Act of Passion by Georges Simenon Page B

same bed with Dignity!
    I shouldn't say that. It is false, utterly false. I know it, but I have only just discovered it. I had to make the great leap first. Yet I really must explain, try to make you understand my former state of mind during the years of my married life.
    Have you ever dreamed that you had married your schoolmistress? Well, your Honour, that is what happened to me. For ten years my mother and I, both of us, lived at school, waiting to be given a good mark, in fear of receiving a bad one.
    And my mother is still there.
     
    Suppose you are walking along a calm street in a provincial town, on a hot August afternoon. The street is divided in two by the line separating the shady side from the sunny side.
    You walk along the pavement flooded with sunlight and your shadow walks along with you almost at your side; you can see it broken in two by the angle formed by the white-walled houses and the pavement.
    Go on supposing... Do make the effort... All at once, this shadow accompanying you disappears...
    It doesn't change its position. It doesn't pass behind you because you have changed your direction. I mean, it just disappears.
    And suddenly there you are in the street without a shadow. You turn round and you can't find it. You look down at your feet and your feet emerge from a pool of sunlight.
    The houses on the other side of the street still hold their cool shadows. Chatting peacefully, two men pass by and their shadows precede them, moving in the same cadence, making the same gestures.
    There is a dog by the kerb. He, too, has his shadow.
    You begin to feel yourself all over. Your body has the same consistency as on any other day. You take a few quick steps and you stop short, hoping to find your shadow again. You run. Still it is not there. You turn on your heel and look down, there is no dark spot on the bright stones of the pavement.
    The world is full of reassuring shadows. The shadow of the church on the square alone covers a vast area, where a few old men sit enjoying the cool shade.
    You are not dreaming. You have no shadow and, seized with anguish, you stop a passer-by:
    'I beg your pardon ...'
    He stops. He looks at you. You do exist then, even if you have lost your shadow. He waits to know what you want of him.
    'This is the market-place, isn't it?'
    And he thinks you must be crazy, or else a stranger.
    Can you imagine the anguish of wandering alone without a shadow in a world where everybody else has one?
    I don't know whether I dreamed this or whether I read it somewhere. When I first began to talk to you about it, I thought I was inventing a comparison; then it seemed to me that this anguish of the man without a shadow was somehow familiar, that I had lived it before, that it was bringing back confused memories, and so I believe it may be a forgotten dream.
    For years - I don't know just how many - five or six - I went about the city like everybody else. Had anyone asked me if I were happy, I would have absent-mindedly answered yes.
    You see that all I have told you before is not really so exact. My house was being organized, became little by little more comfortable and more attractive. My girls were growing up. The elder made her first communion. My clientele increased - not a wealthy clientele, but the common people. That doesn't bring in as much per visit, but the common people pay cash after coming into your office with your fee in their hand.
    I learned to play bridge correctly and that occupied me for several months. We bought a car and that took up some more time. I started playing tennis again because Armande played tennis, which accounted for a considerable number of late afternoons.
    All this joined together - these little initiations, these hopes for further improvement, this looking forward to trivial pleasures, to minor joys, and banal satisfactions — ended by filling up five or six years of my life.
    'Next summer we'll go to the seashore for our vacation.'
    Another year there were