The Lover by Marguerite Duras Read Free Book Online Page B

while. He says it to end the agony. Then I’m still not supposed to catch what he says properly, one more treachery, as if by what he said he meant to object, to complain of my elder brother’s behavior. So I’m still not supposed to answer him. But he goes on, says, is bold enough to say, Your mother’s tired, look at her. And our mother does get drowsy after those fabulous Chinese dinners in Cholon. But I still don’t answer. It’s then I hear my brother’s voice. He says something short, sharp, and final. My mother used to say, He’s the one who speaks best out of all the three. After he’s spoken, my brother waits. Everything comes to a halt. I recognize my lover’s fear, it’s the same as my younger brother’s. He gives in. We go to the Fountain. My mother too. At the Fountain she goes to sleep.
    In my elder brother’s presence he ceases to be my lover. He doesn’t cease to exist, but he’s no longer anything to me. He becomes a burned-out shell. My desire obeys my elder brother, rejects my lover. Every time I see them together I think I can never bear the sight again. My lover’s denied in just that weak body, just that weakness which transports me with pleasure. In my brother’s presence he becomes an unmentionable outrage, a cause of shame who ought to be kept out of sight. I can’t fight my brother’s silent commands. I canwhen it concerns my younger brother. But when it concerns my lover I’m powerless against myself. Thinking about it now brings back the hypocrisy to my face, the absent-minded expression of someone who stares into space, who has other things to think about, but who just the same, as the slightly clenched jaws show, suffers and is exasperated at having to put up with this indignity just for the sake of eating well, in an expensive restaurant, which ought to be something quite normal. And surrounding the memory is the ghastly glow of the night of the hunter. It gives off a strident note of alarm, like the cry of a child.
    No one speaks to him at the Fountain, either.
    We all order Martells and Perrier. My brothers drink theirs straight off and order the same again. My mother and I give them ours. My brothers are soon drunk. But they still don’t speak to him. Instead they start finding fault. Especially my younger brother. He complains that the place is depressing and there aren’t any hostesses. There aren’t many people at the Fountain on a weekday. I dance with him, with my younger brother. I don’t dance with my elder brother, I’ve never danced with him. I was always held back by a sense of danger, of the sinister attraction he exerted on everyone, a disturbing sense of the nearness of our bodies.
    We were strikingly alike, especially in the face.
    The Chinese from Cholon speaks to me, he’s on the brink of tears, he says, What have I done to them? I tell him not to worry, it’s always like that, even among ourselves, no matter what the circumstances.
    I’ll explain when we are together again in the apartment. I tell him my elder brother’s cold, insulting violence is there whatever happens to us, whatever comes our way. His first impulse is always to kill, to wipe out, to hold sway over life, to scorn, to hunt, to make suffer. I tell him not to be afraid. He’s got nothing to be afraid of. Because the only person my elder brother’s afraid of, who, strangely, makes him nervous, is me.
    Never a hello, a good evening, a happy New Year. Never a thank you. Never any talk. Never any need to talk. Everything always silent, distant. It’s a family of stone, petrified so deeply it’s impenetrable. Every day we try to kill one another, to kill. Not only do we not talk to one another, we don’t even look at one another. When you’re being looked at you can’t look. To look is to feel curious, to be interested, to lower yourself. No one you look at is worth it. Looking is always demeaning. The word conversation is banished. I think that’s what best conveys the shame