La Chamade by Françoise Sagan Read Free Book Online Page B

days passed nonchalantly, without a landmark, felt alarmed to see how little of life remained to her: she would never have enough time to love Antoine.
    'As you know, Lucile, I must go to New York soon. Would you come with me?'
    Charles' voice was quiet and intimated that she would agree. He knew that Lucile was fond of travelling. She did not answer at once.
    'Why not? Will you be there long?'
    'Impossible,' she thought, 'Impossible. How can I do without Antoine for ten days? Charles' conditions came too early or too late and, in any case, too cruelly. I'd give all the cities in the world for Antoine's room. I have no other journeys, no other discoveries to make except those we can make together in the dark.' And as a precise detail returned suddenly in her memory, she was troubled and turned her head toward the street.
    'Ten or fifteen days,' said Charles. 'New York is charming in the spring. You've only been there in mid-winter. I remember the cold was so intense that your nose turned blue; eyes staring, hair bristling with indignation, you glared at me as though it were my fault.'
    He began to laugh, his voice soft, melancholic. Lucile remembered the abominable cold of that winter, but nothing else. She had not a single fond memory. Simply racing wildly in a taxi from the hotel to a restaurant. The golden memories belonged to Charles, always to Charles, and suddenly she felt ashamed. Sentimentally too, she depended on Charles and that was more embarrassing than the rest. She did not wish to hurt him, she did not wish to lie to him, she did not wish to tell him the truth, she simply wished to let him guess it, without explanations. Yes, she was really the perfect coward.
    They met two or three times a week. Antoine displayed a tremendous imagination in finding excuses for leaving his office, and Lucile did not tell Charles how she spent her days, she never had. They joined each other in the little room and, trembling, they sank into darkness, they scarcely had time to speak. They knew nothing about one another, but their bodies showed recognition with such fervour, respect, such a feeling for the absolute, that their memories disconnected under the impact; on parting, they searched desperately, and in vain, for one among the words whispered in the dark, for a single clear recollection. They always parted like two somnambulists, almost distracted, and it was only an hour or two later that they began to await the only reality, the only vital point in their lives: the moment when they would meet again. All the rest was dead. This expectancy was the only thing that made them aware of time, the weather, and of other people, because it transformed these things into obstacles. Lucile would make sure, six times at least, before meeting Antoine, that the car keys were in her handbag, remind herself a dozen times which streets led to Antoine's house, look a dozen times at the alarm clock that she had always so proudly disdained. Antoine reminded his secretary that he had an urgent appointment at four, and left the office a quarter of an hour before, although his room was two minutes away. And they arrived each time a little pale, Lucile, because she had thought that a bottleneck in the traffic would prevent her from arriving on time, and Antoine, because one of his firm's authors had stopped by and kept him an unwilling prisoner. Sighing, they clung to each other, as though they had escaped a great danger which, at worst, would have meant a five minutes' delay.
    During an embrace, they said 'I love you', but never otherwise. Sometimes Antoine bent over Lucile and, as she caught her breath, her eyes closed, he outlined her face, her shoulder with his hand, saying tenderly: 'You make me very happy, you know.' She smiled. He talked about her smile, told her how annoyed he was when she smiled, her eyes wide, at someone else. 'Your smile is too disarming,' he said, 'it worries me.'— 'But I'm often thinking of other things, it's just a