Sunday by Georges Simenon Page A

were some who stole, or who drank, others who were rude to the customers or even to Berthe.
    Thus, behind an apparently peaceful existence, there were constant little dramas, even though these might be nothing more than disputes with the tradesmen or the local workmen.
    In actual fact it was Berthe who saw to all these matters, without ever a murmur. Apart from the marketing and cooking, Emile had no responsibilities and his wife hardly even consulted him when there were repairs or alterations to be considered.
    It was she again who made out the guests' bills, handled the cash, took it to the bank once a week.
    Had he really wanted it to be like this? Hadn't he just let this situation develop through inertia? Had Berthe already become the enemy at this period?
    He would have found it difficult to answer. At any rate his wife's body was more foreign to him after years of marriage than, for example, Nancy's, which he had possessed only once.
    He knew two or three girls, in Cannes, whom he used to go and see every now and then, sometimes during market hours. He was sure to find them in bed then, because they used to hang about the Casino and the nightclubs, and, being short of time, he would make love to them hurriedly, rather as if he wanted to get his revenge, or to prove to himself that he was a man.
    He did not drink, in the way his father-in-law had done all his life, or again in the way his father and brother still did, but made do with a few glasses of vin rosé during the day, especially in the morning around eleven o'clock, before the rush of lunch.
    He didn't eat with his wife. She was served alone at a table either on the terrace or, if the weather did not allow it, in the dining-room like the guests, at the same time as they.
    The staff had their meals before anyone else, in the kitchen. As for him, it was only when they began serving the cheese and a dessert that he would sink into a chair, having cleared a space at the table, and swallow his meal in front of Madame Lavaud who was already busy washing up.
    That was the routine in summer. In the rest of the year, there were differences, and sometimes, in winter, especially when there was a strong mistral blowing, or when the east wind brought heavy rains, they went for more than a week at a stretch without a single visitor, a single person from outside, except for the postman, crossing the threshold of La Bastide.
    As far as his plan was concerned, it was of no importance, for this plan was based entirely on the summer routine, or to be more precise, on the in-between season, already fairly busy, which came just before the rush of the summer holidays.
    It was during the same season, two years before, that it had all started with Ada. After lunch, Berthe would go upstairs and lie down for an hour or two, like most of the residents. Shutters could be heard slamming all round the house at this hour, and it was the same with all the shutters in Mouans-Sartoux and the entire district.
    Though Emile and his wife slept in the same bed at night, the famous bed of his parents-in-law, which Berthe must have regarded as a symbol, Emile had adopted, for his siesta, either the Cabin, when it wasn't occupied, or a shady nook beneath a fig-tree.
    All this was not without good reason. To start with, he did not like undressing and dressing again in the middle of the day, and his wife insisted on getting in between the sheets. Further, their siestas did not last the same time. And lastly, he sweated freely, which Berthe disliked.
    At all events, without the matter ever being discussed, he had won this period of liberty.
    He would soon become drowsy, but remained half-conscious of what was happening around him, of the time, of the movement of the sun, and certain noises continued to reach him. Fragments of thoughts, no longer connected, passed through his head, becoming more and more shapeless, with sometimes pleasurable distortions.
    Together with the time he spent out at sea these