of the Communist Party; but she is eighty-four and she lives alone in her house at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. He is rather anxious about her. He laughed on the telephone; I heard him cry out and protest; but he was soon cut short—Manette is very talkative whenever she has the chance.
‘What did she say?’
‘she is more and more certain that one day or another fifty million Chinese will cross the Russian frontier. Or else that they will drop a bomb anywhere, just anywhere, for the pleasure of setting off a world war. She accuses me of taking their side: there’s no persuading her I don’t.’
‘Is she well? She’s not bored?’
‘she will be delighted to see us; but as for bring bored, she doesn’t know the meaning of the word.’
She had been a school-teacher with three children, and, for her, retirement is a delight that she has not yet come to the end of. We talked about her and about the Chinese, of whom we, like everybody else, know so very little. André opened a magazine. And there I was, looking at my watch, whose hands did not seem to be going round.
All at once he was there: every time it surprises me to see his face, with the dissimilar features of my mother and André blending smoothly in it. He hugged me very tight, saying cheerful things, and I leant there with the softness of his flannel jacket against my cheek. I released myself so as to kiss Irène: she smiled at me with so frosty a smile that I was astonished to feel a soft, warm cheek beneath my lips. Irène. I always forget her; and she is always there. Blonde; grey-blue eyes; weak mouth; sharp chin; and something both vague and obstinate about her too-wide forehead. Quickly I wiped her out. I was alone with Philippe as I used to be in the days when I woke him up every morning with a touch on his forehead.
‘Not even a drop of whisky?’ asked André.
‘No, thanks. I’ll have some fruit-juice.’
How sensible she is! She dresses with a sensible stylishness; sensibly stylish hair-do—smooth, with a fringe hiding her big forehead. Artless make-up: severe little suit. When I happen to run through a woman’s magazine I often say to myself, ‘Why, here’s Irène!’ It often happens too that when I see her I scarcely recognize her. ‘She’s pretty,’ asserts André. There are days when I agree—a delicacy of ear and nostril: a pearly softness of skin emphasized by the dark blue of her lashes. But if she moves her head a little her face slips, and all you see is that mouth, that chin. Iréne. Why? Why has Philippe always gone for women of that kind—smooth, stand-offish, pretentious? To prove to himself that he could attract them, no doubt. He was not fond of them. I used to think that if he fell in love … I used to think he would not fall in love; and one evening he said to me, ‘I have great news for you,’ with the somewhat over-excited air of a birthday-child who has been playing too much, laughing too much, shouting too much. There was that crash like a gong in my bosom, the blood mounting to my cheeks, all my strength concentrated on stopping the trembling of my lips. A winter evening, with the curtains drawn and the lamplight on the rainbow of cushions, and this suddenly-opened gulf, this chasm of absence. ‘You will like her: she is a woman who has a job.’ At long intervals she works as a script-girl. I know these with-it young married women. They have some vague kind of a job, they claim to use their minds, to go in for sport, dress well, run their houses faultlessly, bring up their children perfectly, carry on a social life—in short, succeed on every level. And they don’t really care deeply about anything at all. They make my blood run cold.
Philippe and Irène had left for Sardinia the day the university closed, at the beginning of June. While we were having dinner at that table where I had so often obliged Philippe to eat (come, finish up your soup: take a little more beef: get something down before going off for your lecture), we talked about their journey—a handsome wedding-present from Irène’s parents, who can afford that sort of thing. She was silent most of the time, like an intelligent woman who knows how to wait for the right moment to produce an acute and rather surprising remark: from time to time she did drop a little observation, surprising—or at least surprising to me—by its stupidity or its utter ordinariness.
We went back to the library. Philippe glanced at my desk. ‘Did the work go well?’
‘Pretty well. You didn’t have time to read my proofs?’
‘No; can you imagine it? I’m very sorry.’
‘You’ll read the book. I have a copy for you.’ His carelessness saddened me a little, but I showed nothing. I said, ‘And what about you? Are you going to get back to serious work on your thesis again now?’ He did not answer. He exchanged an odd kind of look with Irène. ‘What’s the matter? Are you going to set off on your travels again?’
‘No.’ Silence again and then he said rather crossly, ‘Oh, you’ll be vexed; you’ll blame me; but during this month I have come to a decision. It is altogether too much, teaching and working on a thesis at the same time. But unless I do a thesis there is no worthwhile future for me in the university. I am going to leave.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I’m going to leave the university. I’m still young enough to take up something else.’
‘But it’s just not possible. Now that you have got this far you cannot drop it all,’ I said indignantly.
‘Listen. Once upon a time being a don was a splendid career. These days I am not the only one who finds it impossible to look after my students and do any work of my own: there are too many of them.’
That’s quite true,’ said Andrè. ‘Thirty students is one student multiplied by thirty. Fifty is a mob. But surely we can find some way that will give you more time to yourself and let you finish your thesis.’
‘No,’ said Irène, decisively. ‘Teaching and research—they really are too badly paid. I have a cousin who is a chemist. At the National Research Centre he was earning eight hundred francs a month. He has gone into a dye factory—he’s pulling down three thousand.’
‘It’s not only a question of money,’ said Philippe.
‘Of course not. Being in the swim counts too.’
In little guarded, restrained phrases she let us see what she thought of us. Oh, she did it tactfully—with the tact you can hear rumbling half a mile away. ‘Above all I don’t want to hurt you—don’t hold it against me, for that would be unfair—but still there are some things I have to say to you and if I were not holding myself in I’d say a great deal more.’ Andrè is a great scientist of course and for a woman I haven’t done badly at all. But we live cut off from the world, in laboratories and libraries. The new generation of intellectuals wants to be in immediate contact with society. With his vitality and drive, Philippe is not made for our kind of life; there are other careers in which he would show his abilities far better. ‘And then of course a thesis is totally old hat,’ she ended.
Why does she sometimes utter grotesque monstrosities? Irène is not really as stupid as all that. She does exist, she does amount to something: she has wiped out the victory I won with Philippe—a victory over him and for him. A long battle and sometimes so hard for me. ‘I can’t manage this essay; I have a head-ache. Give me a note saying I’m ill.’ ‘No.’ The soft adolescent face grows tense and old; the green eyes stab me. ‘How unkind you are.’ Andrè stepping in—‘Just this once…’ ‘No.’ My misery in Holland during those Easter holidays when we left Philippe in Paris. ‘I don’t want your degree to be botched.’ And with his voice full of hatred he shouted, ‘Don’t take me, then; I don’t care. And I shan’t write a single line.’ And then his successes and our understanding, our alliance. The understanding that Iréne is now destroying. I did not want to break out in front of her: I took hold of myself. ‘What do you mean to do, then?’
Irène was about to answer. Philippe interrupted her. ‘Irène’s father has various things in mind.’
‘What kind of things? In business?’
‘It’s still uncertain.’
‘You