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Authors: Madeleine Bourdouxhe
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station.’
‘I’ll be there.’
The line goes dead. Thinking of the decision that he has just taken, at such speed, and comparing it with her own indecisiveness, Marie feels ashamed.
She goes back into the main room of the café andasks for a train timetable. A train will leave in barely three-quarters of an hour …
Outside the church is still shining bright. To her right the rue du Faubourg Montmartre, the rue Pelletier and the rue de Maubeuge are also bathed in sun. She feels as though the carrefour de Chateaudun is spreading out like the branches of a star, gently reawakening to life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
T HIS STATION seemed more attractive than the other one: more spacious, brighter, better designed. Its entrance halls didn’t open directly on to the street: a big deserted forecourt isolated it from the city, creating an island of arrival and departure and emphasising the gravity of a station’s status.
Marie was waiting on the platform; it was cold, and she turned up the collar of her winter coat. It suddenly struck her, with some amazement, that the person she should be looking for in the crowd was not the tanned young man in a light jacket that she had known on holiday. But when he stepped off the train and walked towards her, she didn’t notice whether he was wearing a coat nor whether his skin was paler than before. She saw him, he was there, and that was all that mattered.
They shook hands without a word. Crossing the forecourt, they left the station side by side, and walked along the streets in silence.
Then Marie said: ‘Perhaps you’re hungry, after your journey?’
He said yes, he was. It was lunch time, so it was all perfectly logical; yet it seemed strange to her that he was hungry and that she had dared ask him about it. She let him order the meal, listening to the way he talked to other people. She noticed that he preferred hors-d’oeuvres to soup, and for the first time she watched him eat. She looked at his town clothes, at the buttoned-up collar of his blue cotton shirt, at the dark, red-striped tie. There was the uncertain, unreal world of the holiday, which she had known, and there was the everyday, real life about which she knew nothing whatsoever. A daily life, full of signs, that he has only recently left in order to come to her.
On the lapel of his jacket there gleams a university badge. She can’t see it clearly; she would have to lean forward, reach out her hand and pull the tiny object towards her. She does not dare touch this first secret. She lets herself wander down familiar paths: she looks at the fine, firm, rather bony face, at the delicate muscles stretched by the broad, always solemn, smile. She lingers for ages on his long, pointed chin, which stands out so well from his neck, and on his thin, sinuous mouth. She knows all about the suppleness of his thick hair; she knows, too, that his eyes never lose their profound lucidity. And yet, something new has permeated his features.It seems to her that he is even thinner than before, or perhaps he is simply worn out, either from his first days of study or from this sudden journey. Fatigue touches his young face, without causing any damage.
They speak very little, and then only of things that do not matter. There are no tender gestures, no tender words. They keep the mystery of their lives tight, like a second presence – because a little time has passed, and because their first coming together has been incorporated into their lives, leaving a mark of which the other can have no knowledge. Do they even know themselves? If they spoke to each other more seriously, they would only be able to ask questions. And they share a passion for silence.
Here they are again in the street, side by side, treading the same furrow of life – without tenderness, without cries, without conspiratorial looks, anxiety, or remorse. In spite of the great unknown ahead of them, in spite of the torpor that has suddenly invaded their thoughts, they feel
‘I’ll be there.’
The line goes dead. Thinking of the decision that he has just taken, at such speed, and comparing it with her own indecisiveness, Marie feels ashamed.
She goes back into the main room of the café andasks for a train timetable. A train will leave in barely three-quarters of an hour …
Outside the church is still shining bright. To her right the rue du Faubourg Montmartre, the rue Pelletier and the rue de Maubeuge are also bathed in sun. She feels as though the carrefour de Chateaudun is spreading out like the branches of a star, gently reawakening to life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
T HIS STATION seemed more attractive than the other one: more spacious, brighter, better designed. Its entrance halls didn’t open directly on to the street: a big deserted forecourt isolated it from the city, creating an island of arrival and departure and emphasising the gravity of a station’s status.
Marie was waiting on the platform; it was cold, and she turned up the collar of her winter coat. It suddenly struck her, with some amazement, that the person she should be looking for in the crowd was not the tanned young man in a light jacket that she had known on holiday. But when he stepped off the train and walked towards her, she didn’t notice whether he was wearing a coat nor whether his skin was paler than before. She saw him, he was there, and that was all that mattered.
They shook hands without a word. Crossing the forecourt, they left the station side by side, and walked along the streets in silence.
Then Marie said: ‘Perhaps you’re hungry, after your journey?’
He said yes, he was. It was lunch time, so it was all perfectly logical; yet it seemed strange to her that he was hungry and that she had dared ask him about it. She let him order the meal, listening to the way he talked to other people. She noticed that he preferred hors-d’oeuvres to soup, and for the first time she watched him eat. She looked at his town clothes, at the buttoned-up collar of his blue cotton shirt, at the dark, red-striped tie. There was the uncertain, unreal world of the holiday, which she had known, and there was the everyday, real life about which she knew nothing whatsoever. A daily life, full of signs, that he has only recently left in order to come to her.
On the lapel of his jacket there gleams a university badge. She can’t see it clearly; she would have to lean forward, reach out her hand and pull the tiny object towards her. She does not dare touch this first secret. She lets herself wander down familiar paths: she looks at the fine, firm, rather bony face, at the delicate muscles stretched by the broad, always solemn, smile. She lingers for ages on his long, pointed chin, which stands out so well from his neck, and on his thin, sinuous mouth. She knows all about the suppleness of his thick hair; she knows, too, that his eyes never lose their profound lucidity. And yet, something new has permeated his features.It seems to her that he is even thinner than before, or perhaps he is simply worn out, either from his first days of study or from this sudden journey. Fatigue touches his young face, without causing any damage.
They speak very little, and then only of things that do not matter. There are no tender gestures, no tender words. They keep the mystery of their lives tight, like a second presence – because a little time has passed, and because their first coming together has been incorporated into their lives, leaving a mark of which the other can have no knowledge. Do they even know themselves? If they spoke to each other more seriously, they would only be able to ask questions. And they share a passion for silence.
Here they are again in the street, side by side, treading the same furrow of life – without tenderness, without cries, without conspiratorial looks, anxiety, or remorse. In spite of the great unknown ahead of them, in spite of the torpor that has suddenly invaded their thoughts, they feel
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