topic/infidelity
Simone de Beauvoir,
Lauren Elkin,
James Salter,
Jennifer Egan,
Miranda July,
Ingmar Bergman,
Lorrie Moore,
Jenny Erpenbeck,
Tessa Hadley,
Elia Kazan
I was not watchful enough. I thought Maurice was aging, that he was overworking, that I ought to adapt myself to his lack of warmth. He took to thinking of me as a sister, more or less. Noëllie awoke his desires. Whether she has any sexual appetite or not she certainly knows how to conduct herself in bed. He has rediscovered the proud delight of fully satisfying a woman. Going to bed does not mean only going to bed. Between them there is that intimacy that used to belong only to me. When they wake up does he snuggle her against his shoulder, calling her his doe, his honeymouth? Or has he invented other names that he says in the same voice? Or has he found himself another voice? He is shaving, smiling at her, with his eyes darker and more brilliant, his mouth more naked under that mask of white foam. He appeared in the doorway holding a great bunch of red roses in his arms, wrapped in cellophane: does he take her flowers?
My heart is being sawed in two with a very fine-tooth saw.
“It’s not a very pleasant situation for her,” he replied.
Anger seized me again. “That’s the limit! She knew I existed when she went to bed with you.”
“She doesn’t forget it: indeed it is that which she finds so painful.”
“I’m in her way? She wants you all to herself?”
“She likes me.…”
Noëllie Guérard, that frigid little on-the-make climber, playing the lovelorn maiden—that was rather much to take!
“I can vanish, if that would make things easier for you two,” I said.
He laid his hand on my arm. “I beg of you, Monique, don’t take it like this.” He looked unhappy and tired, but I—I who go out of my mind if I hear him sigh—I was in no compassionate mood. I said coldly, “And how would you like me to take it?”
“Without enmity. All right, so I was wrong to begin this affair. But now it’s done I must try to manage things so as not to hurt anyone more than I can help.”
“I’m not asking you for pity.”
“It’s not a question of pity! From a completely selfish point of view, hurting you tears me to pieces. But do understand that I have to consider Noëllie too.”
oh god
And now, this evening, I tell myself that perhaps Maurice is in the act of repeating this conversation to Noëllie. How can it be that I had not thought of that before? They talk about themselves, and so necessarily about me. There are complicities between them, as there are between Maurice and me. It is not merely that Noëllie is a nuisance in our life: in their idyll, I am a problem and an obstacle. As she sees it, this is not just a passing thing: what she has in mind is a serious relationship with Maurice; and she is clever. My first reaction was the right one—I ought to have put a stop to it right away; to have said to Maurice, “Either her or me.” He would have been cross with me for a while, but then no doubt he would have thanked me. I had not been able to bring myself to it. My longings, wishes, interests have always been identical with his. On the few occasions when I have stood out against him it was for his own sake, for his own good. Now that I ought to rise up in direct opposition, I have not strength enough to enter into this battle. But I am not sure that my forbearance may not be a mistake. The bitterest thing about it is that Maurice scarcely seems to be grateful to me for it at all. I believe that with that splendid male illogicality he holds me responsible for the remorse he feels—holds it against me. Should I be still more understanding, more detached, more full of smiles? Oh, I can’t tell anymore. I have never hesitated so long about how I ought to behave. Yes, I have, though: about Lucienne. But then I could ask Maurice’s advice. The most staggering thing is my loneliness now that I am confronted with him.
LEAVE HIM
Before going to bed I told him that on consideration I was sorry for my reaction—I should leave him free. He did not look happy about it: on the contrary, I thought I saw distress in his eyes. “I know very well I am asking you a great deal: I ask you too much. Don’t think I don’t feel remorse.”
“Oh, remorse! What’s the good of that?”
“No good, of course. I just said it, that’s all. Maybe it’s cleaner not to have any.”
I stayed awake a long while; so did he, it seemed to me. What was he thinking about? As for me, I was wondering whether I had been right to give way. Going from one concession to another, where should I end up?
And for the moment I am not getting anything out of it at all. It is too early, obviously. Before this affair can go bad it must be allowed to ripen. I tell myself that over and over again. And sometimes I think myself sensible, and sometimes I accuse myself of cowardice. In fact I am defenseless because I have never supposed I had any rights. I expect a lot of the people I love—too much, perhaps. I expect a lot, and I even ask for it. But I do not know how to insist.
But it was raining outside, and he did not have his raincoat with him; he was not wet. He had been to telephone Noëllie. She had insisted upon his telephoning: she didn’t even have the generosity to let me have him all to myself even for one wretched weekend. I said nothing. The day dragged along. Each realized that the other was making an effort to be pleasant and cheerful. We both agreed to go back to Paris for dinner and finish the evening at the cinema.
leave himmmmm
I shan’t struggle. But fear touched me all at once. Could it conceivably be that Maurice does prefer her to me? The idea had never occurred to me. I know that I possess—all right, let’s leave that word authenticity out of it: maybe it is a trifle priggish—a certain quality that she does not. “You have real quality, my dear,” my father used to say to me, proudly. And Maurice too, in other words. It is this quality that I value above anything else in people—in Maurice, and in Isabelle: and Maurice is like me. No. It is impossible that he should prefer someone as bogus as Noëllie to me. She is “cheap,” as they say in English. But it worries me that he should accept in her so many things that I consider unacceptable. For the first time I see that a gap has come into being between us.
I telephoned Quillan the day before yesterday. Oh, I’m not at all proud of it. I had to make sure that a man could still find me desirable. That has been proved. And where does it get me? It has not made me any more desirable to myself.
I did not listen for long; sobs rose in my throat; the music was now merely a refuge. We no longer had anything to say to one another, haunted as we were by this affair that he did not want to discuss.
“Why are you crying?” he asked, in a longsuffering voice.
“Because you’re bored when you’re with me. Because we can’t talk to one another anymore. Because you have built a wall between us.”
“It’s you who built it: you never stop going over and over your grievances.”
I irritate him a little more every day. I don’t mean to. And yet there is a part of me that does. When he seems too cheerful and unconcerned I say to myself, This is too easy. And then any excuse is good enough for me to destroy his peace of mind.
Speaking quietly, he said, “I want those ten days with her.” The words held a scarcely concealed threat—if you deprive me of them I will make our stay in the mountains hell. The idea that I was going to give in to this blackmail made me feel sick. No more concessions! It gets me nowhere, and it disgusts me with myself. One has to look things in the face. This is not a mere affair. He is cutting his life into two, and I don’t have the larger part. I’ve had enough. Presently I shall say to him, “Her or me.”
leave him already jesus
“But you didn’t want to admit that Maurice was a swine, either,” I said.
She protested. “No. Maurice is not a swine! He’s a man caught between two women: no one is a very shining light in cases of that kind.”
“He never ought to have got himself into that position.”
“It happens to very decent creatures.”
She is indulgent with Maurice because she has put up with a great deal from Charles. But their relationship was a completely different story.
“I don’t believe Maurice is a decent creature anymore,” I said. “I am discovering small-minded aspects in him. I wounded his vanity by not going into ecstasies over his successes.”
“There you are unjust,” she said, with a kind of sternness. “If a man likes to talk about his work, that is not vanity. It has always surprised me that you care so little for what Maurice does.”
“I’ve nothing of any interest to say to him about it.”
“No. But he would certainly have liked to tell you about his difficulties, and the things he had discovered.”