Would his faithful eyes still love me after my charms had faded one by one? . . .
Oh, how different he was, how different from . . . the other man!
Except that the other man also made pronouncements like a master and, while holding me tight in a rough grasp, also knew how to say very quietly,
“Walk straight!
I’ve got hold of you! . . .”
I’m suffering . . . I’m tormented by their differences, I’m tormented by their similarities . . . And I caress this innocent, unknowing man’s forehead, saying,
“My little one . . .”
“Don’t call me your ‘little one,’ darling, it makes me ridiculous!”
“I’ll make you ridiculous if I feel like it.
You are my little one because you’re younger than . . . than your real age, because you’ve suffered very little and loved very little, because you aren’t mean . . . Listen, my little one: I am going on tour.”
“Not without me, Renee!”
How he shouted it!
I shudder with vexation and pleasure . . .
“Without you, darling, without you!
I must.
Listen to me . . . No . . . Max . . . I’ll speak all the same, later on . . . Listen, Max!
Don’t you want to wait for me? Can’t you?
Don’t you love me well enough, then?”
He tears himself out of my hands and moves away from me violently:
“Not well enough!
Not well enough!
Oh, that female reasoning!
I don’t love you enough if I follow you, and not enough if I stay behind!
Admit it: if I had answered,
‘All right, darling, I’ll wait for you,’ what would you have thought of me?
And since you’re going when you don’t have to, how do you want me to believe you love me?
In fact . . .”
He takes a stand in front of me, his forehead thrust forward, as if suspicious:
“In fact, you’ve never said it!”
“Said what?”
“That you love me!”
I feel myself blushing, as if he had caught me committing some crime . . .
“You’ve never said it!” he repeats obstinately.
“Oh, Max!”
“You’ve said . . . you’ve said,
‘Darling . . . My beloved Big Ninny . . . Max . . . you dear man . . .’
You moaned out loud, as if singing, the day when . . .”
“Max! . . .”
“Yes, that day when you couldn’t help calling me
‘My love . . .’
But you didn’t say,
‘I love you!’ ”
It’s true.
I was hoping madly that he wouldn’t notice.
One day, another fine day, I sighed so heavily in his arms that the words “. . . love you . . .” were forced out of me, like a sigh that was a little louder than the rest, and immediately I became mute and cold . . .
“. . . Love you . . .” I don’t want to say those words any more, not ever!
I no longer want to hear that voice, my past voice, hoarse and low, murmuring uncontrollably those words out of the past . . . But I don’t know any others . . . There aren’t any others . . .
“Say it to me! Say it to me! Say you love me! Say it to me, I beg you!”
My friend has kneeled down before me, and his imperious supplication will give me no rest.
I smile at him, my face close to his, as if I were merely playing at resisting him, and suddenly I feel like hurting him so he’ll suffer a little, too . . . But he’s so gentle, so far removed from my pain!