I feel so old, now that I’m waiting for you!”
So old . . .
He doesn’t know my age . . .
He has left, he’ll be back tomorrow . . .
He couldn’t tear himself away from me, and I was afraid I’d weaken, so I held him back at arm’s length . . . I felt warm, and he was sniffing at me eagerly, as if ready to bite . . . Finally he left.
I say “finally” because now I’ll be able to think about him, about us . . .
“Love,” he said.
Is it love?
I wish I were sure.
Do I love him?
My sensuality frightened me; but maybe it was only a fit, an overflowing of my strength that has been reined in for so long; afterwards, no doubt, I’ll realize that I truly love him . . . If he were to come back and tap at my shutter . . . Yes, of course I love him.
I recall with emotion some of the inflections of his voice today—the echo of his little amorous grunt is enough to take my breath away—and, besides, how kind he was, how strong, how sympathetic to my loneliness when I laid my head on his shoulder! . . .
Yes, I love him!
Who’s made me so timorous?
I didn’t make such a to-do when . . .
What grave has my mind just carelessly stumbled over?
It’s too late to run away; once again I’m face to face with my merciless adviser, the one who speaks to me from out of the mirror . . .
“You didn’t make such a to-do when Love, swooping down on you, found you so wild and brave!
You didn’t wonder, that day, whether it was love!
There was no way to be mistaken: it was love, your first love.
It was, and it will never be the same again!
Though a simple girl, you had no trouble recognizing it, and you didn’t deny it either your body or your childlike heart.
It was the love that isn’t foreseen, chosen, or reasoned out.
And it will never be the same again!
It took from you that which you can give only once: your trust, the religious awe of the first caress, the novelty of your tears, the flower of your first suffering! . . .
Love again if you can; no doubt it will be granted to you, so that, at the peak of your wretched happiness, you can be reminded that, in love, nothing counts but the first love; so that you can undergo, at every moment, the punishment of remembering, the horror of making comparisons!
Even when you say, ‘Oh, this is better,’ you’ll suffer from the realization that nothing is good if it isn’t unique!
There’s a God who tells the sinner, ‘You wouldn’t be seeking Me if you hadn’t already found Me . . .’ But Love shows no such pity; he says, ‘You that found me once are losing me for good!’
Did you think, when you lost yours, that your suffering was over?
It’s not!
While seeking to restore to life that which you once were, taste your comedown; at each celebration of your new life, drain the poison poured into it by your first, your only love! . . .”
*** I’m going to have to speak with Margot and confess this event to her, this sunstroke which is burning up my life . . . Because there’s no getting away from it, we love each other.
No getting away and, besides, I’m resolved on it.
I’ve sent all my memories and regrets packing, along with what I call my mania for sentimental filigree, my “yes,” “because,” “but,” and “nevertheless” . . .
We see each other at all hours; he carries me away and numbs me with his presence; he prevents me from thinking.
He makes the decisions, almost gives the orders, and at the same time that I sacrifice my freedom to him, I also sacrifice my pride, since I tolerate the arrival at my home of an extravagant abundance of flowers and out-of-season fruit. And I’m now wearing pinned to my collar a glistening dart, all bleeding with rubies, as if it were fixed in my throat.
And yet, we aren’t lovers!
Patient now, Max imposes on himself and on me an engagement period that’s oddly depressing and that, in less than a week, has already left us a little thinner, and languid.
It’s not any depravity on his part, it’s the vanity of a man who wants to be desired and, at the same time, wants to allow me a specious “freedom of the will” for as long as I choose . . .
Anyway, there isn’t much left for me to wish for . . . And now all I have to fear is this unfamiliar ardor which emanated from me at our first contact and is always fiercely ready to obey him . . . Yes, he has good reason to delay the hour that will unite us fully.
I now know all I’m worth, and the magnificence of the gift he’ll receive.
I’ll outdo his most outlandish hopes, I’m sure!
Let him glean from his orchard to some extent, if he wants to . . .
And he frequently wants to.
For my pleasure and for my uneasiness, Chance has seen to it that this tall fellow, with his simple and symmetrical good looks, is a subtle lover, just made for women, and endowed with so much foresight that his caresses seem to be thinking in step with my desires.
He makes me remember (and I blush at it) something a lecherous little vaudeville colleague of mine once said when she was praising the skill of a new lover:
“Honey, I couldn’t do it better myself!”
But . . . I’m going to have to inform Margot!
Poor Margot, whom I’m forgetting . . . As for Hamond, he’s vanished.
Thanks to Max, he knows everything, and he keeps away from my house like a discreet relative . . .