood to have forgotten the games that are unknown to our parents; adults either can’t remember such games, or view them as an unavoidable evil. I was jealous of Marthe’s past.
When, laughing, we told Paul about the spiteful landlord and the Marin’s grand reception, in a moment of drollery he offered us his bachelor apartment in Paris.
I noticed that Marthe didn’t dare tell him that we were planning to live together. I had the feeling that although he encouraged our relationship as a form of amusement, if there were to be a scandal, he would just follow the crowd.
Marthe got up from the table and served dinner. The servants had gone to the country with Madame Grangier, because Marthe, discreet as ever, insisted that she preferred living
à la
Robinson Crusoe. Believing their daughter to be a romantic, and that you should no more argue with a romantic than you should with a lunatic, her parents left her to herself.
We lingered over dinner. Paul fetched the best vintagesfrom the cellar. We were in high spirits, something we would probably regret, for in a sense Paul was party to our adultery. He sneered at Jacques. By keeping quiet there was a danger that I might make him see how tactlessly he was behaving; so I thought it best to join in the game rather than humiliate this glib cousin of hers.
By the time we noticed how late it was, the last train to Paris had already gone. Marthe offered Paul a bed for the night. He accepted. I gave her such a look that she added: “And you’re staying too, my love, naturally.” It made me feel as if I was in my own house, married to Marthe, and that one of my wife’s cousins had come to stay, when, outside our bedroom door, Paul said goodnight to us and kissed his cousin on both cheeks in the most natural way possible.
XXV
WHEN THE END OF SEPTEMBER CAME, I SENSED that to leave this house was to leave happiness behind. Just a few months’ grace, then we would have to choose between living a lie or living with the truth, unable to relax wherever we were. Since the important thing was that Marthe’s parents didn’t abandon her before our child was born, I eventually dared ask if she had told Madame Grangier that she was pregnant. She said yes, and that she had also told Jacques. So I couldn’t help noting that she sometimes lied to me, because in May, after Jacques had been staying, she had promised that he hadn’t had any contact with her.
XXVI
IT WAS GETTING DARK EARLIER AND EARLIER now; the evenings were too chilly to go for a walk. It was difficult for us to meet at J.… In order not to cause a scandal we had to behave like burglars, keep a lookout in the street to make sure the Marins and the landlord were not at home.
The melancholy of that October, its chilly nights, although not
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