Odile.
Misa stayed on the floor a long time, staring at me.
In fact she was the only human being Odile and I received at home with equal pleasure. Halff and Bertrand hardly came anymore and I did not miss them much. I very soon felt the same way about them as Odile did. And when I listened to her talking to them, I experienced a strange duality. Seeing her through their eyes, I felt she treated serious subjects with inappropriate levity. But at the same time I managed to prefer her flights of fancy to my friends’ theories. I was ashamed of my wife in front of them but proud of her in front of myself. When they left, I would think to myself that, in spite of everything, Odile was superior to them in her more direct contact with life and nature.
Odile did not like my family and I did not care much for hers. My mother had wanted to give her advice on her choice of furniture, our way of life,and a young wife’s duties. Advice was Odile’s least favorite thing in the world. When she talked about the Marcenats, she adopted a tone I found rather shocking. I was bored at Gandumas and felt that there all life’s pleasures were sacrificed to a family conformism whose sacred origins were utterly unproved, and yet I was quite proud of the austerity of our traditions. Life in Paris, where the name Marcenat meant nothing, should have cured me of my insistence on granting them such importance, but like a small religious community transported to a barbarous continent and whose religious faith remains undisturbed by the sight of millions of people worshipping different gods, so we Marcenats, transported into a pagan world, remembered Limousin and recalled our greatness.
My own father, who admired Odile, could not help but be irritated by her. He did not show it; he was too good and too reserved for that. But, being familiar with and having inherited his propriety, I knew how much Odile’s tone of voice must have pained him. When my wife had cause to doubt something or to be angry, she would express her views forcefully and then forget about them. This was not how we Marcenats had been taught thathuman beings communicate with each other. When Odile said, “Your mother came here while I was away and took the liberty of making certain comments to the manservant; I shall call her to tell her I won’t tolerate that …,” I begged her to wait.
“Listen, Odile, deep down you’re right, but don’t try to tell her yourself, you’ll only make her angry. Let me do it or, if you prefer—and it would actually be better—ask Aunt Cora to tell my mother that you told her that …”
Odile laughed in my face. “You have no idea,” she said, “how comical your family is … Except, it’s also terrible … Yes really, Dickie, it’s terrible, because I actually love you less when I see the caricatures of you that all these people effectively are … I do understand that you’re not like that by nature, but you’ve been affected by them.”
The first summer we spent together at Gandumas was quite difficult. At home, my family had lunch at exactly noon, and it had never occurred to me to keep my father waiting. But Odile would take a book down to the meadow or go for a walk along the river and forget the time. I watched my father pacing backward and forward in the library, and ran across the park looking for my wife, onlyto come back out of breath having failed to find her. Then she would appear, all calm and smiling, and happy to be warmed by the sun. At the beginning of the meal we would sit in silence to show our disapproval, which (given that it came from a group of Marcenats) could only be indirect and unspoken, and she would watch us with a smile in which I could read amusement and defiance.
In the Malet household, with whom we dined once a week, the situation was completely reversed; I was the one who felt scrutinized and judged. Here meals were not solemn ceremonies. Odile’s brothers would get up to fetch bread;
Misa stayed on the floor a long time, staring at me.
In fact she was the only human being Odile and I received at home with equal pleasure. Halff and Bertrand hardly came anymore and I did not miss them much. I very soon felt the same way about them as Odile did. And when I listened to her talking to them, I experienced a strange duality. Seeing her through their eyes, I felt she treated serious subjects with inappropriate levity. But at the same time I managed to prefer her flights of fancy to my friends’ theories. I was ashamed of my wife in front of them but proud of her in front of myself. When they left, I would think to myself that, in spite of everything, Odile was superior to them in her more direct contact with life and nature.
Odile did not like my family and I did not care much for hers. My mother had wanted to give her advice on her choice of furniture, our way of life,and a young wife’s duties. Advice was Odile’s least favorite thing in the world. When she talked about the Marcenats, she adopted a tone I found rather shocking. I was bored at Gandumas and felt that there all life’s pleasures were sacrificed to a family conformism whose sacred origins were utterly unproved, and yet I was quite proud of the austerity of our traditions. Life in Paris, where the name Marcenat meant nothing, should have cured me of my insistence on granting them such importance, but like a small religious community transported to a barbarous continent and whose religious faith remains undisturbed by the sight of millions of people worshipping different gods, so we Marcenats, transported into a pagan world, remembered Limousin and recalled our greatness.
My own father, who admired Odile, could not help but be irritated by her. He did not show it; he was too good and too reserved for that. But, being familiar with and having inherited his propriety, I knew how much Odile’s tone of voice must have pained him. When my wife had cause to doubt something or to be angry, she would express her views forcefully and then forget about them. This was not how we Marcenats had been taught thathuman beings communicate with each other. When Odile said, “Your mother came here while I was away and took the liberty of making certain comments to the manservant; I shall call her to tell her I won’t tolerate that …,” I begged her to wait.
“Listen, Odile, deep down you’re right, but don’t try to tell her yourself, you’ll only make her angry. Let me do it or, if you prefer—and it would actually be better—ask Aunt Cora to tell my mother that you told her that …”
Odile laughed in my face. “You have no idea,” she said, “how comical your family is … Except, it’s also terrible … Yes really, Dickie, it’s terrible, because I actually love you less when I see the caricatures of you that all these people effectively are … I do understand that you’re not like that by nature, but you’ve been affected by them.”
The first summer we spent together at Gandumas was quite difficult. At home, my family had lunch at exactly noon, and it had never occurred to me to keep my father waiting. But Odile would take a book down to the meadow or go for a walk along the river and forget the time. I watched my father pacing backward and forward in the library, and ran across the park looking for my wife, onlyto come back out of breath having failed to find her. Then she would appear, all calm and smiling, and happy to be warmed by the sun. At the beginning of the meal we would sit in silence to show our disapproval, which (given that it came from a group of Marcenats) could only be indirect and unspoken, and she would watch us with a smile in which I could read amusement and defiance.
In the Malet household, with whom we dined once a week, the situation was completely reversed; I was the one who felt scrutinized and judged. Here meals were not solemn ceremonies. Odile’s brothers would get up to fetch bread;
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