The Praetorians by Jean Lartéguy Page B

essential rules. But none of it really interests her. I’m thirty-seven and I’ve lost my friends. . . .”
    He dismissed this temptation, which had been as faint as a whiff of citronella. By the time they had reached the torrent it had vanished.
    Philippe believed himself to be devoted to Passionarias, like Isabelle Pélissier, who try to drag a man into their conflicts and require him to espouse their cause whole-heartedly, or to shameless hussies like Mina who have to be tamed like wild mares.
    He did not realize that in order to please him his mistresses often deliberately assumed the very character he fancied he saw in them.
    Thus it was that Mina had become shameless while dreaming of a very conventional relationship, of marriage even. Souen, of course, was outside these categories. But Dia, with good reason, had told him:
    â€œYou’re not the one Souen loved, you had nothing to do with it; it was an idea of love that she had fashioned for herself. It was like Lescure’s flute: a solitary, pure little melody, outside time, country, religion, politics and sex. Love isn’t like that. Love has a smell, the smell of a couple’s sweat and of their pleasure. It is made up of the tussle between man and woman—an endless, cruel tussle, because each wants to impose his dream on the other and to destroy the dream that is not his own.”
    Irène could be a friend, a companion, even an accomplice. But then what good would it do him to make her his wife or his mistress? Mina would be down on the coast in three days’ time, and with her he would once more find that violent pleasure, that irritation, that sense of remorse that comes from making love without loving.
    Irène appeared on a rock, stark naked, her breasts and stomach as bronzed as the rest of her body. “So she never wears a bathing-dress?” But she had already dived into the water with its green reflections.
    She came out at once and sat down beside him, draped in a towel.
    â€œPhilippe, you mustn’t bathe with that wound of yours, the water’s much too cold. It took my breath away.”
    She leant her damp face and short curly hair towards him. In her pale, almost yellow eyes there were flashes of gold. She had a long neck, slender arms, but a firm well-developed bosom.
    He stroked her hair; she laid her head on his shoulder and asked him for a cigarette.
    Â * * * * 
    Since he came out of hospital Philippe had not been near a woman. His blood was on fire and he interpreted Irène’s friendly gesture as a sign of consent. He stroked her back and was surprised at the silky softness of her skin. Pressed close to him, she amused herself by purring like a kitten. All of a sudden he tore off her towel and pinned her against the rock. Irène tried tofight back, but when she felt the major’s strong body against hers, his mouth biting into hers, she abandoned the struggle and surrendered.
    The water roared beside her, the water roared all round her. Above her were patches of sky and foliage, and this contorted male face, these hard thighs pressed against hers, this smell of sweat and aromatic plants, of love, stone and damp moss.
    Her body was invaded by pleasure; she writhed and the stone bruised her back, while the sky grew dark and the roar of the Siagne swelled to become as loud as the roar of a train racing over a bridge. She gave a sharp cry.
    But already he had escaped her and had collapsed by her side. After a moment she pushed him gently with the toe of her foot towards the water. He let himself slide into the foaming current and came back to join her, then they dried themselves in the sun, rubbing each other down with the towel.
    â€œI suppose,” said Irène, “that, like me, you don’t attach much importance to what has just happened: ‘the exchange of two desires, the contact of two skins,’ with, in addition, a little friendship on your part, a