The Woman Destroyed

Nothing means a very great deal to him any more. And he is as much of a defeatist for me as he is for himself. He does not tell me so, but deep down he is quite sure that from now on I shall do nothing that will add to my reputation. This does not worry me, because I know he is wrong. I have just written my best book and the second volume will go even farther.

‘Your son?’

‘I sent him proofs. He will be telling me about it—he comes back this evening.’

We talked about Philippe, about his thesis, about writing. Just as I do she loves words end people who know how to use them. Only she is allowing herself to be eaten alive by her profession and her home. She drove me back in her little Austin.

‘Will you come back to Paris soon?’

‘I don’t think so. I am going straight on from Nancy into the Yonne, to rest.’

‘Will you do a little work during the holidays?’

‘I should like to. But I’m always short of time. I don’t possess your energy.’

It is not a matter of energy, I said to myself as I left her: I just could not live without writing. Why? And why was I so desperately eager to make an intellectual out of Philippe when André would have let him follow other paths? When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values, and it is impossible for me to examine this conviction with an objective eye.

In the kitchen Marie-Jeanne was busy getting the dinner ready: we were to have Philippe’s favourite dishes. I saw that everything was going well. I read the papers and I did a difficult crossword-puzzle that took me three quarters of an hour: from time to time it is fun to concentrate for a long while upon a set of squares where the words are potentially there although they cannot be seen: I use ray brain as a photographic developer to make them appear—I have the impression of drawing them up from their hiding-places in the depth of the paper.

When the last square was filled I chose the prettiest dress in my wardrobe—pink and grey foulard. When I was fifty my clothes always seemed to me either too cheerful or too dreary: now I know what I am allowed and what I am not, and I dress without worrying. Without pleasure either. That very close, almost affectionate relationship I once had with my clothes has vanished. Nevertheless, I did look at my figure with some gratification. It was Philippe who said to me one day, ‘Why, look, you’re getting plump.’ (He scarcely seems to have noticed that I have grown slim again.) I went on a diet. I bought scales. Earlier on it never occurred to me that I should ever worry about my weight. Yet here I am! The less I identify myself with my body the more I feel myself required to take care of it. It relies on me, and I looked after it with bored conscientiousness, as I might look after a somewhat reduced, somewhat wanting old friend who needed my help.

André brought a bottle of Mumm and I put it to cool; we talked for a while and then he telephoned his mother. He often telephones her. She is sound in wind and limb and she is still a furious militant in the ranks of the Communist Party; but she is eighty-four and she lives alone in her house at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. He is rather anxious about her. He laughed on the telephone; I heard him cry out and protest; but he was soon cut short—Manette is very talkative whenever she has the chance.

‘What did she say?’

‘she is more and more certain that one day or another fifty million Chinese will cross the Russian frontier. Or else that they will drop a bomb anywhere, just anywhere, for the pleasure of setting off a world war. She accuses me of taking their side: there’s no persuading her I don’t.’

‘Is she well? She’s not bored?’

‘she will be delighted to see us; but as for bring bored, she doesn’t know the meaning of the word.’

She had been a school-teacher with three children, and, for her, retirement is a delight that she has not yet come to the end of. We talked about her and about the Chinese, of whom we, like everybody else, know so very little. André opened a magazine. And there I was, looking at my watch, whose hands did not seem to be going round.

All at once he was there: every time it surprises me to see his face, with the dissimilar features of my mother and André blending smoothly in it. He hugged me very tight, saying cheerful things, and I leant there with the softness of his flannel jacket against my cheek. I released myself so as to kiss Irène: she smiled at me with so frosty a smile that I was astonished to feel a soft, warm cheek beneath my lips. Irène. I always forget her; and she is always there. Blonde; grey-blue eyes; weak mouth; sharp chin; and something both vague and obstinate about her too-wide forehead. Quickly I wiped her out. I was alone with Philippe as I used to be in the days when I woke him up every morning with a touch on his forehead.

‘Not even a drop of whisky?’ asked André.

‘No, thanks. I’ll have some fruit-juice.’

How sensible she is! She dresses with a sensible stylishness; sensibly stylish hair-do—smooth, with a fringe hiding her big forehead. Artless make-up: severe little suit. When I happen to run through a woman’s magazine I often say to myself, ‘Why, here’s Irène!’ It often happens too that when I see her I scarcely recognize her. ‘She’s pretty,’ asserts André. There are days when I agree—a delicacy of ear and nostril: a pearly softness of skin emphasized by the dark blue of her lashes. But if she moves her head a little her face slips, and all you see is that mouth, that chin. Iréne. Why? Why has Philippe always gone for women of that kind—smooth, stand-offish, pretentious? To prove to himself that he could attract them, no doubt. He was not fond of them. I used to think that if he fell in love … I used to think he would not fall in love; and one evening he said to me, ‘I have great news for you,’ with the somewhat over-excited air of a birthday-child who has been playing too much, laughing too much, shouting too much. There was that crash like a gong in my bosom, the blood mounting to my cheeks, all my strength concentrated on stopping the trembling of my lips. A winter evening, with the curtains drawn and the lamplight on the rainbow of cushions, and this suddenly-opened gulf, this chasm of absence. ‘You will like her: she is a woman who has a job.’ At long intervals she works as a script-girl. I know these with-it young married women. They have some vague kind of a job, they claim to use their minds, to go in for sport, dress well, run their houses faultlessly, bring up their children perfectly, carry on a social life—in short, succeed on every level. And they don’t really care deeply about anything at all. They make my blood run cold.

Philippe and Irène had left for Sardinia the day the university closed, at the beginning of June. While we were having dinner at that table where I had so often obliged Philippe to eat (come, finish up your soup: take a little more beef: get something down before going off for your lecture), we talked about their journey—a handsome wedding-present from Irène’s parents, who can afford that sort of thing. She was silent most of the time, like an intelligent woman who knows how to wait for the right moment to produce an acute and rather surprising remark: from time to time she did drop a little observation, surprising—or at least surprising to me—by its stupidity or its utter ordinariness.

We went back to the library. Philippe glanced at my desk. ‘Did the work go well?’

‘Pretty well. You didn’t have time to read my proofs?’

‘No; can you imagine it? I’m very sorry.’

‘You’ll read the book. I have a copy for you.’ His carelessness saddened me a little, but I showed nothing. I said, ‘And what about you? Are you going to get back to serious work on your thesis again now?’ He did not answer. He exchanged an odd kind of look with Irène. ‘What’s the matter? Are you going to set off on your travels again?’

‘No.’ Silence again and then he said rather crossly, ‘Oh, you’ll be vexed; you’ll blame me; but during this month I have come to a decision. It is altogether too much, teaching and working on a thesis at the same time. But unless I do a thesis there is no worthwhile future for me in the university. I am going to leave.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘I’m going to leave the university. I’m still young enough to take up something else.’

‘But it’s just not possible. Now that you have got this far you cannot drop it all,’ I said indignantly.

‘Listen. Once upon a time being a don was a splendid career. These days I am not the only one who finds it impossible to look after my students and do any work of my own: there are too many of them.’

That’s quite true,’ said Andrè. ‘Thirty students is one student multiplied by thirty. Fifty is a mob. But surely we can find some way that will give you more time to yourself and let you finish your thesis.’

‘No,’ said Irène, decisively. ‘Teaching and research—they really are too badly paid. I have a cousin who is a chemist. At the National Research Centre he was earning eight hundred francs a month. He has gone into a dye factory—he’s pulling down three thousand.’

‘It’s not only a question of money,’ said Philippe.

‘Of course not. Being in the swim counts too.’

In little guarded, restrained phrases she let us see what she thought of us. Oh, she did it tactfully—with the tact you can hear rumbling half a mile away. ‘Above all I don’t want to hurt you—don’t hold it against me, for that would be unfair—but still there are some things I have to say to you and if I were not holding myself in I’d say a great deal more.’ Andrè is a great scientist of course and for a woman I haven’t done badly at all. But we live cut off from the world, in laboratories and libraries. The new generation of intellectuals wants to be in immediate contact with society. With his vitality and drive, Philippe is not made for our kind of life; there are other careers in which he would show his abilities far better. ‘And then of course a thesis is totally old hat,’ she ended.

Why does she sometimes utter grotesque monstrosities? Irène is not really as stupid as all that. She does exist, she does amount to something: she has wiped out the victory I won with Philippe—a victory over him and for him. A long battle and sometimes so hard for me. ‘I can’t manage this essay; I have a head-ache. Give me a note saying I’m ill.’ ‘No.’ The soft adolescent face grows tense and old; the green eyes stab me. ‘How unkind you are.’ Andrè stepping in—‘Just this once…’ ‘No.’ My misery in Holland during those Easter holidays when we left Philippe in Paris. ‘I don’t want your degree to be botched.’ And with his voice full of hatred he shouted, ‘Don’t take me, then; I don’t care. And I shan’t write a single line.’ And then his successes and our understanding, our alliance. The understanding that Iréne is now destroying. I did not want to break out in front of her: I took hold of myself. ‘What do you mean to do, then?’

Irène was about to answer. Philippe interrupted her. ‘Irène’s father has various things in mind.’

‘What kind of things? In business?’

‘It’s still uncertain.’

‘You talked it over with him before your journey. Why did you say nothing to us?’

‘I wanted to turn it over in my mind.’

A sudden jet of anger filled me: it was unbelievable that he should not have spoken to me the moment the idea of leaving the university stirred in his mind.

‘Of course you two blame me,’ said Philippe angrily. The green of his eyes took on that stormy colour I knew so well.

‘No,’ said Andrè. ‘One must follow one’s own line.’

‘And you, do you blame me?’

‘Making money does not seem to me a very elevating ambition,’ I said. ‘I am surprised.’

‘I told you it is not a question of money.’

‘What is it a question of, then? Be specific.’

‘I can’t. I have to see my father-in-law again. But I shan’t accept his offer unless I think it worth while.’