with a humility that was embarrassing. It was obvious that she wasn't used to this sort of thing.
In my whole life I have never played as badly as I did that night. The cards swam before my eyes. I forgot the bids. When it was my lead, I would hesitate, look at my partner, and her smile of encouragement would make me blush all the more…
'Take your time,' she would say. 'Don't let these gentlemen fluster you ...'
There was the matter of the smoked-salmon sandwiches which were much too salty. As we had not tasted them, my mother and I, we fortunately knew nothing about it that evening. But the next day my mother picked up I don't know how many of these sandwiches which had been surreptitiously dropped behind the furniture and curtains.
For several days I kept wondering if Armande had tasted them. I was not in love with her. I never dreamed such a thing possible. The recollection of her simply exasperated me, and I was angry with her for having made me conscious of my clumsiness, if not a lack of breeding. And especially for having done it with that cordial air of hers.
It was the next day at the café where I was in the habit of going almost every evening for an apéritif before dinner that I found out a few details about her life.
Hilaire de Lanusse had four or five children, I don't remember just how many; all of them were married by the time Armande was twenty. She had taken successive courses in singing, dramatic art, music and dancing.
As often happens with the youngest child, a family nucleus no longer existed when she really began to take her place in life and she found herself as free in her father's big house, Place Boildieu, as in a boarding-house.
She had married a musician of Russian origin, who had taken her to Paris, where she lived with him for six or seven years. I know him from his photographs. He was young, with an extraordinarily long narrow face, nostalgic and infinitely sad.
He was tubercular. In order to take him to Switzerland, Armande had claimed her portion of her mother's estate and they lived on this money for another three years, alone in a chalet in the high mountains.
He died there, but it wasn't until several months later that she came back to take her place in her father's house.
I didn't see her again for a week, and if she was often in my thoughts, it was only because her memory was linked to that of our first party, and because in this recollection I looked for the criticism of our behaviour, that of my mother and myself.
One late afternoon when I was having an apéritif at the Café de l'Europe, I saw her through the curtains, walking along the pavement. She was alone. She walked without seeing anyone. She was wearing a black tailored suit, cut with an elegance and a simplicity not often seen in small provincial towns.
I was not in the least moved. I simply remembered the sandwiches dropped behind the furniture, and the thought was extremely disagreeable.
A few days later at another bridge party given by another doctor, I found myself at the same table with her.
I am not familiar with Paris customs. But at home each doctor, each person belonging to the same milieu, gives at least one bridge party a year, which in the end brings us together two or three times a week at one house or another.
'How are your little girls? I hear you have two adorable little girls.'
Someone had been telling her about me. I was embarrassed, I wondered what they could have said.
She was no longer a girl. She was thirty. She had been married. She knew from experience much more of the world than I, who was a trifle older, and this was perfectly apparent in her slightest remark, in her attitudes, in her way of looking at me.
I had the impression that she was, in a way, taking me under her wing. And she did, indeed, take my part in the bridge game that evening over the question of a finesse I had ventured at random. One of the players was discussing it:
'Admit,' he said, 'that you were lucky. You had
In my whole life I have never played as badly as I did that night. The cards swam before my eyes. I forgot the bids. When it was my lead, I would hesitate, look at my partner, and her smile of encouragement would make me blush all the more…
'Take your time,' she would say. 'Don't let these gentlemen fluster you ...'
There was the matter of the smoked-salmon sandwiches which were much too salty. As we had not tasted them, my mother and I, we fortunately knew nothing about it that evening. But the next day my mother picked up I don't know how many of these sandwiches which had been surreptitiously dropped behind the furniture and curtains.
For several days I kept wondering if Armande had tasted them. I was not in love with her. I never dreamed such a thing possible. The recollection of her simply exasperated me, and I was angry with her for having made me conscious of my clumsiness, if not a lack of breeding. And especially for having done it with that cordial air of hers.
It was the next day at the café where I was in the habit of going almost every evening for an apéritif before dinner that I found out a few details about her life.
Hilaire de Lanusse had four or five children, I don't remember just how many; all of them were married by the time Armande was twenty. She had taken successive courses in singing, dramatic art, music and dancing.
As often happens with the youngest child, a family nucleus no longer existed when she really began to take her place in life and she found herself as free in her father's big house, Place Boildieu, as in a boarding-house.
She had married a musician of Russian origin, who had taken her to Paris, where she lived with him for six or seven years. I know him from his photographs. He was young, with an extraordinarily long narrow face, nostalgic and infinitely sad.
He was tubercular. In order to take him to Switzerland, Armande had claimed her portion of her mother's estate and they lived on this money for another three years, alone in a chalet in the high mountains.
He died there, but it wasn't until several months later that she came back to take her place in her father's house.
I didn't see her again for a week, and if she was often in my thoughts, it was only because her memory was linked to that of our first party, and because in this recollection I looked for the criticism of our behaviour, that of my mother and myself.
One late afternoon when I was having an apéritif at the Café de l'Europe, I saw her through the curtains, walking along the pavement. She was alone. She walked without seeing anyone. She was wearing a black tailored suit, cut with an elegance and a simplicity not often seen in small provincial towns.
I was not in the least moved. I simply remembered the sandwiches dropped behind the furniture, and the thought was extremely disagreeable.
A few days later at another bridge party given by another doctor, I found myself at the same table with her.
I am not familiar with Paris customs. But at home each doctor, each person belonging to the same milieu, gives at least one bridge party a year, which in the end brings us together two or three times a week at one house or another.
'How are your little girls? I hear you have two adorable little girls.'
Someone had been telling her about me. I was embarrassed, I wondered what they could have said.
She was no longer a girl. She was thirty. She had been married. She knew from experience much more of the world than I, who was a trifle older, and this was perfectly apparent in her slightest remark, in her attitudes, in her way of looking at me.
I had the impression that she was, in a way, taking me under her wing. And she did, indeed, take my part in the bridge game that evening over the question of a finesse I had ventured at random. One of the players was discussing it:
'Admit,' he said, 'that you were lucky. You had
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