The Devil in the Flesh Read Online Free PDF

harbouring the same thoughts, by only seeing one thing, if you want it fervently, you end up not noticing the crime you are committing with yourdesires. I certainly wasn’t trying to upset my father; yet what I wanted was the very thing that would upset him the most. The classroom had always been torture for me. The effect of Marthe and freedom had been to make it unbearable. I saw quite clearly that, if I was now less fond of René, it was only because he reminded me in some way of school. I was in pain, and the fear of finding myself back among my inane schoolmates the following year made me feel physically ill.
    It was René’s misfortune that I succeeded in getting him to share my vice. So when he, who wasn’t as clever as me, told me that he had been expelled from Henri IV, I thought I must have been as well. I would have to tell my father, because he would appreciate finding out from me before the deputy-headmaster’s letter arrived, which was too serious a missive to be intercepted.
    It was a Wednesday. The next day, which was a holiday, I waited until my father had left for Paris before telling my mother. The prospect of four days of domestic discord alarmed her more than the news itself. Then I went for a walk down by the Marne, where Marthe had said that she might join me. She wasn’t there. This was a stroke of luck. Had my love drawn the wrong sort of strength from our meeting, I might have been capable of battling with my father later on, but since the storm broke after a sad and empty day, I came home with eyes downcast, as was fitting. I arrived just after the time my father usually got back. So he would ‘know’. I walked round the garden, waiting for him to send for me. My sisters played quietly. They guessed something. One of my brothers, excited by the thought of a row, told me to go to the room where my father was having a rest.
    Raised voices and threats would have given me the right to rebel. But it was worse. My father didn’t say a thing, and then, not at all angrily, in a quieter voice than usual he asked:
    “Well, so what do you plan on doing now?”
    The tears that couldn’t find their way out of my eyes buzzed around inside my head like a swarm of bees. Force of will was something I could have used my own against, albeit impotently. But faced with such gentleness my only thought was of giving in.
    “Whatever you tell me.”
    “No, no more lies. I’ve always let you do what you want; so carry on. No doubt you’ll be keen to make me regret it.”
    When we are young, we are too prone, as women are, to imagine that tears make up for everything. But my father didn’t require tears. Confronted with this magnanimity, I felt ashamed, not only about the present but about what was to come. Because I sensed that whatever I said I would lie. “At least a lie will make him feel better,” I thought, expecting to be a source of yet more sorrows for him. “But no, it’s only myself I’m trying to lie to now.” What I wanted was work, nothing more tiring than going for a walk, and which, like a walk, would leave my mind free to concentrate on Marthe. I pretended I wanted to paint but had never dared tell him. Once again my father didn’t refuse, on condition I continued to study at home the things I ought to have been studying at school, except that I would be free to paint.
    When the ties that bind us to someone aren’t yet strong enough, to lose sight of that person, all we need do is fail to meet them just once. By thinking about Marthe I thought of her less and less. My thoughts behaved the same wayour eyes do with the wallpaper in our bedroom. As a result of seeing it continually, they don’t see it at all.
    And how amazing! I even acquired a taste for work. Despite what I’d feared, I hadn’t been lying.
    Whenever something from the outside world made me think less idly of Marthe, I did so without love, with the sorrow you feel for something that might have been. “No!” I thought.