Read Online May We Borrow Your Husband? by Graham Greene - Free Book Online

face and gave a little sob. Madame Dejoie put an arm round her shoulders. There was a long silence while the remains of the bouillabaisse were cleared away.
    2
    â€˜Men are curious animals,’ Madame Dejoie said at last. The coffee had come and they divided one marc between them, in turn dipping lumps of sugar which they inserted into one another’s mouths. ‘Animals too lack imagination. A dog has no fantaisie.’
    â€˜How bored I have been sometimes,’ Madame Volet said. He would talk politics continually and turn on the news at eight in the morning. At eight! What do I care for politics? But if I asked his advice about anything important he showed no interest at all. With you I can talk about anything, about the whole world.’
    â€˜I adored my husband,’ Madame Dejoie said, ‘yet it was only after his death I discovered my capacity for love. With Pauline. You never knew Pauline. She died five years ago. I loved her more than I ever loved Jacques, and yet I felt no despair when she died. I knew that it was not the end, for I knew by then my capacity.’
    â€˜I have never loved a woman,’ Madame Volet said.
    â€˜ Chérie, then you do not know what love can mean. With a woman you do not have to be content with une façon classique three times a day.’
    â€˜I love Paul, but he is so different from me in every way . . .’
    â€˜Unlike Pauline, he is a man.’
    â€˜Oh Emmy, you describe him so perfectly. How well you understand. A man!’
    â€˜When you really think of it, how comic that little object is. Hardly enough to crow about, one would think.’
    Madame Volet giggled and said, ‘ Cochon .’
    â€˜Perhaps smoked like an eel one might enjoy it.’
    â€˜Stop it. Stop it.’ They rocked up and down with little gusts of laughter. They were drunk, of course, but in the most charming way.
    3
    How distant now seemed Trollope’s muddy lane, the heavy boots of Mr Crawley, his proud shy courtship. In time we travel a space as vast as any astronaut’s. When I looked up Madame Volet’s head rested on Madame Dejoie’s shoulder. ‘I feel so sleepy,’ she said.
    â€˜Tonight you shall sleep, chérie .’
    â€˜I am so little good to you. I know nothing.’
    â€˜In love one learns quickly.’
    â€˜But am I in love?’ Madame Volet asked, sitting up very straight and staring into Madame Dejoie’s sombre eyes.
    â€˜If the answer were no, you wouldn’t ask the question.’
    â€˜But I thought I could never love again.’
    â€˜Not another man,’ Madame Dejoie said. ‘ Chérie , you are almost asleep. Come.’
    â€˜The bill?’ Madame Volet said as though perhaps she were trying to delay the moment of decision.
    â€˜I will pay tomorrow. What a pretty coat this is – but not warm enough, chérie , in February. You need to be cared for.’
    â€˜You have given me back my courage,’ Madame Volet said. ‘When I came in here I was si démoralisée  . . .’
    â€˜Soon – I promise – you will be able to laugh at the past . . .’
    â€˜I have already laughed,’ Madame Volet said. ‘Did he really crow like a cock?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I shall never be able to forget what you said about smoked eel. Never. If I saw one now. . . .’ She began to giggle again and Madame Dejoie steadied her a little on the way to the door.
    I watched them cross the road to the car-park. Suddenly Madame Volet gave a little hop and skip and flung her arms around Madame Dejoie’s neck, and the wind, blowing through the archway of the port, carried the faint sound of her laughter to me where I sat alone chez Félix. I was glad she was happy again. I was glad that she was in the kind reliable hands of Madame Dejoie. What a fool Paul had been, I reflected, feeling chagrin myself now for so many wasted opportunities.

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