Part 3 — XIV

"HAVEN'T you ever played tricks on those you love," thought Lewis, answering an imaginary antagonist, as he walked along the quais by himself. The night, deep as coffee grounds in which he could foretell no future, was over. He had spent it with Madame Magnac, as in the old days. Now he was on his way back to Irene for breakfast. What he liked about Irene was her purity; he had adored that purity for so long that he could not bear it any more. Indeed it protected Irene, unfairly he thought, from everything; it protected her from suspicion, from danger; it enabled her to remain herself; never to make an effort to serve him or to understand him; she went to bed completely enveloped in this carapace.... To go on living in Paris after the age of thirty one must accept being surrounded by complicity. Otherwise one must leave. Since Irene had agreed to come back to France, she must sooner or later get used to it.

Lewis used to think that the peccadillos which seemed to him necessary with women who only attracted him physically, would automatically cease if he ever really fell in love. He had counted without that eagerness to surpass ourselves which dominates us and which is perhaps nothing but habit disguised.

No, he was not complicating his life, he was simplifying it.