The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet

desire to be alone in my own bed at home would unexpectedy seize hold of me, make me see how unbearable life together would be. Yet I couldn’timagine living without Marthe. I was beginning to undergo the punishment for adultery.
    I resented Marthe for having agreed to furnish Jacques’s house according to my taste before our affair had begun. I could no longer stand the sight of this furniture that I had chosen, not to please myself but to displease Jacques. There was no excuse, I was just weary of it. I was sorry I hadn’t let Marthe choose it herself. I would have probably disliked it at first, but how enchanting to then grow used to it out of love for her. I was envious that this pleasure would now go to Jacques.
    Marthe looked at me with her big innocent eyes when I said bitterly: “I hope when we live together we’re not going to keep this furniture.” She respected everything I said. Thinking I’d forgotten that the furniture was my idea, she didn’t dare remind me. But inwardly she deplored my bad memory.

XIX
    AT THE BEGINNING OF JUNE MARTHE GOT A letter from Jacques, which at long last wasn’t just about how much he loved her. He was ill. They were evacuating him to the hospital at Bourges. I wasn’t glad to hear he was ill, but relieved that he had something to say. He would be passing through J … the next day or the day after, and begged Marthe to come and look out for his train from the platform. Marthe showed me the letter. She was waiting for my instructions.
    Love had made a slave of her. Faced with such servile preliminaries, it was hard for me to allow or forbid anything. As far as I was concerned, my silence meant that I agreed. Could I prevent her from catching a glimpse of her husband for a second or two? She didn’t say anything either. So out of a form of tacit consent I didn’t go to see her the next day.
    The morning of the day after that, a messenger boy brought a note to my house, which he would only give to me personally. It was from Marthe. She was waiting for me by the river. She begged me to come if I still had any love for her.
    I rushed straight down to the bench where Marthe was waiting. Her hello, so out of keeping with the style of hermessage, made my blood run cold. I thought her feelings had changed.
    Yet Marthe had simply interpreted my silence of two days before as anger. That it was a tacit agreement had never once occurred to her. To her hours of anxiety was added the grievance of now seeing me alive, because the only reason for not going to see her the day before must have been that I was dead. I couldn’t hide my astonishment. I explained that it was discretion, respect for her obligations to her sick husband. She half believed me. I was annoyed. I almost said: “For once I’m not lying …” We both cried.
    But muddled games of chess like this can drag on endlessly, exhaustingly, if one of the players doesn’t set things straight. All things considered, Marthe’s attitude towards Jacques wasn’t very becoming. I kissed her, soothed her: “Silence isn’t good for us,” I said. We promised to never conceal our innermost thoughts from each other, although I had to do some pleading to persuade her that such a thing was possible.
    Jacques had looked out for Marthe at J … and, when the train went past their house, he had seen the open shutters. His letter begged for reassurance. He asked her to come to Bourges. “You’ll have to go,” I told her, in such a way that these simple words didn’t sound like a rebuke.
    “I’ll go,” she replied, “if you come with me.”
    This was taking thoughtlessness too far. Yet the love that these words, this appalling behaviour expressed soon turned my anger to gratitude. I got on my high horse. I calmed down. I spoke to her gently, touched by her artlessness. I treated her like a child who cries for the moon.
    I pointed out how immoral it would be for me to gowith her. The fact that I didn’t fly into a rage like