John Berger - G.

Your friend is nothing if not dramatic, remarks Mathilde.

Do you think it is true?

That Maurice threatened him, yes.

He didn’t have a gun.

Every man has some friend who has a pistol.

Do you think Maurice is capable of killing him?

For you, my dear, men will do anything! Mathilde laughs.

Please be serious.

Do you feel serious?

When Camille heard that her husband had threatened him with a gun, she was reminded of her wedding day. Her anger at the injustice of her husband’s action, her shame on her husband’s behalf, her resentment at the fact that her husband had ignored her protestations and appeals, made her acutely aware that she was his wife, or, more accurately, that she had become his wife according to her own choice. Up to this moment being Madame Hennequin had seemed to be part of her natural life; her marriage was part of the same continuity which led from her childhood through young womanhood to the present. There had been misunderstandings and disagreements between her and her husband, but never before had she felt that the course of her life was out of her control, that what was happening was unnatural to her. She remembered how, at their wedding, Maurice and she had knelt, isolated, alone, in front of the entire congregation, but side by side so that she could feel his warmth, in order to receive communion. He had knelt shyly and with what she then believed to be true humility. Now she imagined him getting to his feet with a pistol in his hand and a look of blank unfeeling on his face.

Suddenly amazement overcame her anger with a thought which restored to her a little of her natural identity, which suggested that she was not entirely helpless and which confirmed her sense of being blindly wronged by her husband. This thought was: Under the threat of being shot, he still wants to speak to me because he can see me as I am.

No, I do not feel serious, says Camille.

You should persuade them to fight a duel for you.

That is what I told Maurice. He said it wasn’t modern.

I don’t see what being modern or not has to do with it. Men don’t change in that respect.

Do you think we do? asks Camille.

You are changing. You are transformed. You are a different person from what you were two days ago. If you could see yourself now—

What would I see?

A woman with two men in love with her!

Mathilde, please promise me one thing — do not, on any account, leave me alone with him.

Not if you both insist?

I am serious now. I cannot see him unless you promise me this.

Fortunately Harry is not jealous. Well, he is jealous, but not to the point of shooting or threatening. Afterwards he may make a scene in private with me, but I can put a stop to that quite quickly.

It would be as much as his life is worth, says Camille, please promise me.

I think Harry is the type of man who might under certain conditions shoot himself, but he would never shoot anybody else. What do you think he would do — Mathilde nods in the direction they are going — if he had reason to be jealous?

Jealous of me? asks Camille.

Yes, says Mathilde smiling.

When she thought: Under the threat of being shot, he still wants to speak to me, her vision of his appearance altered. The alteration was also retrospective. What she had noticed but not remembered came to light. Hundreds of details assembled to form the whole man before her. He attracted everything she had seen him do. Her impressions rushed towards him, attached themselves to him, as though magnetized, and, covering him, became his characteristics. His head addressed her. She saw into it. The head was larger than average. It lunged forward when he spoke. Thick curls fell over the back of his neck. The tops of his ears entered other thickets. His hands with which he gesticulated were smaller than average. The veins on them were rather pronounced. The missing teeth, when his mouth was open, made it seem wider than it was. The gaze of his eyes was insistent. His feet, like his hands, were small. His walk was light and fastidious and in contrast to the heavy thrust of his head and shoulders. She found each physical characteristic eloquent of an aspect of his nature, as a mother may find the characteristics of her infant before it can talk or sit up.

I think he would kill me and then himself, says Camille, laughing.

Where does he live? It would be fortunate if it were Paris.

I don’t know. He says he is half English and half Italian.

That might explain a lot, remarks Mathilde.

Please promise me, says Camille.

Has he told you how he lost his teeth?

Mathilde, listen to me, this could be a matter of life and death.

He has an expression that I’ve only seen on one other man.

Who? asks Camille.

He was a friend of my husband’s, an Armenian who fell in love with me.

Exasperation wells up with tears in Camille’s eyes. Mathilde lowers her voice and whispers: Camille, you can trust me. But you are naive about such situations. The danger is Maurice, and there you can depend on me.

Camille rests her head back against the dusty leather upholstery and lays her gloved white hand on Mathilde’s arm.

How hot it is today! says Mathilde. There are days when grand passion is just not possible. The weather is a woman’s best friend!

We shall be there too soon. I don’t want to have to wait for him. Mathilde, ask him to drive more slowly.

Camille touches the fringe of her hair and stares at her own hand. It looks to her extremely small and delicate, likewise her wrists and forearms. She wants to appear as fresh and as intricate as white lace (she remembers a painting she once saw of a girl on a swing in a garden in Montpellier whose petticoats were bordered with white lace). She wants to appear like that in this green, overgrown, remote landscape for a few minutes before her enforced return to Paris where there are more clothes than trees and the streets are like rooms.

The carriage stops by the church. The same Fiat car in which they made the trip to Santa Maria Maggiore is parked in the shade of a plane tree. There is nobody to be seen. They ask the driver to wait. He nods, gets down and lies on the grass by the side of the road. One of the brass lamps on the Fiat is dazzling in the sun. Camille lowers her head and, pointing her parasol towards the ground, opens it; Mathilde points hers at the sky to open it. They walk together round the church.

He is on the north side sitting on a stone bench. He kisses Camille’s hand and then immediately takes Mathilde’s arm and saying: You are her friend, she confesses to you and so I need not explain what has happened to us. He leads her away towards a path bordered by gravestones. Camille makes as though to follow them. He turns. No, he says, please wait. Sit where I was sitting.

It is very quiet. The doors of the church are locked. There is nobody on the road. It is hard to believe that they have driven no further than the outskirts of the town. To Camille the silence sounds abnormal. She believes that on ordinary mornings carts pass along the road, children play near by, the priest prays in his church, peasants work in the fields. In the silence she can hear the beating of her own heart and his voice, but she cannot distinguish his words.

He is telling Mathilde that he and she will surely meet again and that he will always be in her debt, if she agrees to his plan. He loves Camille: he has never been alone with her: he can no longer write to her: all he asks is that Mathilde take the carriage and wait by the Rosmini College — the driver will know it — where he and Camille will join her by motor car in half an hour. He needs that little time to explain his feelings to the woman with whom he has fallen so desperately in love. He speaks lightly, as though he has no need to convince Mathilde, or as though he knows it is hopeless to try to convince her.