because no age can avoid naivety—old age perhaps least of all. This so-called perceptiveness cast a cloud over everything, caused me to doubt Marthe. Or rather I doubted myself, believing myself unworthy of her. Even if I had had endless proof of her love, I would have been no less miserable.
I was all too aware of the treasures we never discuss with those we love, for fear of seeming immature, to not suspect Marthe of this regrettable sense of modesty, and it pained me not to be able to get inside her mind.
I got home at half-past nine that night. My parents quizzed me about my walk. Enthusiastically I described the forest of Sénart, the ferns twice as tall as me. I talked about Brunoy, a delightful village where we had had lunch. Then my mother suddenly interrupted mockingly:
“By the way, René came round at four o’clock, he was most surprised to hear that he was on a long walk with you.”
I blushed in angry confusion. Like so many others, this experience taught me that, certain inclinations aside, I’m not made for telling lies. People always catch me out. My parents didn’t pursue it. They had had their little victory.
XII
MY FATHER, I HAVE TO SAY, WAS AN UNWITTING accomplice to my first affair. In fact he rather encouraged it, delighted that my precocious talents should find an outlet somewhere. He had always been afraid I would fall in with a woman of ill repute. So he was pleased that I had won the love of a decent girl. He only got on his high horse when he found out that Marthe wanted a divorce.
My mother didn’t view our romance quite so favourably, however. She was jealous. She saw Marthe as a rival. She took a dislike to her, not understanding that it would have been the same with any woman I loved. Besides, she was more concerned than my father was about what people might say. She was surprised that Marthe could get mixed up with a boy of my age. But then she had been brought up in F …—in all those small suburban towns, as soon as you get away from the working-class suburbs, the same passions, the same cravings for tittle-tattle are as rife as out in the country. Not only that, being close to Paris makes the gossip, the speculation even more barefaced. Everyone should keep to their place. So as a result of having a mistress whose husband was a soldier, on instructions from their parents I watched my friends gradually melt away. They withdrew according to the social order: first the notary’s son and then the rest, all the way down to thegardener’s boy. My mother was wounded by this process, which to me seemed like an accolade. In her view my life had been ruined by a madwoman. She probably blamed my father for having introduced me to her, and for then turning a blind eye. But since she considered that it was up to my father to do something about it, and my father said nothing, she kept quiet.
XIII
I SPENT EVERY NIGHT AT MARTHE’S HOUSE. I arrived at half-past ten and left at five or six the next morning. I didn’t jump over walls now. I just opened the door with my key; yet this openness required forward planning. So that the chime of the clock didn’t wake us, I wrapped the pendulum in cotton wool at night. When I left in the morning, I took it off again.
At home no one questioned my absences; it wasn’t the same at J.… For quite some time the owners and the elderly couple had viewed me in an unfavourable light, and hardly ever returned my greetings.
At five in the morning, so as to make as little noise as possible, I would carry my shoes on my way out. I put them on when I got downstairs. One morning I met the milkman on the stairs. He had a crate of milk in his hand; I had my shoes in mine. He said good morning with a horrible smile. It was Marthe’s downfall. He would tell the whole of J.… But what tormented me even more was that it made a laughing stock of me. I could have paid the milkman to keep quiet, but I didn’t, because I had no idea how to go about it.
That
I was all too aware of the treasures we never discuss with those we love, for fear of seeming immature, to not suspect Marthe of this regrettable sense of modesty, and it pained me not to be able to get inside her mind.
I got home at half-past nine that night. My parents quizzed me about my walk. Enthusiastically I described the forest of Sénart, the ferns twice as tall as me. I talked about Brunoy, a delightful village where we had had lunch. Then my mother suddenly interrupted mockingly:
“By the way, René came round at four o’clock, he was most surprised to hear that he was on a long walk with you.”
I blushed in angry confusion. Like so many others, this experience taught me that, certain inclinations aside, I’m not made for telling lies. People always catch me out. My parents didn’t pursue it. They had had their little victory.
XII
MY FATHER, I HAVE TO SAY, WAS AN UNWITTING accomplice to my first affair. In fact he rather encouraged it, delighted that my precocious talents should find an outlet somewhere. He had always been afraid I would fall in with a woman of ill repute. So he was pleased that I had won the love of a decent girl. He only got on his high horse when he found out that Marthe wanted a divorce.
My mother didn’t view our romance quite so favourably, however. She was jealous. She saw Marthe as a rival. She took a dislike to her, not understanding that it would have been the same with any woman I loved. Besides, she was more concerned than my father was about what people might say. She was surprised that Marthe could get mixed up with a boy of my age. But then she had been brought up in F …—in all those small suburban towns, as soon as you get away from the working-class suburbs, the same passions, the same cravings for tittle-tattle are as rife as out in the country. Not only that, being close to Paris makes the gossip, the speculation even more barefaced. Everyone should keep to their place. So as a result of having a mistress whose husband was a soldier, on instructions from their parents I watched my friends gradually melt away. They withdrew according to the social order: first the notary’s son and then the rest, all the way down to thegardener’s boy. My mother was wounded by this process, which to me seemed like an accolade. In her view my life had been ruined by a madwoman. She probably blamed my father for having introduced me to her, and for then turning a blind eye. But since she considered that it was up to my father to do something about it, and my father said nothing, she kept quiet.
XIII
I SPENT EVERY NIGHT AT MARTHE’S HOUSE. I arrived at half-past ten and left at five or six the next morning. I didn’t jump over walls now. I just opened the door with my key; yet this openness required forward planning. So that the chime of the clock didn’t wake us, I wrapped the pendulum in cotton wool at night. When I left in the morning, I took it off again.
At home no one questioned my absences; it wasn’t the same at J.… For quite some time the owners and the elderly couple had viewed me in an unfavourable light, and hardly ever returned my greetings.
At five in the morning, so as to make as little noise as possible, I would carry my shoes on my way out. I put them on when I got downstairs. One morning I met the milkman on the stairs. He had a crate of milk in his hand; I had my shoes in mine. He said good morning with a horrible smile. It was Marthe’s downfall. He would tell the whole of J.… But what tormented me even more was that it made a laughing stock of me. I could have paid the milkman to keep quiet, but I didn’t, because I had no idea how to go about it.
That
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