That evening, around seven o’clock, Denise came to see Yves. He opened the door for her, as usual; she was shocked by the way he looked: he seemed thinner, gaunt, with ashen cheeks; his eyes were red and swollen from not sleeping and looked as if they were burning. She quickly took his hand: ‘What’s wrong … my darling?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ he said, shaking his head and forcing a smile.
She made an impatient gesture, then composed herself. How resolutely he kept her out of his life … Perhaps he was cheating on her after all? Did he really have so many problems? Was he simply in a bad mood, as he so often was? How could she tell? Did she really know him? ‘Can anyone really know anyone else?’ she thought despondently.
They had gone into Yves’s bedroom. She automatically walked over to the round mirror hanging on the wall in its antique wood gilt frame, where she had taken off her hat and later put it back on again so many times since last autumn. She looked at her serious face, then started to smooth down her boyish hair with the gentle movement of a cat washing itself, as Yves had once described it. Meanwhile Yves had sat down in a large armchair that faced the window. When Denise turned round she saw him sitting there, motionless, eyes closed. She quietly took a cushion and sat down at her lover’s feet. Yves’s hand was resting on his knee. Denise pressed her cheek against it, then her lips. But Yves didn’t say a word, didn’t move: he was asleep.
Denise looked at him, dumbstruck, vaguely wondering if it was some game; then she rested her head against the arm of the chair and stared out of the window, patiently waiting for Yves to open his eyes. Outside, night was falling, a wonderfully sweet June evening. Denise looked up, trying to see the watery green crescent moon that was beginning to take shape, like a silvery sign against the pale sky. A delicate pink haze blurred the clear night air; it grew imperceptibly darker; night fell, transparent as dusk.
‘Yves,’ Denise whispered.
The room grew dark; Yves’s face, tilted backwards in the shadows, took on the peaceful seriousness of the dead. Without knowing why, Denise was afraid. She pulled herself up on to her knees to see him better. He was fast asleep. She straightened up so she was at the same level as he was, then studied him closely once more. There was something tense, mistrustful about the way he slept. So many times, after they’d made love, she had watched him sleep, and always she had the same painful, maddening impression that he was a mystery to her. And never as much as today. She leaned forward so she was nearly touching him; she had to resist the cruel, childish desire to force open his sleepy eyelids so she might catch hold of the end of his dream; but his eyes remained stubbornly closed, the lids dark from lack of sleep; and then he began to breathe heavily, the way you do in the middle of a nightmare.
She gently shook him. He shuddered violently and looked at her with an anguished, lost expression; the window cast a wide, milky patch through the dark room.
‘Is it very late?’ he asked in a muffled tone of voice.
He saw Denise frowning as she stared at him. He tried to smile and made an effort to stroke her hair. As often happens if you fall asleep during the day, he felt worn out, crushingly tired. He couldn’t think straight: it was as if part of him were still asleep …
Then Denise lowered her eyes and spoke very quickly: ‘Listen, listen to me, Yves … I can’t do this any more … I don’t want to do this any more … Why did you fall asleep? You didn’t sleep last night, did you? Where were you? Tell me … I’d rather know … Is there someone else? No, don’t laugh. How am I supposed to know? Maybe you’re in love with a woman who wants nothing to do with you? Perhaps you’re suffering because of another woman? Yves, take pity on me … I’m begging you, begging you … take pity on me …’
Yves shrugged his shoulders. This really was too much.
‘I swear that it’s not what you think, my poor darling,’ he said softly, in the measured, overly calm tone of voice you use when talking to sick children.
‘Well, then, are you worried about money?’ she asked brusquely.
He was about to say ‘yes’ but then … he noticed the string of pearls she was wearing. He knew her very well; she would hand him the pearls and say ‘Take them’, or some other sweet, mad thing like that. And, to tell the truth, it was really quite simple. She had ten times the money to save him, ten times … He bit his lip so hard that it bled; he knew why he said nothing; he knew very well why. Oh! If only she were as poor as he was! But deep inside lurked the vague fear that he wouldn’t have the strength to push away her outstretched hand, her necklace, her money, her charity …
He shook his head again. ‘No.’
‘So I can’t help you?’ asked Denise with a kind of despair.
‘No,’ he said again, quietly, showing no emotion in his voice.
Then, suddenly, he placed a tentative hand on Denise’s hair and stroked it gently, for a long time.
‘Denise, do you really want to help me? Then listen. I need to be alone. What can I say? It’s not my fault … When I’m in pain I need to suffer alone, absolutely alone, like a dog. It helps me … I don’t want to see you suffering because of me, because of my problems that are neither as serious nor as terrible as you may think. No, really! They’ll get resolved and very soon. All I’m asking you for is a few days, just a few days … But I must be alone, Denise, completely alone … Take pity on me … Otherwise I’ll go mad! Your reproaches, your suffering … I can’t do this any more either, Denise, I can’t … Give me some time to work out my problems, to mull them over and then sleep them off, like wine … Then things will be better … I’ll be well again. Think of me as ill or mad, but just let me be alone!’
As he talked, he had begun to sound more and more agitated, and at that very moment he truly desired solitude, the way a sick man longs for cool water or a piece of fruit. His hands and mouth were trembling.
Denise turned pale and stood up. She powdered her face and put on her hat. She said nothing; she didn’t even look at him. He felt a vague sense of remorse, tinged with fear.
‘Denise,’ he murmured more gently, ‘I’ll call you, all right?’
‘As you please,’ she replied.
She didn’t dare look at him: she was afraid she might burst into tears. He had hurt her more than if he had actually hit her. But did he even understand? He had rejected her, sent her away … a savage undercurrent of resentment ran through her wounded, loving heart. Seeing how calm she was, however, he simply thought: ‘She understands.’ She stretched her hand out to him in silence.
He kissed it, then pulled her close, held her tightly and kissed her cheek; she just stood there, motionless. He wanted to kiss her on the lips. She gently pushed him away and walked towards the door.
‘Is it all right, then? I’ll call you … in a few days?’
‘Fine,’ she murmured, ‘fine … don’t worry.’
She left.
Once alone, he felt a moment of enormous distress. He even made a move towards the door. Then he changed his mind. ‘What’s the point?’ He sighed and went back over to the window. He saw her walking away, very quickly. Men watched her go by. She turned the corner and disappeared.
Then he called Pierrot and sat down with him in a big armchair. It was dark, silent … a kind of bitter peace flowed through him …
20
TWO DAYS PASSED without Denise seeing Yves or having any word from him.
On Saturday morning Jessaint suggested that he and his wife take the car and spend a few days in the countryside, as they often did, in a house they owned near Étampes; a hundred and fifty years ago it had been a wealthy tax collector’s hideaway. Denise, who loved the countryside, was always happy to go there with her husband. This time, however, she refused, without even bothering to make up an excuse: she was sure that Yves would phone her some time during the day.
Jessaint did not insist. For a while now he seemed embarrassed and unhappy whenever he spoke to his wife; he guessed she was hiding some secret from him,
thought Denise. But he undoubtedly preferred not to delve too deeply into that secret, whatever it might be. He felt the kind of shame and nervousness that people who are fundamentally honest feel when faced with others who lie and cheat. So he kissed Denise on the forehead, sighed a little and left on his own. And that resigned sigh coming from such a good, solid man, who could nevertheless be passionate at times, made an insidious little wound in Denise’s heart, one of those wounds that barely hurts at first, but which slowly and surely grows more painful with time.
She had done absolutely nothing to prevent him from going. Their marriage was imperceptibly coming apart, like a knot made of two different bits of string that gradually grow thin and come apart. She was perfectly aware of this. The feeling of despondency that gripped her was rather similar to the helplessness you feel in a dream, when you stand by and do nothing as your house burns down, for example, as if it belonged to someone else.
After Jessaint had gone, she went to see Francette. She hugged her tight and asked how she was feeling: she thought she looked pale and thin, even though the little girl was as plump as a peach. She showered kisses on her baby arms and bare legs under the short white dress; she wanted to know how she had got every bruise and scratch on her knees and rosy elbows. For a moment she was tempted to send the nanny away and take care of France herself all day. Everyone says that small children can heal many wounds … And the room was so bright, so cheerful. On the table, Francette’s fat black cat was sleeping in the sunlight; when he saw Denise, he deigned to stand up, arched his back, then stretched each long, velvety paw in front of him, one after the other, spreading his claws …
But Francette had been given a new scooter the day before; she quickly broke free from her mother’s arms and ran to get her toy. Denise realised she would probably be preoccupied with it for the rest of the day: Francette devoted herself to all her games with a kind of passion. Denise wanted to sit her on her lap and tell her a story, keep her close for a while longer, to feel the sweet warmth of her little body. But all she managed to do was make her burst into tears of rage: little Mademoiselle France was very strong-willed. Denise had to leave.
All day long she waited; but Yves did not come to see her, nor did he give any sign of life. Late that evening Denise was still waiting by the phone, her head in her hands. Around midnight she threw herself down on the bed and fell into a fitful sleep. The next day was very beautiful, so she sent Francette and her nanny to have lunch at the Pré-Catelan in the Bois de Boulogne, then began desperately trying to think of what she could do all day to keep herself busy. All her friends had gone away: it was the time of year when Parisians pour out of the city en masse from Saturday until Monday; Madame Franchevielle was already in Vittel, as she was every year. When she thought about spending the afternoon all alone, Denise felt something akin to terror. As often happened, her determined feeling of hope had suddenly given way to despair; she no longer expected the promised phone call; or, at least, she wanted to try not to wait for it any longer. A thousand times she was tempted to write to Yves, or go to see him, to talk to him. But an irrational fear took hold of her at the idea of disobeying him. She knew him so well. If he felt she was badgering him when he had begged her to leave him alone, he was capable, she thought, of abruptly ending their affair. He had such a strange, oversensitive nature, how could anyone know what he might do? She knew only too well that there was only one thing she could do: wait patiently, as he had asked, until he had slept off his worries, whatever they might be, the way you sleep off too much wine.
There was so much difference between a man’s pain, which could be appeased by solitude, and her own loving heart! My God, if anything terrible happened to her, Yves’s presence, a simple word or gesture from him would be enough to console her, to make her happy … But, what could she do? This was what he was like … The resentment she had first felt towards him when he sent her away had dissolved into vague, bitter resignation. This was how it was. She had all the willing blindness that comes with love. In a kind of frenzy, she started thinking about what she could do that day. For she simply couldn’t face being alone, all alone, in the empty apartment. She telephoned several friends, but no one was in Paris. Then, suddenly, she remembered the conversation she’d had with her mother a little while ago. She could hear herself saying: ‘The wisest thing to do would be to cheat on Yves … This love that’s suffocating him, as you put it, if I shared that love between two men, it would be just right.’
She was standing in the middle of the sitting room; the sun, like a golden mist, filtered through the slats in the shutters, closed to keep out the dust and heat. Denise shook her head in anger: ‘This can’t go on, no, it just can’t go on’, she said over and over again. She caught sight of her pale face in the mirror and was almost afraid of the look in her eyes. ‘I’m unhappy,’ she said out loud and a swift, harsh sob shook her; but she didn’t cry. She walked over to the window in a daze and pushed open the shutters, then stood there, overwhelmed with emotion, staring gloomily at the cobblestones that glistened in the bright sunlight. A small car had just stopped opposite her house. Leaning out a bit, she realised it was her cousin Jean-Paul. She started to ring for the servant to tell him she didn’t want any visitors. But it was too late; the doorbell rang at almost exactly the same moment. She could hear Jaja’s voice in the hall, then he appeared at the entrance to the sitting room.
‘Are you alone, Denise?’
‘As you can see.’
She looked disapprovingly at his delicate, boyish, slightly pointed face. He always teased her.
But this time he refrained from remarking on the dark circles under her eyes and how terrible she looked. All he said was: ‘I ran into your husband yesterday morning as he was leaving Paris. He told me he was going to Étampes without you.’
‘That’s right. And what about you? What are you doing in Paris when it’s so hot?’
Jaja hesitated; then he replied with the slight smile at the corner of his mouth that made irritable people want to slap him across the face. ‘If I told you it was to see you, you probably wouldn’t believe me, would you?’
‘Probably.’
In spite of herself, when she was with Jaja, Denise found herself using the words and intonations she had used when she was fifteen, when she had amused herself by imitating the tone of voice and mannerisms of her young cousin, who was a schoolboy in Janson-de-Sailly back then.
Jaja forced a little laugh. ‘You see.’
Denise walked over to the sofa and sat down.
‘Would you like something to drink?’
‘Definitely. Have them bring up some liqueurs, brandy and lots of ice.’
He sat down in his favourite spot, on some cushions on the floor.
‘Do you remember how we used to make cocktails in the schoolroom, Denise, and then hide them in our desks?’ he asked.
‘I remember … It was our schoolroom in the house in the country …’
‘We used to jump out of the window and run away in the grounds …’
‘Do you remember that hollow old willow tree where we used to hide?’
‘And the swing that creaked so loudly?’
‘And the stream we went through twenty times a day because we loved getting our feet wet?’
‘And the mill? Do you remember how we climbed the ladder straight up to the loft and hid behind the sacks of flour?’
‘I was a tomboy. Francette is going to be like me …’
‘Where is she?’
‘At the Pré-Catelan.’
Jaja knew exactly what he was doing by calling up their childhood memories. Denise looked back on the most insignificant moments from the past with great affection. She had softened at once and Jean-Paul could see the amused, tender smile he knew so well spread across her face.
‘Are you waiting for someone?’ he asked softly.
She hesitated a moment, then said no.
‘Would you like me to take you for a spin in the car??
?? he asked.
‘Has your girlfriend dropped you, Jaja?’
‘Mind your own business. Are you coming or not?’
‘Where?’
‘Wherever you like. We could get out of Paris.’
‘No. What if we ran into someone we knew?’
‘So what?’
‘Jacques wouldn’t be very happy. I refused to go with him yesterday, you see?’
‘All right. Then somewhere in Paris? I know, we could go to the Bois and give your daughter a kiss.’
‘I’d like that,’ Denise agreed.
‘Go and put on your hat and coat.’
Denise rang for her maid. While she was helping her on with her coat, Denise whispered: ‘If anyone rings, say that I’ll be home by dinner time and ask them to call back.’
‘Don’t worry Madame.’
Jean-Paul pretended to be avidly breathing in the scent from the bouquet of flowers on the table.
He turned round. ‘Let’s go; hurry up, out …’
They got into the car. Jean-Paul, who dearly loved his car, was proudly pointing out its merits.
‘You’ll see how she races up hills if we go as far as Saint-Cloud. And the ride is as smooth as can be … she’s a real gem, Denise, honestly.’
Denise let the warm breeze whip across her face and said nothing. It was one of those marvellous Sundays in Paris when the blue sky stretches above the rooftops like a layer of brand-new silk, without even a hint of shade; the pavements were crowded with ordinary people who walked slowly by with peaceful expressions and delighted satisfaction written on their faces. Just from the way they strolled past without hurrying, you could tell it was their day off; they all felt that they deserved this beautiful day with its sunshine and the scent of roses because they had worked so hard all week long; they weren’t very attractive, these good people, nor were they well dressed, but as they went by, their simple happiness and tranquillity seemed contagious. Denise began to smile as she watched them, and a very sweet, inexplicable sense of contentment ran through her.