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emancipated ideas.”
    “How horrible!” Again that exquisite laughter. “I admit,” I say, “that I’m more inclined to accept your criminal behavior than your lovers.”
    “Same thing. I was quick to set aside my sentimental tendencies. And I have never confused love and happiness. If I was unoccupied in my own home, I was unoccupied not the way a bored woman is unoccupied, but as a man waiting for a war to start that he’s been preparing for. I don’t know which Leo you knew, but the one I knew was a gambler and ravenous. Leopold Fench was war. I would, I think, have been an adversary on his own level if he’d shown himself more present on the battlefield. Don’t look so lugubrious, my dear, I was trying on a style just to amuse you! There’s only one truly sad thing in all this, and it’s that I can talk about it all with such indifference. I would have preferred to be inconsolable. I trust people who are inconsolable, they’re the only ones who reassure me about eternity.”
    “You’re inconsolable, Genevieve.”
    “Ah? . . . maybe. Hauvette,” she says, after another silence, taking a quick glance at the window, “Hauvette was nothing. The important thing in my liaison with this man was that Leo should hear about it. Hauvette in and of himself was nonexistent. The daughter of a mutual friend was getting married. Leo was supposed to come with his wife. Paul Abramowitz was chasing wild salmon in Canada (I had settled the Hauvette question with Abramowitz, made all the easier by the fact that he knew him and thought he was homosexual). I knew that the Fenches would be arriving late because Leo was coming back from the country. My plan was simple and good. To show myself with Hauvette during the first part of the evening and then disappear under some pretext or other before they arrived. You’re interested in these women’s stories,” she says suddenly. “Frankly Samuel, you disappoint me.”
    “I’m interested in you, in Leo, in the unreality we were talking about and our return to nothingness.”
    “Good, good, good, I’ll go on. I’ll go on,” she said. “Nothing went the way it was planned. The party was in a reception room at the Square du Temple. Instead of arriving late with his wife, Leo arrived early and alone, and without me seeing him come in. He surfaced in front of me, glass in hand, like someone who’s been there some time already (I had been taking care to cling particularly assiduously to Hauvette’s arm in front of any witnesses who might be liable to say to Leo, ‘We’ve seen Genevieve’). I said, ‘Leo.’ He said, ‘Good evening, Genevieve.’ He inspected Hauvette and he said, ‘Monsieur,’ with a nod of the head. At that moment the orchestra struck up ‘Hava Naguila,’ the bridal couple went up onto the platform, everyone applauded them, Leo more warmly than anyone, it seemed to me, and he did something unimaginable to anyone who knew him, he took the hand of a woman, dragged her onto the dance floor, and opened the ball, you might say, in a whirling frenzy, glass in hand, right alongside the bride and groom. Leo, who was the opposite of the life and soul of any party, Leo, whose fantasy and daring had nothing to do with exuberance. This ghastly atmosphere of joy and shared emotion immediately built up and enveloped all the guests, led by Hauvette. At a certain point, I lost sight of Leo. I told Hauvette I wasn’t feeling well, which was absolutely true. I hunted for Leo around the room, someone told me they’d seen him leave, I ran to the cloakroom, there were people arriving and others leaving, I handed my purse to Hauvette, who was following right on my heels like an idiot, I said there’s someone I must speak to, and I hurried outside, half-naked, in mid-winter, no coat, no scarf, nothing. At first I didn’t see him. I started to run in one direction, I had to choose one, I took this street and that, at random, finally where I could see some parked cars I