John Berger - G.

Whilst appealing to Mathilde, he is careful to remain in sight of Camille, to speak conspiratorially in Mathilde’s ear, to make Mathilde laugh once or twice, to continue holding her arm and to give their collusion every appearance of intimacy.

The lightness with which he speaks intrigues Mathilde. It does not force her to decide whether he is telling the truth or not. If what he said was too credible, she would be obliged, as Camille’s friend, to find it incredible. If what he said was obviously untrue, she would be obliged to tell him so. As it is, the question of the truth of what he is saying does not arise, because in the way he speaks he assumes that she already knows the truth. Which she doesn’t. And the fact that she doesn’t arouses a very acute curiosity in her. If she cannot discover the truth directly, then Camille must discover it and tell her. The truth, she feels, will not be terrible for, if it were, he would not assume so easily and naturally that she already knows it. She trusts him immediately because he gives her no reason to. It is Maurice that Mathilde does not trust. And in order to convince herself that she is not being reckless on her friend’s behalf, she imagines how it would be possible for her to ask Harry, who is in a position to put considerable professional pressure on Maurice, to persuade Maurice to be more reasonable. She says she will take the carriage to the college if Camille agrees.

Camille watches them walking up and down behind the gravestones which, old and eroded, are the shape of half-eaten biscuits. The anomaly of the situation makes Camille angry and impatient. Why, she asks, must she, after all the risks she has taken, sit here whilst Mathilde jokes with him over there? She decides that she must speak to him by herself.

A few minutes later the driver gets up from the grass, rubbing his knees. Mathilde steps into the carriage and waves to Camille. Don’t be long, she cries, I can’t work miracles. As the carriage, which is crookedly suspended over its back axle, departs down the deserted road, Camille thinks: Mathilde believes that in Paris I may become the mistress of this man with whom I have just agreed to be left alone.

There is a look which can come into the eyes of a woman (and into the eyes of a man, but very rarely) which is without pride or apology, which makes no demand, which promises no adventure. As an expression, signalled by the eyes, it can be intercepted by another; but it is not addressed, in the usual sense of the word, to another: it takes no account of the receiver. It is not a look which can enter into the eyes of a child for children are too ignorant of themselves: nor into the eyes of most men for they are too wary: nor into the eyes of animals because they are unaware of the passing of time. By way of such a look romantic poets thought they saw a path leading straight to a woman’s soul. But this is to treat it as though it were transparent, whereas in fact it is the least transparent thing in the world. It is a look which declares itself to be itself; it is like no other look. If it is comparable with anything, it is comparable with the colour of a flower. It is like heliotrope declaring itself blue. In company such looks are quickly extinguished for they encourage neither discourse nor exchange. They constitute social absence.

His desire, his only aim, was to be alone with a woman. No more than that. But they had to be deliberately, not fortuitously, alone. It was insufficient for them to be left alone in a room because they happened to be the last to leave. It had to be a matter of choice. They had to meet in order to be alone. What then followed was a consequence of being alone, not the achievement of any previous plan.

In the company of others women always appeared to him as more or less out of focus. Not because he was unable to concentrate upon them but because they were continuously changing in their own regard as they adapted themselves to the coercions and expectations of the others around them.

He was alone with Camille, walking back to the north side of the church which was in the shade. He took her arm. He could feel with his fingers that it was warmer on the inside than on the outside. He was overcome by a sense of extraordinary inevitability. The feeling did not surprise him. He knew that it would arrive, but he could not summon it at will. He felt the absoluteness of the impossibility of Camille being, in any detail, in the slightest trace, different from what she was; he felt she was envisaged by everything which preceded her in time and everything which was separate from her in space; the place always reserved for her in the world was nothing less than her exact body, her exact nature; her eyes in tender contrast to her mouth, her small breasts, her thin rakelike hands with their bitten fingernails, her way of walking with unusually stiff legs, the unusual warmth of her hair, the hoarseness of her voice, her favourite lines from Mallarmé, the regularity of her smallness, the paleness of — with this concentration of meaning which he experienced as a sense of inevitability, came the onset of sexual desire.

I want to tell you, she said—

Your voice, he interrupted, is also like a cicada, not only a corn-crake. Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.

I want to tell you, she repeated, that I love my husband dearly. He is the centre of my life and I am the mother of his children. I consider he was wrong to threaten you, and I want you to know that I gave him no grounds, absolutely no grounds, for believing that he needed to threaten you. He discovered the foolish note you wrote to me—

Foolish? We have met, we are alone, we are talking to each other — and that is all I asked of you. Why was it foolish?

It was foolish to use the words you did, it was foolish to write a note at all.

What foolish words?

Camille stared at an impenetrable cypress tree. Everywhere there was still the same abnormal silence. I do not remember, she said in a hoarse whisper. And saying this she remembered a line by Mallarmé:

… vous mentez, ô fleur nue

De mes lèvres .

I called you my most desired one, my corn-crake.

That was foolish.

But you are.

The inscriptions on the tombstones were mostly illegible. The letters which were formed with curved lines (like U or G) appeared to be more quickly effaced than those composed of straight lines (N or T).

Then you must go. Please go.

The heat of the morning made anything which was out of reach or sight seem unusually distant.

It was not wrong of your husband to threaten me, he said, he has every reason to be jealous.

He has no reason! I am his wife and I love him. And I cannot he held responsible for your feelings. You are mistaken, that is all — mistaken in me. You are not base. I believe in the nobility of your feelings. And this is what I wanted to tell you, I did not encourage my husband to protect me from you for I don’t need any protection. I have known you for two days. Do you really suppose that a woman’s affections can be gained in such a short time? In two weeks or two months perhaps. But in two days! You are mistaken. I think you believe life is like that swing you described. It isn’t. Talking here we are already running a risk for nothing. There is nothing to be gained. Please take me back to join my friend in the carriage. My husband and I are leaving for Paris this afternoon.

Camille spoke with difficulty. It was no longer easy for her to say these things. Yet she said them with sincerity. She saw renunciation as the only proper way of putting an end to the present situation and of undoing the injustice and indignity of her husband’s threats. What she was renouncing was still of little importance. But she believed in destiny. Nothing in her life had led her to believe that she was entirely the mistress of her own fate. She did not think of the future as unmysterious, as entirely foreseeable in the light of decisions made today. She wanted to be able to look back at this moment of genuine renunciation because she considered it a necessary one. But she did not feel compelled to answer for the consequences, expected or unexpected, that might follow from that moment. They might be beyond her control and she recognized this with modesty, with hope and with misgivings.