The Widow by Georges Simenon

house.”
    Sunrays as sharp as the beams from a searchlight slanted in through the window with its small panes. Tati was still holding her glass and did not know which way to look.
    â€œMaybe there’s a suit upstairs that would fit you. Anyway, I must go and take off my good dress.”
    She wondered whether to pour him another drink, decided it was not necessary. “Come and see.”
    Her room was clean, with whitewashed walls, furnished with a great mahogany bed and an ancient cupboard. She opened it, releasing whiffs of mothball.
    â€œHere. Try on this pair of trousers. They belong to Marcel. Meanwhile, I’ll be changing…. ”
    The blind was down, allowing only a golden light to filter through. The eider down on the bed was blood-red.
    â€œFeeling shy? … Your skin’s as white as a girl’s.”
    Then she laughed, a harsh little laugh, as she looked pointedly at a particular part of his body. “Have you forgotten how?”
    What followed brought back to Jean old memories of his teens, of a night when he and a friend, the son of a building contractor, had pooled their pocket money and furtively made their way into a well-known establishment of Montluçon.
    The same coarse words. The same crude gestures. And that very same domination by the woman who left him no initiative, for whom he was only an object. The same candid obscenity.
    â€œGlad?”
    He would have astonished her by revealing that the whole time he had looked at nothing but her hairy mole, had thought of nothing but that bit of fur adorning her face.
    â€œOnly, I give you fair warning: don’t try to take advantage. I’ve got a mind of my own! It’s all right to have our fun now and then…. ”
    She was putting on her pink flannel slip, her old dress.
    â€œBut work is still work. What are you doing?”
    He had raised the blind, and was looking through the window at the towpath where the local people came for a stroll.
    â€œYou’d better look for a pair of trousers to fit you. As for Couderc, he can just go and chase himself tonight. Aren’t you ready yet?”
    A little boy was fishing and once in a while pulled up a tiny fish from the water. A young man and a girl were walking side by side, heads down, not touching one another. Perhaps they had just had an argument? Or were they still only on the brink of whispering the words they hesitated to speak? Perhaps they were gambling their whole lives, there, in the sunset, while the shadows of the trees lengthened out of all proportion.
    She had a yellow flower in her hand and was beating the air with it as with a whip. His arms were too long, and he did not know what to do with them.
    A two-year-old nearly bumped into them, and his mother, who sat on the embankment beside her husband, called, “Henri! … Henri! … Come here this minute!”
    The gendarmes rode by, slowly, gravely, for the third time that day, on bicycles as heavy as themselves.
    â€œTime to go and lock up the chickens,” said Tati, opening the door. Then, looking at him suspiciously: “Anyone would say you hadn’t liked it!”
    He smiled—a nice, polite smile. “I did.”
    â€œWell, then, hurry up. I’m going to put the soup on.”
    Was she pleased with him? Displeased? She didn’t know yet. As she left the room, she glanced once more at the bedroom and the cupboard in front of which he was trying on a pair of her late husband’s trousers.

3
    T ATI, WHO was never still the whole day long and, as she hurried to and fro, seemed to carry the entire household on her robust shoulders, had her hour of weakness.
    It was after the midday meal, which they called dinner. The later in the season, the more striking was the contrast between the out of doors white with sun and the cool shade of the kitchen. In particular, deep in a recess that looked like a niche and had probably been made by removing the doors of a