The Woman Destroyed Read Free

family.
    “It is hard to teach literature nowadays. Without your books I really should not know how to set about it.” Shyly she asked, “Are you pleased with this one?”
    I smiled at her. “Frankly, yes.”
    There was still a question in her eyes—one that she did not like to put into words. I made the first move. “You know what I wanted to do—to start off with a consideration of the critical works published since the war and then to go on to suggest a new method by which it is possibleto make one’s way into a writer’s work, to see it in depth, more accurately than has ever been done before. I hope I have succeeded.”
    It was more than a hope: it was a conviction. It filled my heart with sunlight. A lovely day: and I was enchanted with these trees, lawns, walks where I had so often wandered with friends and fellow students. Some are dead, or life has separated us. Happily—unlike André, who no longer sees anyone—I have made friends with some of my pupils and younger colleagues: I like them better than women of my own age. Their curiosity spurs mine into life: they draw me into their future, on the far side of my own grave.
    Martine stroked the book with her open hand. “Still, I shall dip into it this very evening. Has anyone read it?”
    “Only André. But literature does not mean a very great deal to him.”
    Nothing means a very great deal to him anymore. 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 further.
    “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 and 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 favorite 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 my 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 gray 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 Philippewho 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