had grown used to expecting from her placidity some uncomfortable word. Sometimes when he’d embrace her, she’d inquire with a sweet and tired voice and that inquiry was what he could recall as the most feminine part of her: and what if I died right now? There was in the inquiry a tone that left him, more than the question itself, devastated. Just like going full of enjoyment to take a drag from his cigarette and feeling it extinguished, cold, — cigarettes seemed to be his starting point, cigarettes and glasses. He laughed with a certain roughness: and it wasn’t that he didn’t think about death. If he could tell her: let’s forget it, let’s forget it. But he wouldn’t even know how to go on: let’s forget what? She was some thing to look at and then say to yourself: by God . . . , with a bit of rage. She wasn’t even pretentious like the brother. She wasn’t even beautiful like the brother. In fact, with surprise, she was nothing. And she must have changed exactly because he’d loved her that way. How sneaky she seemed. Yes, sneaky and virtuous. That light way of walking, those curled-up positions she’d come up with for her body, the way of talking with the person while having her gaze absorbed, all that made him bend toward her, her inaction would stimulate as Vera’s perfect thinness had stimulated him — he’d almost need to be provoked to anger and disdain in order to start to love and thus would feel extremely virile. But by now he was already wanting to see her differently. And he’d even ended up discovering that there was nothing underneath those lovely habits, just distraction and a certain fatigue which she never quite got over — that woman who’d never take up a sport. He’d thought there was a bit of posturing in her attitudes and that had attracted him. Her simplicity however would leave him with lifeless arms, her sincerity. Oh, please free yourself more from me, since a life so attached to mine weighs on me — he’d said to her one day during a fight; he noticed that he was always fighting by himself. But she had looked at him in such a weird, such a limpid and strange way that he’d fallen silent for an instant, surprised and pensive reduced to himself with a kind of pleasure and gratitude. In a low and serene tone of voice he’d then murmured some little thing that would guide them back into the flow of the days. No, it wasn’t their fault, it hadn’t been Vera’s: why is the person you live with the person you should flee? he was lying exactly to those women. He felt against Virgínia the rage of their loving each other, inexplicably, like a whim, the hard hatred of being stuck to a woman who’d do everything for them to be happy. The drive that was burning him was keen, making him breathe the most pure and sufficient part of revolt. He even made a gesture with his hand through her hair just to enhance her and also make her live outside herself. He detested her for making both of them live in a certain way calmly, hating her because she hadn’t even been the one who’d reduced him. But the same instant of hardness brought inside it a melancholy thought of peacefulness. Running and rerunning stubborn fingers over the delicate edge of the cigarette case, he closed his eyes a bit and imagined himself free from Virgínia, pursed his lips with fake toughness and fake joy such was the sincere power that he was experiencing — but to be free was to love again. Why would she demand less than he could give? he inquired being reborn and fleeing. And so uselessly mysterious. He’d happened to mention a man who worked in the pharmacy and she’d said: he’s my friend. How do you know him? he’d asked surprised, maybe a bit jealous. She hadn’t answered, making a reluctant movement with her head looking at a random spot on the floor with firmness and disgust. If he kept asking, she’d always answer: he’s my friend. After a while he’d found out in passing that she’d met him right there in the pharmacy, where they’d chatted a little while she was waiting for a prescription. So you couldn’t say they were friends: and why hide all that? she couldn’t have a reason to disguise such a simple fact. Just because she always liked not to say things, he’d guessed with disapproval and surprise. When he’d met her he’d tried to set up an intelligent courtship, thinking at first that she was that type:
“One has the impression that one has known someone for quite some time upon seeing them for the first time, when one manages at a glance to perceive the harmony of their features with their soul” — that had been more or less what he’d said explaining to her the reason he’d felt attracted to her person. But something didn’t let him carry on in that tone. And a few minutes later, at the first opportunity he’d transformed himself, trying another approach, asking smiling about some phrase: “and you? how much do you know? . . .” expecting the smiling, mischievous answer of someone who gets it. With a clumsy and quickly disguised start he watched her respond with mystery and seriousness, almost ridiculous, making him blush and not know which direction to impress upon his bothered eyes:
“I myself don’t know.”
And when he’d decided that everything was impossible and resigned himself without the least pain, the situation much later figured itself out with ease, and this time more serious he watched her, simple, surrendering to him with little emotion. He himself still didn’t know how everything had slid into that state. One day he’d run into her on the street, they’d walked together a little way without having much to say, the beginning of the
