The Left-Handed Woman Read Online Free PDF

Please don’t misunderstand me. There’s still a bottle of red Burgundy in the kitchen. It’s a heavy wine, it puts you to sleep.”
    They stood by the living-room window, drinking the red wine. The curtains were open, and they looked out into the garden; snow was falling.
    The publisher said, “Not long ago I broke with a girl I loved. The way it happened was so strange that I’d like to tell you about it. We were riding in a taxi at night. I had my arm around her, and we were both looking out the same side. Everything was fine. Oh yes, you have to know that she was very young—no more than twenty—and I was very fond of her. For the barest moment, just in passing, I saw a man on the sidewalk. I couldn’t make out his features, the street was too dark. I only saw that he was rather young. And suddenly it flashed through my mind that the sight of that man outside would force the
girl beside me to realize what an old wreck was holding her close, and that she must be filled with revulsion. The thought came as such a shock that I took my arm away. I saw her home, but at the door of her house I told her I never wanted to see her again. I bellowed at her. I said I was sick of her, it was all over between us, she should get out of my sight. And I walked off. I’m certain she still doesn’t know why I left her. That young man on the sidewalk probably didn’t mean a thing to her. I doubt if she even noticed him …”
    He drained his glass. They stood silently, looking out of the window. The woman with the dog appeared, looked up, and waved; she was carrying an open umbrella.
    The publisher said, “It’s been a beautiful evening, Marianne. No, not beautiful—different.”
    They went to the door.
    The publisher: “I shall take the liberty of making your phone ring now and then, even in the dead of winter.”
    He put on his coat. In the doorway she asked him if he had come in his car; the snow was swirling into the house.
    The publisher: “Yes. With a chauffeur. He’s waiting in the car.”
    The woman: “You let him wait all this time?”
    The publisher: “He’s used to it.”
    The car was outside the door, the chauffeur sitting in half-darkness.

    The woman: “You’ve forgotten to give me the book I’m to translate.”
    The publisher: “I left it in the car.”
    He motioned to the chauffeur, who brought in the book.
    The publisher handed it to the woman, who asked, “Were you putting me to the test?”
    The publisher, after a pause: “You’re entering on a period of long loneliness, Marianne.”
    The woman: “Everybody has been threatening me lately.” And to the chauffeur, who was standing beside them, “What about you? Are you threatening me, too?” The chauffeur smiled uncomfortably.
    That night she stood alone in the hall with the book. The snow crackled on the skylights in the flat roof overhead. She began to read: “ Au pays de l‘idéal: J’attends d’un homme qu’ll m’aime pour ce que je suis et pour ce que je deviendrai. ” She attempted a translation: “In the land of the ideal: I expect a man to love me for what I am and for what I shall become.” She shrugged.
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    In broad daylight she sat at the table with her typewriter in front of her, and put on her glasses. She divided the book she was to translate into daily quotas of pages,
and after each quota she wrote the corresponding date in pencil; by the end of the book she had arrived at a date in mid-spring. Haltingly, stopping to leaf through the dictionary, to clean a letter on the typewriter with a needle, to wipe the keys with a cloth, she wrote the following sentence: “Up until now all men have weakened me. My husband says: ‘Michele is strong.’ The truth is that he wants me to be strong in connection with things that don’t interest him: the