The Woman Destroyed Read Online Free PDF Page A

He clings to me as he might cling to anything he had been used to for a long while, but I no longer bring him any kind of happiness. Perhaps it is unfair, but I resent it: he accepts this indifference—he has settled down into it.
    The key turned in the lock; he kissed me; he looked preoccupied. “I’m late.”
    “Yes, rather.”
    “Philippe came to fetch me at the Ecole Normale. We had a drink together.”
    “Why didn’t you bring him here?”
    “He wanted to speak to me alone. So that I should be the one to tell you what he has to say.” (Was he leaving for abroad, a great way off, for years and years?) “You won’t like it. He could not bring himself to tell us the other evening, but it is all settled. His father-in-law has found him a job. He is getting him into the Ministry of Culture. He tells me that for anyone his age it is a splendid post. But you see what it implies.”
    “It’s impossible. Philippe?”
    It was impossible. He shared our ideas. He had taken great risks during the Algerian war—that war which had torn our hearts and which now seems never to have taken place at all—he had got himself beaten up in anti-Gaullist demonstrations; he had voted as we voted during the last elections.…
    “He says he has developed. He has come to understand that the French left wing’s negativism has led it nowhere, that it is done for, finished, and he wants to be in the swim, to have a grip on the world, accomplish something, construct, build.”
    “Anyone would think it was Irène speaking.”
    “Yet it was Philippe,” said André in a hard voice.
    Suddenly everything fell into place. Anger took hold of me. “So that’s it? He’s an
arriviste
—a creature that’s going to succeed whatever it costs? He’s turning his coat out ofvulgar ambition. I hope you told him what you thought of him.”
    “I told him I was against it.”
    “You didn’t try to make him change his mind?”
    “Of course I did. I argued.”
    “Argued! You ought to have frightened him—told him that we should never see him again. You were too soft: I know you.” All at once it crashed over me, an avalanche of suspicions and uneasy feelings that I had thrust back. Why had he never had anything but pretentious, fashionable, too well-dressed young women? Why Irène and that great frothy marriage in church? Why did he display such an eager desire to please his in-laws—why so winning? He was at home in those surroundings, like a fish in its native water. I had not wanted to ask myself any questions, and if ever André ventured a criticism I stood up for Philippe. All my obstinate trust turned into bitterness of heart. In an instant Philippe showed another face. Unscrupulous ambition: plotting. “I’m going to have a word with him.”
    I went angrily toward the telephone. André stopped me. “Calm down first. A scene will do nobody any good.”
    “It will relieve my mind.”
    “Please.”
    “Leave me alone.”
    I dialed Philippe’s number. “Your father has just told me you’re joining the Ministry of Culture right up at the top. Congratulations!”
    “Oh, please don’t take it like that,” he said to me.
    “How am I to take it, then? I ought to be glad you’re so ashamed of yourself that you didn’t dare tell me to my face.”
    “I’m not ashamed at all. One has the right to reconsider one’s opinions.”
    “Reconsider! Only six months ago and you were utterly condemning the regime’s entire cultural policy.”
    “There you are, then! I’m going to try to change it.”
    “Come, come, you aren’t of that caliber and you know it. You’ll play their little game as good as gold and you’ll carve yourself out a charming little career. Your motive is mere ambition, nothing more.…” I don’t know what else I said to him. He shouted, “Shut up, shut up.” I went on: he interrupted, his voice filled with hatred, and in the end he shouted furiously, “I’m not a swine just because I won’t share in your