“She has been playing with me,” he said to himself, and dissatisfied with the turn the conversation had taken, and furious at seeing this woman so calm, so different from her burning letters, he asked, in a tone of irritation, “Am I to know why you laugh?”
“Pardon me. It’s a trick my nerves play on me, sometimes in public places. But never mind. Let us be reasonable and talk things over. You tell me you love me—”
“And I mean it.”
“Well, admitting that I too am not indifferent, where is this going to lead us? Oh, you know so well, you poor dear, that you refused, right at first, the meeting which I asked in a moment of madness—and you gave well-thought-out reasons for refusing.”
“But I refused because I did not know then that you were the women in the case! I have told you that it was several days later that Des Hermies unwittingly revealed your identity to me. Did I hesitate as soon as I knew? No! I immediately implored you to come.”
“That may be, but you admit that I’m right when I claim that you wrote your first letters to another and not me.”
She was pensive for a moment. Durtal began to be prodigiously bored by this discussion. He thought it more prudent not to answer, and was seeking a change of subject that would put an end to the deadlock.
She herself got him out of his difficulty. “Let us not discuss it any more,” she said, smiling, “we shall not get anywhere. You see, this is the situation: I am married to a very nice man who loves me and whose only crime is that he represents the rather insipid happiness which one has right at hand. I started this correspondence with you, so I am to blame, and believe me, on his account I suffer. You have work to do, beautiful books to write. You don’t need to have a crazy woman come walking into your life. So, you see, the best thing is for us to remain friends, but true friends, and go no further.”
“And it is the woman who wrote me such vivid letters, who now speaks to me of reason, good sense, and God knows what!”
“But be frank, now. You don’t love me.”
“I don’t?”
He took her hands, gently. She made no resistance, but looking at him squarely she said, “Listen. If you had loved me you would have come to see me; and yet for months you haven’t tried to find out whether I was alive or dead.”
“But you understand that I could not hope to be welcomed by you on the terms we now are on, and too, in your parlour there are guests, your husband—I have never had you even a little bit to myself at your home.”
He pressed her hands more tightly and came closer to her. She regarded him with her smoky eyes, in which he now saw that dolent, almost dolorous expression which had captivated him. He completely lost control of himself before this voluptuous and plaintive face, but with a firm gesture she freed her hands.
“Enough. Sit down, now, and let’s talk of something else. Do you know your apartment is charming? Which saint is that?” she asked, examining the picture, over the mantel, of the monk on his knees beside a cardinal’s hat and cloak.
“I do not know.”
“I will find out for you. I have the lives of all the saints at home. It ought to be easy to find out about a cardinal who renounced the purple to go live in a hut. Wait. I think Saint Peter Damian did, but I am not sure. I have such a poor memory. Help me think.”
“But I don’t know who he is!”
She came closer to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Are you angry at me?”
“I should say I am! When I desire you frantically, when I’ve been dreaming for a whole week about this meeting, you come here and tell me that all is over between us, that you do not love me—”
She became demure. “But if I did not love you, would I have come to you? Understand, then, that reality kills a dream; that it is better for us not to expose ourselves to fearful regrets. We are not children, you see. No! Let me go. Do not squeeze me like that!” Very pale, she struggled in his embrace. “I swear to you that I will go away and that you shall never see me again if you do not let me loose.” Her voice became hard. She was almost hissing her words. He let go of her. “Sit down there behind the table. Do that for me.” And tapping the floor with her heel, she said, in a tone of melancholy, “Then it is impossible to be friends, only friends, with a man. But it would be very nice to come and see you without having evil thoughts to fear, wouldn’t it?” She was silent. Then she added, “Yes, just to see each other—and if we did not have any sublime things to say to each other, it is also very nice to sit and say nothing!”
Then she said, “My time is up. I must go home.”
“And leave me with no hope?” he exclaimed, kissing her gloved hands.
She did not answer, but gently shook her head, then, as he looked pleadingly at her, she said, “Listen. If you will promise to make no demands on me and to be good, I will come here night after next at nine o’clock.”
He promised whatever she wished. And as he raised his head from her hands and as his lips brushed lightly over her breast, which seemed to tighten, she disengaged her hands, caught his nervously, and, clenching her teeth, offered her neck to his lips. Then she fled.
“Oof!” he said, closing the door after her. He was at the same time satisfied and vexed.
Satisfied, because he found her enigmatic, changeful, charming. Now that
