Four Novels by Marguerite Duras Page A

except a man. I hope you don’t mind my telling you all this.”
    “Ah, I no longer know what to say to you.”
    “Let’s not talk about it any more.”
    “Yes, but still! You said it would be easy to get rid of that old woman and no one, not even she herself, would mind. I am still not giving you advice but it seems to me that in many cases other people could do something of that nature to make their lives a little easier and still be able to hope for their future as much as before?”
    “It’s no good talking to me like that. I would rather my horror became worse. It is my only chance of getting out.”
    “After all, we were only talking. I just wondered whether it might not be almost a duty to prevent someone from hoping so much.”
    “There seems no reason why I shouldn’t tell you that I know someone like me who did kill.”
    “I don’t believe it. Perhaps she thought she had killed someone but she couldn’t really have done it.”
    “It was a dog. She was sixteen. You may say it is not at all the samething as killing a person, but she did it and says it is very much the same.”
    “Perhaps she didn’t give it enough to eat. That’s not the same as killing.”
    “No, it was not like that. They both had exactly the same food. It was a very valuable dog and so they had the same food: of course it was not the same as the things the people in the house ate and she stole the dog’s food once. But that wasn’t enough.”
    “She was young and longed for meat as most children do.”
    “She poisoned the dog. She stayed awake a long time mixing poison with its food. She told me she didn’t even think about the sleep she was losing. The dog took two days to die. Of course it is the same as killing a person. She knows. She saw it die.”
    “I think it would have been more unnatural if she had not done it.”
    “But why such hatred for a dog? In spite of everything he was the only friend she had. One thinks one isn’t nasty and yet one can do something like that.”
    “It is situations like that which should not be allowed. From the moment they arise the people involved cannot do otherwise than as they do. It is inevitable, quite inevitable.”
    “They knew it was she who killed the dog. She got the sack. They could do nothing else to her since it is not a crime to kill a dog. She said that she would almost have preferred them to punish her, she felt so guilty. Our work, you know, leads us to have the most terrible thoughts.”
    “Leave it.”
    “I work all day and I would even like to work harder but at something else: something in the open air which brings results you can see, which can be counted like other things, like money. I would rather break stones on the road or work steel in a foundry.”
    “But then do it. Break stones on the road. Leave your present work.”
    “No, I can’t. Alone, as I explained to you, alone I could not do it. I have tried, without success. Alone, without any affection, I think I should just die of hunger. I wouldn’t have the strength to force myself to go on.”
    “There are women roadmenders. I’ve seen them.”
    “I know. I think about them every day. But I should have started in that way. It’s too late now. A job like mine makes you so disgusted with yourself that you have even less meaning outside it than in it. You don’teven know that you exist enough for your own death to matter to you. No, from now on my only solution is a man for whom I shall exist; only then will I get out.”
    “But do you know what that is called . . .?”
    “No. All I know is that I must persist in this slavery for some time longer before I can enjoy things again, things as simple as eating.”
    “Forgive me.”
    “It doesn’t matter. I must stay where I am for as long as I have to. Please don’t think that I lack good will because it is not that. It is just that it is not worthwhile trying to make me hope less—as you put it—because if I tried to hope less than I do, I