Read Online Climates by André Maurois - Free Book Online

somewhere for tea. There was nothing more touching than Odile when she was happy, glad to be alive; she gave such a powerful impression of being made for happiness, that it seemed criminal not to give it to her. Looking at her that Sunday, so animated and dazzling, I could scarcely believe our quarrel the previous evening had been real. But the more I came to know my wife, the better I understood that she had a capacity for forgetting that likened her to a child. Nothing differed more from my own nature, my own mind, which noticed, accumulated, and recorded. That day, life for Odile was a cupof tea, hot buttered toast, and cream. She smiled at me and I thought, “What truly divides people could be the fact that some live mostly in the past while others only in the present moment.”
    I was still suffering slightly but was incapable of resenting her for long. In my head I upbraided and lectured myself, swore I would no longer ask pointless questions, would have faith. We went home on foot, across the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs-Elysées; Odile inhaled the cool autumn air with delight. It seemed to me, as it had in Florence in the spring, that the russet-colored trees, the shifting gray and golden light, the happy bustle of Paris, the children’s boats whose sails leaned over the large pond, and the flexible spray of the fountain in their midsts—everything was singing the Knight’s theme in unison. I kept repeating a sentence from Rondet’s
Christian Manual
to myself, one I liked very much and that I had grown accustomed to applying to my relationship with Odile: “Here I am before you like a slave and I am ready to do anything, for I want nothing for myself, but for you.” When I succeeded in conquering my pride like this and humiliating myself, not before Odile but to be more precise before my love for Odile, I felt pleased with myself.

. VII .
    The person Odile saw most often was Misa. They telephoned each other every morning, sometimes talking for more than an hour, and went out together in the afternoon. I was in favor of this friendship, which kept Odile occupied without danger while I was at work. I even enjoyed seeing Misa at our apartment on Sundays and, more than once, it was I who suggested this friend accompany us when Odile and I made little two- or three-day trips. I want to try to explain the feelings that guided me in this, because they will help you understand Misa’s unusual role in my life. First, if, as in the early weeks of our marriage, I still wantedto be alone with Odile, it was now more out of a vague fear of what new friends might bring than for positive pleasure. I loved her no less, but I knew that exchanges between us would always be limited and that she would accept truly serious, in-depth conversations only with listless goodwill. On the other hand, it is fair to say that I was developing a taste for the slightly mad, slightly sad, often frivolous, and always gracious chattering, the “waffling” that was Odile’s real form of conversation when she was quite natural. But Odile was never more herself than with Misa. When they talked together, they both displayed a puerile side, one I found very entertaining and touching too, in that it showed me what Odile might have been like as a child. I was delighted one evening while we were staying in Dieppe when they argued like children, and Odile ended up throwing a pillow at Misa’s face, crying, “Beastly girl!”
    I also harbored more unsettling feelings, the sort that must appear every time circumstances rather than love cause a young woman to be involved in a man’s daily life. Thanks to our journeys and thanks to Odile’s own familiarity that permitted my own, I found I was almost as initimate with Misa as with a mistress. One day when we were discussingwomen’s physical strength, she challenged me. We wrestled for a moment; I tipped her over, then stood up, slightly ashamed.
    “Really, you’re such children!” said