The Woman Destroyed

I argued a little longer, as mildly as possible, trying to persuade him of the value of his thesis and reminding him of earlier plans for papers and research. He answered politely, but my words had no hold on him. No, he did not belong to me any more; not any more at all. Even his physical appearance had changed: another kind of haircut; more up-to-date clothes—the clothes of the fashionable sixteenth arrondissement. It was I who moulded his life. Now I am watching it from outside, a remote spectator. It is the fate common to all mothers; but who has ever found comfort in saying that hers is the common fate?

André saw them to the lift and I collapsed on to the divan. That void again … The happy day, the true presence underlying absence—it had merely been the certainty of having Philippe here, for a few hours. I had waited for him as though he were coming back never to go away again: he will always go away again. And the break between us is far more final than I had imagined. I shall no longer share in his work; we shall no longer have the same interests. Does money really mean all that to him? Or is he only giving way to Irène? Does he love her as much as that? One would have to know about their nights together. No doubt she can satisfy his body to the full, as well as his pride: beneath her fashionable exterior I can see that she might be capable of remarkable outbursts. The: bond that physical happiness brings into being between a man and woman is something whose importance I tend to underestimate. As far as I am concerned sexuality no longer exists. I used to call this indifference serenity: all at once I have come to see it in another light—it is a mutilation; it is the loss of the sense. The lack of it makes me blind to the needs, the pains and the joys of those who do possess it. It seems to me that I no longer know anything at all about Philippe. Only one thing is certain—the degree to which I am going to miss him. It was perhaps thanks to him that I adapted myself to my age, more or less. He carried me along with his youth. He used to take me to the twenty-four hour race at Le Mans, to op-art shows and even, once, to a happening. His mercurial, inventive presence filled the house. Shall I grow used to this silence, this prudent, well-behaved flow of days that is never again to be broken by anything unforeseen?

I said to André, ‘Why didn’t you help me try to bring Philippe to his senses? You gave way at once. Between us we might perhaps have persuaded him.’

‘People have to be left free. He never terribly wanted to teach.’

‘But he was interested in his thesis.’

‘Up to a point, a very vaguely defined point. I understand him.’

‘You understand everybody.’

Once André was as uncompromising for others as he was for himself. Nowadays his political attitudes have not weakened but in private life he keeps his rigour for himself alone: he excuses people, he explains them, he accepts them. To such a pitch that sometimes it maddens me. I went on, ‘Do you think that making money is an adequate goal in life?’

‘I really scarcely know what our goals were, nor whether they were adequate.’

Did he really believe what he was saying, or was he amusing himself by teasing me? He does that sometimes, when he thinks me too set in my convictions and my principles. Usually I put up with it very well—I join in the game. But this time I was in no mood for trifling. My voice rose. ‘Why have we led the kind of life we have led if you think other ways of life just as good?’

‘Because we could not have done otherwise.’

‘We could not have done otherwise because it was our way of life that seemed to us valid.’

‘No. As far as I was concerned knowing, discovering, was a mania, a passion, even a kind of neurosis, without the slightest moral justification. I never thought everybody else should do the same.’

Deep down I do think that everybody else should do the same, but I did not choose to argue the point. I said, ‘It is not a question of everybody, but of Philippe. He is going to turn into a fellow concerned with dubious money-making deals. That was not what I brought him up for.’

André reflected. ‘It is difficult for a young man to have over-successful parents. He would think it presumptuous to suppose that he could follow in their steps and rival them. He prefers to put his money on another horse.’

‘Philippe was making a very good start.’

‘You helped him: he was working under your shadow. Frankly, without you he would not have got vary far and he is clear-sighted enough to realize it.’

There had always been this underlying disagreement between us about Philippe. Maybe André was chagrined because he chose letters and not science: or maybe it was the classic father-son rivalry at work. He always looked upon Philippe as a mediocre being, and that was one way of guiding him towards mediocrity.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘You have never had any confidence in him. And if he has no confidence in himself it is because he sees himself through your eyes.’

‘Maybe,’ said André, in a conciliatory tone.

‘In any case, the person who is really responsible is Irène. It is she who is pushing him on. She wants her husband to earn a lot of money. And she’s only too happy to draw him away from me.’

‘Oh, don’t play the mother-in-law! She’s quite as good as the next girl.’

‘What next girl? She said monstrous things.’

‘She does that sometimes. But sometimes she is quite sharp. The monstrosities are a mark of emotional unbalance rather than a lack of intelligence. And then again, if she had wanted money more than anything else she would never have married Philippe, who is not rich.’

‘She saw that he could become rich.’

‘At all events she picked him rather than just any pretentious little nobody.’

‘If you like her, so much the better for you.’

‘When you love someone, you must give the people he loves credit for being of some value.’

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘But I do find Irène disheartening.’

‘You have to consider the background she comes from.’

‘She scarcely comes from it at all, unfortunately. She is still there.’

Those fat, influential, important 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 tooth-ache?’

‘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 treatment steadied it at a hundred and seventy, 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 this time 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. Philippe said 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 do. 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 afterwards: 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 ringing up 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? He clings to me as he might cling to anything he had been used to for a long while but I no longer bring him any kind of happiness. Perhaps it is unfair, but I resent it: he accepts this indifference—he has settled down into it.

The key turned in the lock; he kissed me; he looked preoccupied. ‘I’m late.’

‘Yes, rather.’

‘Philippe came to fetch me at the Ecole Normale. We had a drink together.’

‘Why didn’t you bring him here?’

‘He wanted to speak to me alone. So that I should be the one to tell you what he has to say.’ (Was he leaving for abroad, a great way off, for years and years?) ‘You won’t like it. He could not bring himself to tell us the other evening but it is all settled. His father-in-law has found him a job. He is getting him into the Ministry of Culture. He tells me that for anyone of his age it is a splendid post. But you see what it implies.’

‘It’s impossible! Philippe?’

It was impossible. He shared our ideas. He had taken great risks during the Algerian war—that war which had torn our hearts and which now seems never to have taken place at all—he had got himself beaten up in anti-Gaullist demonstrations; he had voted as we did during the last elections …

‘He says he has developed. He has come to understand that the French left wing’s negativism has led it nowhere, that it is done for, finished, and he wants to be in the swim, to have a grip on the world, accomplish something, construct, build.’

‘Anyone would think it was Irène speaking.’