The Mandarins. Simone Beauvoir de
‘Yes, nowadays men are easy,’ Lambert muttered between his teeth. ‘As easy as women.’
‘You’re a boor!’ Nadine shouted.
Irritably, I wondered how they could let themselves be carried away by their childish manoeuvres. I felt certain they could have helped each other to live again; together they could have succeeded in conquering those memories that both united and separated them. But perhaps that was precisely why they tore each other apart: each saw his own faithlessness in the other, and they hated themselves for it. In any event, interfering would have been the worst possible blunder. I let them continue their squabble and quietly left the room. Sézenac followed me into the hall.
‘May I have a word with you?’ he asked.
‘Go ahead.’
‘There’s a favour,’ he said, ‘a favour I’d like to ask of you.’
I remember how impressive he looked on the twenty-fifth of August, with his full beard, his rifle, his red sash – a true soldier of 1848. Now his blue eyes were dead, his face puffy; when I shook his hand, I had noticed that his palm was moist.
‘I haven’t been sleeping well,’ he said haltingly. ‘I have … I have pains. A friend of mine once gave me an opium suppository and it helped a lot. Only the pharmacists won’t sell it without a prescription …’ He looked at me pleadingly.
‘What kind of pains?’
‘Oh, everywhere. In my head. And worst of all I have nightmares …’
‘You can’t cure nightmares with opium.’
His forehead, like his hands, grew moist. ‘I’ll be honest with you. I have a girl friend, a girl I like a lot. In fact, I’m thinking of marrying her. But I … I can’t do anything with her without taking opiates.’
‘Opium is a narcotic, you know. Do you use it often?’ I asked.
He pretended to be shocked by my question. ‘Oh, no! Only once in a while, when I spend the night with Lucie.’
‘Well, that’s not too bad then. You know it’s very easy to become addicted to those things.’
He looked at me pleadingly, sweat beading his brow.
‘Come see me tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘I’ll see if I can give you that prescription.’
I went back to my room. He was obviously pretty much an addict already. When had he begun drugging himself? Why? I sighed. Another one I could stretch out on the couch and try to empty. At times, they got on my nerves, all those recliners. Outside, in the world, standing on their own two feet, they did the best they could to play at being adults. But here, in my office, they again became infants with dirty behinds, and it was up to me to wash their childhood away. And yet I spoke to them in an impersonal voice, the voice of reason, of health. Their real lives were elsewhere; mine too. It wasn’t surprising that I was tired of them – and of myself.
I was tired. ‘Immaculate kid gloves,’ Nadine had said. ‘Distant, intimidating,’ were Scriassine’s words. Is that how I appear to them? Is that how I am? I recalled my childhood rages, the pounding of my adolescent heart, the feverish days of that month of August. But all that was now of the past. The fact is that nothing was stirring inside me any more. I combed my hair and touched up my make-up. You can’t go on living indefinitely in fear; it’s too tiring. Robert had begun a new book, and he was in high spirits. I no longer awakened at night in a cold sweat. Nevertheless, I was depressed. I could see no reason for being sad. It’s just that it makes me unhappy not to feel happy; I must have been badly spoiled. I took my purse and gloves and knocked at Robert’s door. I hadn’t the least desire to go out.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t you like me to build a little fire?’
He pushed back his chair and smiled at me. ‘I’m fine,’ he said.
Naturally. Robert always felt fine. For two years, he happily sustained himself on sauerkraut and rutabagas. He was never cold; it seemed almost as if he produced his own warmth, like a yogi. When I return around midnight, he’ll still be writing, wrapped in his plaid blanket. And he’ll be surprised: ‘What time is it, anyhow?’ Up to now, he had spoken to me only vaguely of his new book, but I gathered he was satisfied with the way it was going. I sat down.
‘Nadine just told me something pretty surprising,’ I said. ‘She’s going to Portugal with Perron.’
He looked up at me quickly. ‘Does it upset you?’
‘Yes. Perron isn’t the kind of person you pick up and drop as you please. She’s going to become much too attached to him.’
Robert placed his hand on mine. ‘Don’t worry about Nadine. First of all, I’d be very surprised if she became attached to Perron. But in any case, it won’t take her long to console herself if she does.’
‘I hope she isn’t going to spend her whole life consoling herself!’ I said.
Robert laughed. ‘There you go again! You’re always shocked when you think of your daughter sleeping around, like a boy. I did exactly the same thing at her age.’
Robert refused to face the fact that Nadine wasn’t a boy. ‘It’s different,’ I said. ‘The reason Nadine grabs one man after another is that she doesn’t feel she’s alive when she’s alone. That’s what worries me.’
‘Listen, we know why she hates to be alone. She can still see Diego too clearly.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not only because of Diego.’
‘I know. You think it’s partially our fault,’ he said sceptically. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘she’ll change; she has lots of time to change.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ I looked at Robert pleadingly. ‘It’s very important to her to have something to do that really interests her. Give her that secretarial job. She spoke to me about it again just now. She wants it badly.’
‘It’s not very exciting,’ Robert said. ‘Typing envelopes and filing all day long. It’s a crime to waste her intelligence on a thing like that.’
‘But she’ll feel she’s being useful; it will give her confidence,’ I said.
‘She could do so much better! She could continue to study.’
‘Just now what she needs is to do something. And she’d make a good secretary.’ I paused a moment and then added, ‘You mustn’t ask too much of people.’
For me, Robert’s demands had always been a stimulant, but they only succeeded in discouraging Nadine. He gave her no orders; rather, he confided in her, expected things of her, and she played along with him. She had read too many heavy books when she was too young; she had been too precociously part of adult conversations. And so, after a while, she tired of that severe routine. At first, she was disappointed in herself, and now she seemed to enjoy avenging herself by disappointing Robert.
He looked perplexed, as he always did whenever he detected a note of reproach in my voice.
‘If you really believe that’s what she wants … Well, you know best.’
‘I do believe it,’ I said.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Consider it done.’
He had given in too easily. That proved that Nadine had succeeded only too well in disappointing him. When he can no longer give himself without reserve to something that means much to him, Robert wastes no time in losing all interest in it.
‘Of course, a job that would make her completely independent of us would be even better,’ I said.
‘But that isn’t what she really wants; she simply wants to play at being