The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet Page B

anything.
    She didn’t dare tell me that she was pregnant.

XXI
    I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEEM HAPPY AT THE news. But at first I was staggered. Having never imagined that I could be responsible for anything of any kind, I now was, and for the worst thing of all. I was also furious with myself for not being man enough to treat it straightforwardly. Marthe only mentioned it under duress. She was terrified that this moment, which ought to bring us closer, would move us apart. I put on such a convincing show of elation that her fears melted. Deep down her morals were still those of the bourgeoisie, and so for her this child was a sign that God was rewarding our love, not punishing a crime.
    While Marthe saw her pregnancy as a reason for me to stay with her for ever, it filled me with dismay. At our age it seemed impossible, unfair, that having a child should hamper our youth. For the first time I gave way to material anxieties: our families would disown us.
    Already loving our child, it was out of love that I rejected it. I didn’t want to be responsible for its tragic existence. I myself wouldn’t have been able to survive it.
    Instinct is our guide; a guide that leads to ruin. Yesterday, Marthe was afraid that being pregnant would put distance between us. Today, when she had never loved me so much, she thought my love was growing stronger,like hers. And while yesterday I rejected this child, today I began to love it, took love away from Marthe just as at the start of our relationship my love gave her what it took from others.
    Now, touching my lips to Marthe’s stomach, it was no longer her I was kissing, but my child. For sadly Marthe was no longer my mistress; she was a mother.
    I stopped behaving as if we were alone now. There was always a witness nearby, to whom we had to account for our actions. I found it difficult to forgive this abrupt change for which I held Marthe alone responsible, yet I sensed that I would have forgiven her even less if she had lied to me. There were moments when I believed that Marthe was lying in order to make our love last longer, and that her son wasn’t mine.
    Just as someone who is ill seeks peace and quiet, I didn’t know which way to turn. I had a feeling that it was now a different Marthe I loved, that my son would only be happy if he thought he belonged to Jacques. This duplicity alarmed me, admittedly. I would have to abandon Marthe. On the other hand, however much I regarded myself as a man, the situation was too serious for me to be so conceited as to believe that such an insane existence (or such a
sensible existence
, as I thought) was possible.

XXII
    FOR JACQUES WOULD EVENTUALLY COME home. After this most unusual period, like so many other soldiers who had been cuckolded as a result of the extraordinary circumstances, he would find an obedient, unhappy wife who showed no outward sign of her loose living. Yet the child could only be attributed to Jacques if she could bear to let him touch her during their holiday. Coward that I was, I begged her to.
    Of all our rows, this was neither the least bizarre nor the least painful. Not only that, I was surprised to meet so little resistance. I discovered the reason later. Marthe didn’t dare admit giving herself to Jacques during his last leave, and, quite contrarily, on the pretext of obeying me, was intending to turn him down at Granville using her present condition as an excuse. The entire edifice was a convolution of dates whose spurious coincidences would leave no one in any doubt once the child was born. “Bah!” I thought. “We’ve still got plenty of time. Marthe’s parents will be afraid of a scandal. They’ll take her off to the country and then delay making the announcement.”
    The day of Marthe’s departure was approaching. Her absence could only be of benefit to me. It would be a test. Iwas hoping to cure myself of her. If I didn’t succeed, if my love was too callow to free itself, I knew that I could go back to a