The Woman Destroyed (15 page)

I asked Isabelle whether she was happy. “I never ask myself, so I suppose the answer is yes.”

At all events she likes the moment of waking up. That seems to me a pretty good definition of happiness! It is the same with me: every morning, when I open my eyes, I smile.

I did so this morning. Before going to bed I took a little Nembutal and I went off right away. Maurice tells me he came back about one o’clock. I asked him no questions.

One thing that helps me is that I am not physically jealous. My body is no longer thirty: nor is Maurice’s. They come together with pleasure—not very often, to be sure—but without fire. Oh, I have no illusions. Noëllie has the attraction of novelty: Maurice grows younger in her bed. The idea leaves me unmoved. I should take offense at a woman who brought Maurice anything. But my meetings with Noëllie and what I have heard of her tell me all I need to know. She is the incarnation of everything we dislike—desire to succeed at any price, pretentiousness, love of money, a delight in display. She does not possess a single idea of her own; she is fundamentally devoid of sensitivity—she just goes along with the fashion. There is such barefacedness and exhibitionism in her capers with men that indeed I wonder whether she may not be frigid.

Thursday 30 September
.

Colette’s temperature was right down this morning; she is getting up. Maurice says it is an illness that is running about Paris—temperature, loss of weight, and then recovery. I don’t know why, but seeing her walking around that little apartment made me understand something of Maurice’s regret. She is no less intelligent than her sister: chemistry interested her, and her studies were going well; it is a pity she stopped. What is she going to do with her days? I ought to be on her side—she has chosen the same path I did. But then I had Maurice. She has Jean-Pierre, of course. It is difficult to imagine that a man one does not care for can possibly be enough to fill anyone’s life.

A long letter from Lucienne, utterly delighted with her courses and with America.

Look for a table for the sitting room. Go and see the paralyzed old woman from Bagnolet.

Why go on with this diary, since I have nothing to put in it? I started it because I was taken aback by being alone: I went on with it because I was worried, Maurice’s attitude leaving me altogether at a loss. But now that I know just where I am the worry has vanished, and I think I shall give it up.

Friday 1 October
.

I behaved badly for the first time. During breakfast Maurice told me that from now on, when he goes with Noëllie in the evening, he is going to spend the whole night at her place. It is more seemly for her, just as it is for me, he says.
“Since you acquiesce in my having this affair, let me live it decently.”

Taking into account the number of evenings he spends at the laboratory and the number of lunches he skips, he is giving Noëllie almost as much time as me. I flared up. He bewildered me with calculations. If the actual number of hours is counted, all right, he is more often with me. But during a great many of them he is working, reading periodicals—or else we are seeing friends. When he is with Noëllie he gives himself entirely up to her.

In the end I gave way. Since I have adopted an understanding, kindly attitude I must stick to it. No head-on collision with him. If I spoil his affair for him distance will make it seem charming—he will regret it. If I let him “live it decently” he will soon get tired of it. That’s what Isabelle assures me. I repeat to myself,
Patience
.

Still, I must realize that at Maurice’s age an infatuation means a good deal. At Mougins he was thinking of Noëllie, obviously. Now I understand the anxiety in his eyes at the Nice airfield—he was wondering whether I suspected anything. Or was he ashamed of having lied to me? Was it shame rather than anxiety? I can see his face once more, but I cannot make it out properly.

Saturday 2 October. Morning
.

They are in their pajamas; they are drinking coffee, smiling at one another.… There is an image that hurts me. When you hit against a stone at first you only feel the impact—the pain comes after. Now, with a week’s delay, I am beginning to suffer. Before, I was more bewildered—amazed. I rationalized, I thrust aside the pain that is pouring
over me this morning—these images. I pace up and down the flat, up and down, and at each step another strikes me. I opened his cupboard. I looked at his pajamas, shirts, drawers, vests; and I began to weep. Another woman stroking his cheek, as soft as this silk, as warmly gentle as this pullover—that I cannot bear.

I was not watchful enough. I thought Maurice was aging, that he was overworking, that I ought to adapt myself to his lack of warmth. He took to thinking of me as a sister, more or less. Noëllie awoke his desires. Whether she has any sexual appetite or not she certainly knows how to conduct herself in bed. He has rediscovered the proud delight of fully satisfying a woman. Going to bed does not mean only going to bed. Between them there is that intimacy that used to belong only to me. When they wake up does he snuggle her against his shoulder, calling her his doe, his honeymouth? Or has he invented other names that he says in the same voice? Or has he found himself another voice? He is shaving, smiling at her, with his eyes darker and more brilliant, his mouth more naked under that mask of white foam. He appeared in the doorway holding a great bunch of red roses in his arms, wrapped in cellophane: does he take her flowers?

My heart is being sawed in two with a very fine-tooth saw.

Saturday evening
.

Mme. Dormoy’s arrival jerked me out of my obsessions. We gossiped, and I gave her the things Lucienne has not taken away, for her daughter. Having had one daily woman who was half blind, another a mythomaniac who overwhelmed
me with the tale of her woes, and another mentally deficient who stole, I value this straightforward, well-balanced woman—the only one I have not taken on to do her a kindness.

I went to do the shopping. Usually I take my time strolling along this street full of smells, noises and smiles. I try to work up longings as varied as the fruits, vegetables, cheeses, pâtés and fish on the stalls. I buy the autumn itself at the flower seller’s by the armful. Today my movements were automatic. Hastily I filled my shopping basket. A feeling that I had never experienced before—other people’s cheerfulness oppressing me.

At lunchtime I said to Maurice, “Really, you know, we did not talk at all. I know nothing about Noëllie.”

“Oh, yes, you do; I told you everything of importance.”

It is true that he talked to me about her at the Club 46: I am sorry I listened so vaguely. “But after all I do not understand what seems to you so special about her: there are quantities of women just as pretty.”

He reflected. “She possesses one quality you ought to like—a way of giving herself up entirely to what she is doing.”

“She is ambitious, I know.”

“It’s something other than ambition.” He stopped, no doubt feeling awkward at praising Noëllie to me. It must be admitted that I probably did not look very encouraging.

Tuesday 5 October
.

I am spending rather too much time at Colette’s, now that she is no longer ill. In spite of her great sweetness I feel that my anxious concern is on the edge of being a nuisance.
When one has lived so much for others it is quite hard to turn oneself back again—to live for oneself. I must not plunge into the pitfall of devotion—I know very well that the words
give
and
receive
are interchangeable, and I know very well how much I needed the need my daughters had of me. On that point I have never played false. “You’re wonderful,” Maurice used to say to me—he used to say it to me so often, on one pretext or another—“because giving others pleasure is in the first place a pleasure to you.” I would laugh. “Yes, it’s a form of selfishness.” That tenderness in his eyes—“The most enchanting form there is.”

Wednesday 6 October
.

Yesterday the table I found at the flea market on Sunday was delivered, a genuine rough wood farm table, rather patched, heavy and enormous. The sitting room is even pleasanter than our bedroom. In spite of my unhappiness (cinema, Nembutal—that’s a routine I shall soon tire of), yesterday evening I was delighted with the pleasure he would have this morning. And to be sure he did congratulate me. But what of it? Ten years ago I rearranged this room when he was staying with his sick mother. I remember his face, his voice—“How splendid it will be to be happy here!” He lighted a huge wood fire. He went out to buy champagne; and he brought me back red roses then, too. This morning he looked, he said it was fine, with an air of—how shall I put it?—meaning well.

Has he really changed, then? In one way his confession had comforted me—he was having an affair: that explained everything. But would he have had an affair if he had remained the same? I had had a foreknowledge of the change,
and that was one of the hidden reasons for my resistance—you cannot transform your life without being transformed yourself. Money; belonging to a brilliant set—he has grown dulled, surfeited. When we were terribly poor, quite broke, my shifts enchanted him—“You’re wonderful!” A single flower, a fruit, a pullover I had knitted him—they were immense treasures. This sitting room that I arranged so carefully … well, it’s nothing very marvelous, compared with the Talbots’ apartment. And Noëllie’s? What is that like? More luxurious than ours, for sure.

Thursday 7 October

When all is said and done, what has it profited me, his telling me the truth? He spends whole nights with her now—it suits them splendidly. I wonder.… Oh really, it’s too obvious. He brought on my questions, provoked them. And I, poor fool, I thought he was just telling me out of fairness.…

God, how painful it is, being angry. I thought I should never get over it before he came back. In fact I have no reason for getting myself into such a state. He did not know how to set about it: he used cunning to solve his difficulties—that is not a crime.

Still, I should like to know whether he told me for my sake or for his own ease and comfort.

Saturday 9 October
.

I was pleased with myself this evening because I had spent two untroubled, easy days. I wrote another letter to the social worker M. Barron had mentioned and who had
not answered. I lighted a fine wood fire, and I began knitting myself a dress. About half past ten the telephone rang. It was Talbot asking for Maurice. I said, “He is at the laboratory. I thought that you were there too.”

Silence, then, “What I mean is.… I was supposed to go, but I have a cold. I thought Lacombe had gone home already—I’ll call him at the laboratory. Forgive me for bothering you.”

The last sentences very quick—a very brisk voice. I heard only that silence before “What I mean is.” And another silence after that one. I stayed there motionless, my eyes fixed on the telephone. Ten times over I repeated the two answers, like an old, worn-out record: “That you were there too.” … “What I mean is.…” And each time, merciless, that silence.

Sunday 10 October

He came back a little before midnight. I said to him, “Talbot called. I thought he was with you at the laboratory.”

He answered without looking at me, “He wasn’t there.”

I said, “Nor were you.”

There was a short silence. “Just so. I was at Noëllie’s. She had begged me to drop in.”

“Drop in! You stayed three hours. Do you often go and see her when you tell me you are working?”

“What do you mean? It’s the very first time,” he cried, as indignantly as if he had never told me a single falsehood.

“It’s once too many. And what’s the point of having told me the truth if you are going to go on lying?”

“You’re right. But I didn’t dare.…”

I really did react at this—all that anger choked back, all those efforts to keep up the appearance of tranquillity. “Didn’t dare? Am I a shrew, then? Show me another woman who will stand being pushed around as much as this!”

His voice turned nasty. “I did not dare because the other day you began to reckon everything up—‘so many hours for Noëllie, so many hours for me.…’ ”

“Oh, really! Really! You were the one who confused me with sums!”

He hesitated a moment and then said with a repentant air, “All right. I plead guilty. I shall never lie any more.”

I asked him why Noëllie had wanted to see him all that much.

“It’s not a very pleasant situation for her,” he replied.

Anger seized me again. “That’s the limit! She knew I existed when she went to bed with you.”

“She doesn’t forget it: indeed it is that which she finds so painful.”

“I’m in her way? She wants you all to herself?”

“She likes me.…”

Noëllie Guérard, that frigid little on-the-make climber, playing the lovelorn maiden—that was rather much to take!

“I can vanish, if that would make things easier for you two,” I said.

He laid his hand on my arm. “I beg of you, Monique, don’t take it like this.” He looked unhappy and tired, but I—I who go out of my mind if I hear him sigh—I was in no compassionate mood. I said coldly, “And how would you like me to take it?”

“Without enmity. All right, so I was wrong to begin this affair. But now it’s done I must try to manage things so as not to hurt anyone more than I can help.”

“I’m not asking you for pity.”

“It’s not a question of pity! From a completely selfish point of view, hurting you tears me to pieces. But do understand that I have to consider Noëllie too.”

I got up: I felt I was no longer in control of myself. “Let’s go to bed.”

And now, this evening, I tell myself that perhaps Maurice is in the act of repeating this conversation to Noëllie. How can it be that I had not thought of that before? They talk about themselves, and so necessarily about me. There are complicities between them, as there are between Maurice and me. It is not merely that Noëllie is a nuisance in our life: in their idyll, I am a problem and an obstacle. As she sees it, this is not just a passing thing: what she has in mind is a serious relationship with Maurice; and she is clever. My first reaction was the right one—I ought to have put a stop to it right away; to have said to Maurice, “Either her or me.” He would have been cross with me for a while, but then no doubt he would have thanked me. I had not been able to bring myself to it. My longings, wishes, interests have always been identical with his. On the few occasions when I have stood out against him it was for his own sake, for his own good. Now that I ought to rise up in direct opposition, I have not strength enough to enter into this battle. But I am not sure that my forbearance may not be a mistake. The bitterest thing about it is that Maurice scarcely seems to be grateful to me for it at all. I believe that with that splendid male illogicality he holds me responsible for the remorse he feels—holds it against me. Should I be still more understanding, more detached, more full of smiles? Oh, I can’t tell anymore. I have never hesitated so long about how I ought to behave. Yes, I have, though:
about Lucienne. But then I could ask Maurice’s advice. The most staggering thing is my loneliness now that I am confronted with him.