And all day long, in a country where looks are outstanding, being scorched by every face I met, while I was stuck to her. Naturally, I had never seen so many. (The one with the plaits round her head, like the ring round Saturn.... ) Oh, to let nature go to waste like that! If only I had been alone! As dismal as a horse that senses that its pals are out at grass while the bit is still lacerating its chops. One person can deprive you of the whole immense world, can steal the world from you, put a screen between the world and you. Everything is devoured by that one person; the resplendent universe ceases to exist.
(Written before going to bed.) These three days, the first two of which were flawless, and spent with a girl whose character is ideal, who is the soul of tact and docility, have nevertheless reduced my personality to a state of deliquescence. This evening, while preparing for bed, I go from one object to another without finding what I am looking for although it is under my nose. The dilution of my personality shows even on my face, which seems washed out; my eyelids are so heavy that I can hardly lift them. Inordinate intensity of my reflexes. 'I scarcely belong to myself,' sigh the weak-willed. Exactly, but I want to belong to myself all the time.
Title for a novel about marriage: The Man Who Lost His Soul.
During the first years of his marriage, Tolstoy thinks he is happy. In fact he is in a daze. He has been knocked over the head.
I am a snake that has been knocked on the head with a bludgeon. It can no longer move.
30 September - In the morning I stay in my room, on the pretext of having letters to write. In the afternoon, a walk in the old town (Sottoripa, San Lorenzo, etc.). Easy, pleasant conversation: all is well. And yet something she said disappointed me in the extreme. As she continues to refrain from questioning me about my life, I congratulate her on this. And she explains: 'But what if I found cause for suffering in your life, in your past! I would rather cherish the illusion that your happiness only began with me. . . So, what I assumed to be exquisite tact was nothing but feminine hatred of reality! Trust deriving from ignorance - there's something essentially feminine. They prune away from a man, from an author, everything they don't like, everything that doesn't conform to their 'dream'. The atheist, for them, is presumed to be a 'seeker', the hard man a tender plant, the happy man a prey to anxiety, the scoundrel a man of honour. They don't like real people, but phantoms or archetypes, and they know it. And people are surprised at the blunders they make! And they are surprised to find themselves 'let down' in the end!
After dinner, fearing that she might feel deserted, went to read Renan in her room, my armchair next to hers, my left hand slipped under the hollow of her knee, which is moist as a runnel that has recently contained water (this method of reading him would have delighted Renan). She reads Michelet's La Femme, rearranging her hair continually. Then I write this, having moved a bit behind her, in such a way that I have only to raise my eyes to see her. Spelling mistakes, words skipped, as a result of the absorption of my personality by hers. I am bewitched by this cohabitation, exiled from the world. I try in vain to read and write; my mind is elsewhere. In fact, it has been turned inside out.... S. pumps me dry, as hysterics do when they take on the nervous strength which they have sucked from those they come in contact with.
She asks me: 'No shadows? No misunderstandings?' I fondle her. But she must have read my thoughts.
She said something rather silly: 'Perhaps you don't love abundantly enough.... ' Why should one love a lot of people? A handful of attachments is enough. Four or five people - the piles upon which one builds one's bungalow. The beasts of the jungle may prowl and roar below, but one is safe. Unshakeable devotion to the members of the clan, but for everyone else, hm ... like those savages who, though tigers where society is concerned, have a brotherly pact with one particular species (snake-charmers, elephant-tamers, etc.). But why even a 'handful' of attachments? Fewer still: a single attachment is enough. A single attachment would be enough to justify one's existence, if existence needed justifying. A single person whom one loves more and more, from whose body and soul one draws ever more profound harmonies, like the violin of a master, which grows better and better the more he plays it. And this is why, contrary to what is believed by those I do not love, who judge me only by my non-love for them, I am a faithful person, absurdly faithful; only it is to those I love, not those I do not love, that I am absurdly faithful. Ah! when one loves, fidelity is not very difficult ... I should like to say all this to her, but if I say it like that, in the abstract, she will be convinced that she is one of the 'handful', and one fine day, what an awakening! And if I told her in so many words: 'I'm not talking about you', I should be stabbing her to the heart. So let her go on thinking me 'heartless'.
Going into her room later, find her with playing cards laid out in front of her. 'You're consulting the cards to see if I'll marry you?' She blushes. 'Not at all. I'm playing patience.' Even assuming she was telling the truth, to have caught her in the act of playing patience produces the same effect on me as if I had caught her pleasuring herself. That she should have brought a pack of cards in her suitcase! One degree lower, and we shall be at the crossword stage.
Cohabitation with a woman one 'loves' makes a man of one, because of the continual necessity of coming to terms with her, being on one's best behaviour, keeping a watchful eye both on oneself and on her. The spontaneous outpouring of love gives place to another feeling, by no means ignoble, in which one's affection for another person arises from constant self-scrutiny and self-discipline. But when this woman is only 'loved' (in theory) and not truly loved, and moreover bores you, such an effort is exhausting, especially if one is unaccustomed to putting oneself out for anyone or anything.
Living together is said to be an art. True enough. A state in which one needs constant therapy with a view to forgetting the other person, with a view to protecting oneself from the other person.
I, by your side, will find my solitude again - Géraldy.
Agreed, but that being so, the question irresistibly arises: in these conditions, what is the point of living together?
She pines, droops, looks distracted if I do not clasp her lengthily in my arms. As soon as I do, her face becomes transfigured: a dried-up garden in which a hose is turned on - or a dog that was whimpering because it was left alone too long. She is always imperceptibly reminding me of her presence, as a cat does in order to be stroked, or a dog to be played with. I think of that Siamese cat I was rather fond of, but which had such a need to be stroked that it roared ceaselessly - thirty raucous, agonizing miaows per minute - whenever it was not on someone's lap. As soon as it was, and being fondled, it stopped. Since I could not hire a special manservant to stroke the cat, or have an electrical apparatus specially designed for the purpose.... If I want Solange to purr, I have to pay heed to her the whole time: a little cajolery, an affectionate word, an 'attention' of one kind or another; she must feel continually propped up. To be somebody's oxygen flask is not much fun. No doubt, as I say, to remain in control of my work while being continually wrapped up in her, to carry through my life's task while comforting others, is a manly thing to do. But it exhausts me.
Let me live at the summit of my being. Let me drink myself silly on the exaltation I experience from the complete and perfect harmony between what I am and the life I lead. Let me walk on the waters. But no, she burns less ardently than I do, and more slowly. She does not and never will belong to the race of half-madmen to which I belong and which is the only ambience in which I feel at ease. I was on fire: she extinguishes me. I was walking on the waters; she takes me by the arm: I sink.
Lord Byron: 'It is often easier to die for a woman than to live with her.'
Lord Byron, to X: 'It seems you've married a pretty woman. Hm.... Don't the evenings sometimes seem a bit long!'
I am not condemning her, for she is blameless. I am not even condemning communal life, married or otherwise. I am condemning charity, which forces one to behave towards people as though one l
oved them, when in fact one doesn't (or at least: when one doesn't love them deeply).
1 October - Night with her - agreeable enough. But this morning she is sad. Women, eternal Penelopes, who unravel during the day what they have woven during the night. Evidently she senses that her presence does not make me happy. It is as though both of us were suffering from the accidie of people who have just entered the conventual life. I do my utmost to see that she is not unhappy, and in doing so I am unhappy myself, and she remains so: it is the moral of all works of pity. Is she also perhaps disappointed that I have said nothing definite to her, after those first two days when we were so near to marriage? Does she realize that I am at the same stage as when I took the train? Those strange words of hers: 'Mummy is absolutely determined that I should be married before the spring. We must soon give an answer to a young engineer.... ' There follows a long story about some engineer who has proposed to her. 'But you've never spoken to me about this engineer.... ' 'I didn't want to worry you.'
Well, let him marry her, and take her off my hands. And yet at the same time it does affect me, not in my pride, but in the affection I have for her. And then, I can't help wondering whether this engineer really exists. I believe that, if I discovered they had concocted the story in order to fool me (who knows, perhaps a combinazione with her mother), I should never see her again for the rest of my life. I may be this and I may be that, but I am not a person who can be fooled with impunity.
At five o'clock, as I was going out to do some shopping, she asked me to post a letter. It was to her mother. Young Dr F. once told me that he used to force the letter-box of his fiancée's house, to intercept letters addressed to her. When I told him: 'You're a real skunk,' he laughed and said: 'Well, at least it shows I've got some personality.' I was holding this letter in my hand, and I thought that if I needed to prove that I had 'some personality', like Dr F., perhaps the situation would be cleared up once and for all, and I should be released and cured. If I had read: 'I've told him about the so-called engineer.... ' I should have asked her to leave Genoa that very evening, and the future would have been washed clean. It is disturbing to realize how often it is the shabby thing one should rationally choose to do. When I fled from Paris, it was not a glorious gesture, and yet it was the right thing to do.
I strongly suspect that these letters she writes to her mother and receives from her (she does not correspond with anyone else to my knowledge. How lonely she is! I feel sorry for her) are full of me. I don't like it. All kinds of advice and diplomatic instructions must arrive from Etretat … These two women intriguing away together … How pure my life was when I was far from the gynaeceum! When I took what I wanted from it in my own time, without ever going into it myself. And fooling fathers and mothers for days on end instead of having to reckon with them.
And yet, even if the engineer is a myth, have I the right to blame her? Isn't it natural that, in the situation I have placed her in, she should try to hasten, to force my decision, even by falsehoods? If, discovering her fib, I had put her on the train back to France, wouldn't that have been odious of me?
It is a horrible thing to feel for another person nothing but that hybrid sentiment, half-way between love and indifference, which is pity. A sentiment that makes it impossible to enjoy them unreservedly, or for them to enjoy you (for people sense pity, and who has ever loved the pity of which he is the object?), that makes one fret and wear oneself out, and all to no purpose, because pity always ends with an explosion which hurls the two people, bruised and panting, in opposite directions, back to where they should always have been.
Rule: Never pity those you do not love (more or less what old Dandillot said to me).
Rule: It is pointless to be really nice to someone, unless one loves them a great deal. For one must love someone a great deal in order to be satisfied simply with having given them pleasure.
Rule: Do good, but at the same time wound the person to whom you do it, so that he will hold it against you. In this way you will gratify two vices at one blow - your love of being charitable and your love of being hated.
2 October - The school year begins tomorrow. In every city in Europe, as here in Genoa, all the kids with the same parcel under their arms: the new shoes they have just been bought. Brunet makes a scene, insists that unless he is bought a frog- green scarf, he won't be able to work properly. He also wants Old Mother Hubbard to buy him a tie: 'You're a woman: you know about such things ... ' He loves his frog-green scarf so much that he cannot be persuaded to take it off in the house: he eats his meals in it. He has not written to me since the 25th.
When he lived with me, he used to irritate me too. But it wasn't the same as with Sol. It would take pages to explain all the subtle differences. Or perhaps only a line. He distracted me from my work, because I was too busy loving him all the time.
(Written in the evening.) Interminable day with her. Nothing serious: simply the fact that we have nothing to say to each other. I imagine myself having made up my mind to marry her, and soliloquizing thus: 'To think that we're going to have nothing to say to each other for thirty years. Not only that it's just beginning, but that it hasn't yet begun … '
'You're gloomy. What's wrong?'
'You know quite well, it's always the same thing.'
'The future?'
'Yes, I'm haunted by the thought of being dispossessed.'
'Dispossessed of what?' I persist, determined to probe the wound thoroughly.
Of you.'
'So you think you possess me?'
Without answering, she presses herself against me - a gesture which maddens me. Her remark has turned me to ice. Three possible interpretations of this idea of 'possessing me'. She possesses me in the sense of forcible seizure. She possesses me in the slang sense of the word: I've been had by her, gulled. She possesses me in the sense of diabolical possession: the dream in which she was lying on top of me like a fungus, and everything I have observed about the way she eats up my life.
Later, seeing a train pass by, she sighs: 'Think of all the shattered hopes and unrealized dreams it's carrying away with it.' A woman will never believe that a passing train may also be carrying away realized dreams. For melancholy is the luxury of the poor in spirit. In the West, dominated by women, the cult of suffering; in the East, where man is the master, the cult of wisdom. But I, by the side of this silent and dejected woman, become soured, and turn over in my mind phrases that are unworthy of myself and of her. So then I take her by the arm and put her hand in mine. Every time I sense that there is something irremediable between us, I perform some little act of endearment intended to lead her to believe that I still love her, as though I felt she had read my thoughts. And in the end I come to have a horror of these lying caresses, which dishonour true affection, of which they are the simulacrum, as charity dishonours love. O God, do not let me give in to all the ugly feelings she arouses in me! Help me to hold out for the week that remains …
Living together consists almost entirely of waiting for the other person. Solange not being ready, Costals had gone down and taken his seat in the hired car which was to take them to San Cassiano. The village of San Cassiano is a target for excursions, in other words a place totally lacking in interest, since the sole object of excursions is to try and kill time. Solange appeared at last.
'You've put too much powder on.'
'That's because I hurried.'
He looked at her malevolently. Simply because she had put her powder on badly, because she wasn't looking her best. He saw what she would be like at fifty: a frightful, bloated little bourgeoise.
They drove off. The sky was greenish-blue like the bellies of certain monkeys. From time to time the countryside opened out to disclose the hard outline of the sea, and from this infinite, dazzling expanse of azure and sunlight there rose a chill as from a well.
Solange said not a word, and when you are a couple, neither has the right to look absent or preoccupied without being made aware of the other's anxiety
or disapproval. As always when he did not know what to say to her, Costals slipped his arm through hers and took her hand, as a matter of form. She pressed close to him, still silent, and he caught a glimpse of her expression of dumb reproach, with its eternal question- mark: 'Why, why don't you marry me? You know how much I love you, and you pretend to love me.' But soon, at the slightest jolt the car made she began to make faces and cling to the door-handle. Costals did not mind these jolts, which he would not even have noticed had he been alone. Gradually he became aware of them, and suffered likewise. Living together induces a process of osmosis. If one of the pair is bored, he forces the other to be bored too. If one suffers from some discomfort or other, he forces the other to suffer from it too.
Thus the journey, which lasted an hour, was ruined for Costals. Then they arrived at San Cassiano. The red and white village lay drowsing in the innocence of morning. Urchins, rather lumpish, snotty-nosed, their shouts tailing off, were playing at persecuting one another. A man was asleep in the sun, covered with flies like an open wound. Worried-looking dogs trotted briskly about their business, obviously with important engagements to keep. A tourist motor-coach, whose occupants had just visited the church, was driving off again. A pretentious-looking little woman sat in it with a tiny dog on her lap. Costals exchanged an extremely roguish wink with the dog as they passed.
'You made eyes at that old hag!' said Solange in a very unfriendly tone.
'Not at all, I made eyes at the dog. And how very saucy he looked!'
Now they were climbing up to the church, Mlle Dandillot's eyes glued to the tips of her shoes (a fine way to visit 'beauty spots'), in other words sunk in her hippogriffical stew-pot. They went into the church.
The Hippogriff Page 13