I struggle just enough so that he’s compelled to show his strength.
Our wrestling ends up to his advantage, and he tips me over completely in his arms, head downward and feet in the air, until I shout for help and he sets me back down on my feet.
My dog dashes over to protect me, and the rough sport, which I like, is mingled with hoarse barks, shouts, and laughter . . .
Oh, how good this healthy stupidity is!
What a jolly companion I have here, as unconcerned about appearing to be witty as about disarranging his tie! . . .
How pleasantly warm it is here, and how our laughter, like that of jousters confronting each other, quickly changes into an amorous challenge!
He devours his “delicious” woman, tasting her slowly, like a gourmet . . .
“How good you’d be to eat, darling! . . .
Your mouth is sweet, but when I bite them your arms are salty, just ever so little, and your shoulder, and your knees . . . I’m sure you’re salty from head to foot, like a cool seashell, right? . . .
“You’ll find out all too soon, Big Ninny!”
Because I still call him Big Ninny, but . . . in a different tone of voice.
“When? . . .
Tonight?
Today is Thursday, isn’t it?”
“I think so . . . yes . . . why?”
“Thursday . . . is a very good day . . .”
He says silly things, very merrily, leaning back amid tumbled cushions.
A lock of hair falls across one eye; he has that vague look in his eyes which he gets in his major fits of desire, and he opens his mouth a little to breathe.
A handsome rustic, a woodcutter taking his siesta on the grass, that’s what he changes back into (and I don’t mind it at all) with each of his nonchalant poses . . .
“Get up, Max, we have to have a serious talk . . .”
“I don’t want to be made unhappy!” he sighs plaintively.
“Max, come now!”
“No! I know what you mean by a serious talk . . . That’s what Mother says every time she wants to discuss business, money, or marriage!”
He buries himself in the cushions and shuts his eyes.
It’s not the first time he’s manifested this obstinate frivolity . . .
“Max!
You remember that I’m leaving on April fifth?”
He partly opens his eyelids with their feminine lashes and gratifies me with a long gaze:
“You’re leaving, darling?
Who made that decision?”
“My impresario Salomon and I.”
“Good.
But I haven’t given my consent yet . . . Anyway, all right. You’re leaving.
Well, you’re leaving with me.”
“With you!” I say, frightened . . . “Do you really not know what a tour is like?”
“Sure I do.
It’s a trip . . . with me!”
I repeat:
“With you?
For forty-five days?
Don’t you have anything to do?”
“Sure I have!
Ever since meeting you, I haven’t had a minute I could call my own, Renee.”
A pretty answer, but . . .
Disconcerted, I gaze at this man who has nothing to do, who always finds money in his pocket . . . He has nothing to do, it’s true, I had never thought about it!
He has no profession, not even a sinecure to mask his idle freedom . . .
How odd it is!
Before him I’d never met any man without an occupation . . . He can devote all of himself to love, day and night, like . . . like a harlot.
That bizarre thought—that of us two, he’s the courtesan—suddenly strikes me funny, and his sensitive eyebrows are drawn together . . .
“What’s this? You’re laughing? . . .