The High-Life Read Online Free PDF

beyond all belief. Once she had extirpated me from her vagina, she knocked back about ten Calvados and fell asleep, curled up like a monstrous fetus. I quietly slipped out and returned to my little apartment. Sometimes, Madame C. made me think of an exiled queen, or an Oriental princess whom seclusion had made obese. She had perhaps been very beautiful in a former life. One evening, I brought her an old Frehel record. "You know, Madame, it's the song that she was listening to in Pepe le Moko ." I never managed to call her anything other than "Madame," because she intimidated me. "It's beautiful, my little Adolphe, it's so beautiful!" She wept.
    Madame C. was very fond of reading. She often opened up the mail of the building's residents ("all bastards," she confided to me, "you wouldn't believe the filth I read. If I don't like the letters, I don't let them have them. The others I seal up again, they don't notice a thing. Anyway, screw them. Humanity, Bastards Incorporated, my little blue cat"). She was sentimental: Max Du Veuzit, Guy des Cars, Gilbert Cesbron, Didier Decoin. For her birthday, I gave her Pnin . She asked me if this Nabokov was a Communist. I reassured her. "You'll see, it's very beautiful. It's the story of a bachelor. It's everyman's story. It's heartbreaking." She stopped at the tenth page. "Your thing's stupid," she told me simply. Same failure with Pierre- Jean Jouve and The Desert World . "What's with these fags? You going all village priest on me?" I had no luck with my books. I would have probably done better to let her read what she liked. But no. I was stubborn. I couldn't stand that she didn't like the same things I did. Svevo's As a Man Grows Older was the final straw. She thought I was making fun of her. "I'm forty-eight, my little Adolphe, I'm not an old woman yet, remember that!" She was an offended woman. She had probably suffered too much in the past, Madame C. had grown ill tempered. I was discouraged. I didn't have much to say to her. Our relations were beginning to disgust me. Moreover, I had been feeling a terrible sense of guilt since my romance began: my father's grave was a bit neglected. I didn't take the same care as before in hunting down its polluters.
    It was toward the end of August that the drama broke out. I say drama, but that isn't the right word. There's no drama with us, messieurs, nor tragedy: there is only burlesque and obscenity. We may not be happy, but we get a good laugh. A hollow one, of course, but still. And then, let's admit it, sorrow is funny. It's hypocrites who claim the opposite (besides, those great humanists of ours secretly chuckle when they admire the disorder of the world). One evening Madame C. wanted us to go out together to the movies. I wasn't that keen on being seen with her, but as she insisted, I ended up giving in. It was a porno that someone had recommended to her, Barbara Broadcast, which they were playing at the "Maine," just behind the lodge. I personally don't have anything against pornos—quite the contrary—and I obediently followed Madame C. After all, a bad porno is better than a good film by Lelouche, or racking your brains over whether Romy Schneider is going to lave an abortion or not in Sautet's latest film. Pornography isn't always where you think it is. The film was far from crap. Two or three scenes were even beautiful, provocative. The main actress was rather moving. Madame C. held her breath. There weren't many audience members in the theater, luckily, her six and a half feet weren't in anyone's way. Poor audience, sparse, timid, touching. When the lights came up, Madame C. stood upwithout a word. She didn't seem her usual self. She didn't utter a peep the whole way to the lodge. She held me by the hand and squeezed me very tightly. I could tell she was aroused. Once we got to the lodge, she undressed feverishly. Then she sat down on a stool and looked at me solemnly: "You know what I found most moving in that film, my little