The Woman Destroyed Read Online Free Page B

bourgeois, stinking with money, seem to me even more loathsome than the fashionable, shallow world I revolted against as a girl.
    We remained silent for a while. Outside the window the neon advertisement flicked from red to green: the great wall’s eyes blazed. A lovely night. I would have gone out with Philippe for a last drink on the terrace of a café…. No point in asking André whether he would like to come for a stroll; he was obviously half asleep already. I said, “I wonder why Philippe married her.”
    “Oh, from outside, you know, there is never any understanding these things.” He answered in an offhand tone. His face had collapsed: he was pressing a finger into his cheek at the level of his gum—a nervous habit he caught some time ago.
    “Have you got toothache?”
    “No.”
    “Then why are you messing about with your gum?”
    “I’m making sure it doesn’t hurt.”
    Last year he used to take his pulse every ten minutes. It is true his blood pressure was a little high, but a course of treatment steadied it at seventeen, which is perfect for our age. He kept his fingers pressed against his cheek; his eyes were vacant; he was playing at being an old man, and he would end by persuading me that he was one. For a horrified moment I thought,
Philippe has gone, and I am to spend the rest of my life with an old man!
I felt like shouting, “Stop. I can’t bear it.” As though he had heard me, he smiled, became himself again, and we went to bed.
    He is still asleep. I shall go and wake him up: we will drink piping hot, very strong China tea. But this morning is not like yesterday. I must learn that I have lost Philippe—learn it all over again. I ought to have known it. He left me the moment he told me about his marriage: he left me at the moment of his birth—a nurse could have taken my place. What had I imagined? Because he was very demanding I believed I was indispensable. Because he is easily influenced I imagined I had created him in my own image. This year, when I saw him with Irène or his in-laws, so unlike the person he is with me, I thought he was falling in with a game: I was the one who knew the real Philippe. And he has preferred to go away from me, to break our secret alliance, to throw away the life I had built for him with such pains. He will turn into a stranger. Come! André often accuses me of blind optimism: maybe I am harrowing myself over nothing. After all, I do not really think that there is no salvation outside the world of the university, nor that writing a thesis is a categorical imperative. Philippesaid he would only take a worthwhile job.… But I have no confidence in the jobs Irène’s father can offer him. I have no confidence in Philippe. He has often hidden things from me, or lied: I know his faults and I am resigned to them—and indeed they move me as a physical ugliness might. But this time I am indignant because he did not tell me about his plans as they were forming. Indignant and worried. Up until now, whenever he hurt me he always knew how to make it up to me afterward: I am not so sure that this time he can manage it.
    Why was André late? I had worked for four hours without a pause; my head was heavy and I lay down on the divan. Three days, and Philippe had not given any signs of life: that was not his way, and I was all the more surprised by his silence since whenever he is afraid he has hurt me he keeps telephoning and sending little notes. I could not understand; my heart was heavy, and my sadness spread and spread, darkening the world; and the world gave it back food to feed upon. André. He was growing more and more morose. Vatrin was the only friend he would still see, and yet he was cross when I asked him to lunch. “He bores me.” Everyone bores him. And what about me? A great while ago now he said to me, “So long as I have you I can never be unhappy.” And he does not look happy. He no longer loves me as he did. What does love mean to him, these days?