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He went upstairs and sat down at his desk. She really deserved being shown the manuscript. That way he would be rid of her for good. Of course, he'd have to cut the manuscript a bit before publication — unless she should die before then. But in the meantime, when he reread it, he felt revenged. 'In a way, literature is truer than life,' he said to himself. 'Dubreuilh played me for a sucker, Louis is a skunk, Paula poisons my life — and I go on smiling at them: On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel.' Once more, he read through the description of the break up. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you kill, you commit suicide; you carry things to the very end. And that's why it's false. 'Yes, it's false,' he said to himself, 'but it's damned satisfying. In life you're constantly denying yourself, and others are always contradicting you. Paula exasperates me, and yet in a little while I'll take pity on her and she'll think that basically I still have some love for her. On paper, I make time stand still and I impose my convictions on the whole world; they become the only reality.' He unscrewed the top of his pen. Paula would never read those pages, and yet he exulted in them as if he had forced her to recognize herself in the portrait he had drawn of her; a woman acting the part of a lover and loving only her histrionics and her dreams; pretending to be noble, generous, self-sacrificing, when in fact she is without pride and without courage, steeped in the egoism of her feigned passions. That was how he saw her, and on paper she matched that picture exactly.
i feel validated by the fact that we clearly have the same preoccupations
'I don't like people who like luxury,' Scriassine said. 'In Vienna,' he added brusquely, 'three of us lived together in a miserable hole, and we had one overcoat between us. We were starving to death. Those were the happiest days of my life.'
this is metal and i kinda love it
She sat down next to him. It had been a very long time since he had last found himself seated next to such a beautiful girl. As he spoke, he breathed in the sweet scent of her hair; her perfume smelled like perfume, like all perfumes, but on her it seemed an almost natural odour. And it gave Henri a terrible desire. Running his fingers through her hair, slipping his tongue inside the red mouth — it would be easy, too easy in fact. He could feel that Josette awaited his pleasure with truly discouraging resignation.
oh god lol
When Henri opened his eyes, he saw, in the half light of dawn, a pale-green tufted wall. The happiness of being alive on this morning made his heart jump with joy. It called for brisk, salty pleasures - cold water, a rough bath glove. He slipped out of bed without awakening Josette, and when he came out of the bathroom, washed, dressed, and starving, she was still asleep. He crossed the room on tiptoe and bent over her; she was lying there wrapped in her dampness, in her fragrance, with her bright locks flowing over her eyes, and he felt wonderfully happy to have that woman for himself, and to be a man. She half-opened an eye, just one, as if she were trying to retain her sleep in the other.
She examined herself in the mirror with a worried look. What did she see? Being a woman, being beautiful, how does it feel from the inside? How does that silken caress along the thighs feel, that glossy satin against the warmth of a belly? 'How does she think of our night?' he asked himself. 'Has her voice spoken other names in the night? Which? Pierre, Victor, Jacques? And what does the name Henri mean to her?'
omg she GETS ME
'A lot of men must have been in love with you. You're so beautiful.'
'It's humiliating to be beautiful,' she said, turning her head away.
He let his arms drop to his sides. He had no idea why she inspired so much compassion in him; she lived luxuriously, she didn't work, had the hands of a lady. And yet, before her, he melted with pity.
It went straight to his heart every time she said, 'You're nice,' in that voice of hers, with those eyes. In the taxi, he settled Josette's head on his shoulder and wondered, 'What can I do for her?' Help her become an actress, yes, but she didn't especially like the theatre; it wouldn't fill that emptiness he felt in her. And what if she weren't a success? She wasn't at all satisfied with the obsure futility of her life, but what could he possibly interest her in? Try talking to her? Unlocking her mind? He wasn't, after all, going to drag her through museums, take her to concerts, lend her books, explain the world to her. He gently kissed her hair. He would have had to be in love with her. With women it always came down to that; you had to love them with an exclusive love.
'A trade can be learned; there's nothing to stop you from learning.'
She gave Henri a troubled look. 'You'd like me to earn my keep?'
'It isn't a question of money,' he said quickly. 'I just want you to take an interest in things, to keep yourself occupied.’
‘I'm interested in us,' she said.
'That isn't enough.’
‘It's been enough for me for ten years.'
He gathered all his courage. 'Listen, Paula, you know very well things have changed between us; there's no sense in lying to each other. We once had a great and beautiful love and now, let's face it, it's turning into friendship. That doesn't mean we'll see less of each other, not at all,' he added earnestly. 'But you've got to finds an independent existence for yourself.'
girl nooo
[...] 'Sooner or later, I'll have to tell her about Josette. But not just now,' he said to himself. He spent every night in the pale-green room, and they were very passionate nights; but when he got up the following morning, Josette never tried to keep him there. The day of the contract signing, they had agreed to stay together until late in the afternoon. It was she who left him at two o'clock to go to the hairdresser. Was it discretion? Indifference? It isn't easy to measure the feelings of a woman lavish with her body, who has nothing else to offer. [...]
'Oh, I understand you,' Henri said. To himself he thought, 'Which one of us, after all, is being completely honest? I belong to the SRL because I approve of its line, but I choose to ignore the fact, that it will very likely never amount to anything. Lachaume's primary concern is with effectiveness, and so he accepts methods he disapproves of. No one puts his whole being into each of his acts; the very nature of action prevents it.' He stood up. 'I'm going over to the paper.’