Emmanuel Bove - Henri Duchemin and His Shadows

“I know that, Jean. But please take pity on me. Don’t abandon me. Do you want to make me really happy? Let’s stay together until tomorrow. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t think I have the strength. I’ll go home with you. I’ll sleep in an armchair. That’s all I ask. You can’t refuse.”

“You’re being ridiculous. How will that resolve anything?”

Suddenly Paul’s attitude changed from imploring to remote.

“So you want to leave me, Jean?”

Although I sensed my friend had made a decision, my position remained the same.

“I do. It’s late. We must part.”

“Very well. Adieu.”

He walked away without even offering me his hand. I had a foreboding of some misfortune. I am sure I’m no different from anyone else, yet I was afraid he would do what he said, that he would kill himself. I shouted:

“Where are you going?”

He did not answer, walking away with great strides.

“Paul!”

Already another streetlamp was lighting him.

For a moment I glimpsed the consequences of my refusal. He was going to kill himself. For the rest of my life I would be aware of being responsible for his death. And everything going on in my head became more and more confused as he walked away. I ran behind him.

“Paul, where are you going?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Answer me! Be reasonable. Why are you running away like this?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Leave me be, I’m going to end it all.”

He kept on walking, staring ahead.

“You didn’t understand what I was saying before, Paul. Come on, let’s go to my place. Tomorrow, everything will be sorted out.”

He stopped and as he looked at me, he gradually realized what I had just said. He did not smile. Yet his face brightened. I took his arm and without a word we started off toward my place.

An automobile on its way to Les Halles passed very close to us. In the pure, freezing air, it left such a circumscribed scent of vegetables that when we took one step to the side, we could not smell it anymore. In the middle of the sleeping city, beneath the sky, we were alone. The moon had disappeared. And without it, as if they lacked a leader, the stars seemed to be in disarray.

I don’t often write on an impulse like this. Something very serious has to have happened to me for me to decide to do so. So I shall ask, dear sir, for your indulgence. It is not an author you find before you. It is a man who is suffering and who is seeking the one word that will explain everything.

Slowly I had recovered from the great shock I’d had. Everything was going well. I felt strong again and then, suddenly, once more I began to doubt.

It would be impossible to explain why I am overwhelmed by anxiety. It returned, all-powerful, without my having any say in the matter. I was at home reading a book when, for no apparent reason, I realized I had not been mistaken. I tried not to think about it anymore, but you know that the harder you attempt to forget an ordeal, the more it clings to you.

Yes, I was reading a book that was as interesting to me as any book can be. I was so deep into this novel that I forgot where I was when, all of a sudden while turning a page, during that brief moment of distraction that interrupts the story with each new page, I had the clear realization that I had not been wrong.

I had seen the thing with my own eyes and as a result, it was true. My girlfriend could deny it all she wanted, but because I had seen it, it was true. The proof that I was wrong is all around me. My friends, to whom I made the mistake of telling this story, disagreed with me. My girlfriend’s parents hinted that I had taken leave of my senses. Even my Henriette, after having heatedly defended herself, in the end simply shrugged whenever I mentioned this scene.

And so I managed, by the strength of my will, to doubt my own eyes. Gradually I forgot what I had seen. I forced myself to think I had been wrong. Life became bearable again. My girlfriend was ever more loving.

And now, in some idiotic way, I have begun thinking about this episode again. And so, all my efforts have been in vain! That painstaking and salutary process I suffered through in order to find peace was for naught!

Ridiculously, I again find myself anxious and desperate, like on the first day.

Yet I believe I was wrong, that my girlfriend is innocent, and that I was the victim of a hallucination. I want to believe this, even though my eyes will not let me. But despite all my efforts, I feel I will always have before me that ludicrous vision that pains me so.

This is why I am writing to you, so as not to be alone with my doubts. And perhaps for you to give me some advice. I must confess that I feel the need to ask you to forgive me for writing. When a man suffers as I am suffering, writing should not be a consolation. Forgive me, dear sir, for speaking to you like this. You are not used to such confessions. They seem to you some artifice meant to hold your attention, whereas in reality they are the proof of deep despair. It’s true. I feel some embarrassment in writing. I know I shouldn’t tell you this. One never admits that the person who is writing to us is doing so reluctantly—and with good reason. If, at the theater, an actor were to say he did not want to play his part, that it annoyed him to do so, I admit that I, like any theatergoer, would boo him off the stage.

But this, I must say, is a different situation. I am suffering as much as a man can suffer. And I am not writing to entertain or interest you, but simply to ask you what I should do.

I will expose the facts one by one, very clearly. I will tell you everything I know about my girlfriend and will ask you, afterwards, to tell me if I was mistaken or not. I am addressing myself to you because as an outsider you will be able to be an impartial judge. It is in the interest of my parents and friends for everything to work out. They know me. They know I am impressionable. And they will believe me less than you, who do not know me.

Because you have agreed to hear me out, I must first tell you what happened. You can see from the tone of what I just wrote that I am a sincere man, that I do not lie. I therefore beg you, while I am telling you this story, not to think you need to know my girlfriend’s version before you form an opinion. Only the spineless want to know the pros and cons in order not to take sides. So I am asking you to judge this story simply through what I tell you, otherwise you will cause me great pain.

I shall recount the story you are about to read as if I were not the main character. I shall have no bias. On the contrary, I shall not mention anything that casts me in a good light. I shall lay out clearly everything that does credit to my Henriette. You can see that all I long for is to be wrong.

So I will begin. Pay close attention. Do not skip over anything, because my happiness is at stake. Some other time, I will write a long letter to amuse you, a letter full of youthful imagination. And if it annoys you, do not finish it. It will not matter. But today, I beg you, pay attention. At the risk of repeating myself, let me say yet again that my happiness is in your hands.

* * *

My girlfriend is as sweet as an angel. I must tell you that, although she was pure when she gave herself to me, she did not wait until we were married to abandon herself and I am open-minded enough not to reproach her for this. It would be human enough for me to use this fact to degrade her in your eyes. Believe me, I see nothing in this proof of love that could allow what my dear Henriette did to be predicted. If she gave herself to me without our being married, it is my fault.

A thousand signs prove to me that my girlfriend adores me. She has forgiven me what many women would never have forgiven. Even though she is beautiful, she recognizes that a man’s lapse is not as great as a woman’s. Naturally, she did not say this to me, but I felt, deep down inside, she knew it. When in the past I did what I should not have done, she was not angry with me, but rather, with man’s very nature. And this fact alone demonstrates my girlfriend’s immense goodness.