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day ... the liberty to think, even to think wrongly or not at all, the freedom to choose my own life, to choose myself. I cannot say 'to be myself', for I was only soft clay, but still I could refuse to be moulded.
    I realise that one might find complicated motives for this change in me, one might endow me with spectacular complexes: such as an incestuous love for my father, or a morbid passion for Anne, but I know the true reasons were the heat, Bergson, and Cyril, or at least his absence. I dwelt on this all the afternoon in a most unpleasant mood, induced by the discovery that we were entirely at Anne's mercy. I was not used to reflection, and it made me irritable. At dinner, as in the morning, I did not open my mouth. My father thought it appropriate to chaff me:
    "What I like about youth is its spontaneity, its gay conversation."
    I was trembling with rage. It was true that he loved youth; and with whom could I have talked if not with him? We had discussed everything together: love, death, music. Now he himself had disarmed and abandoned me. Looking at him I thought: 'You don't love me any more, you have betrayed me!' I tried to make him understand without words how desperate I was. He seemed suddenly alarmed; perhaps he understood that the time for joking was past, and that our relationship was in danger. I saw him stiffen, and it appeared as though he were about to ask a question. Anne turned to me:
    "You don't look well. I feel sorry now for making you work."
    I did not reply. I felt too disgusted that I had got myself into a state which I could no longer control. We had finished dinner. On the terrace, in the rectangle of light projected from the dining-room window, I saw Anne's long nervous hand reach out to find my father's. I thought of Cyril. I would have liked him to take me in his arms on that moonlit terrace, alive with crickets. I would have liked to be caressed, consoled, reconciled with myself. My father and Anne were silent, they had a night of love to look forward to; I had Bergson. I tried to cry, to feel sorry for myself, but in vain; it was already Anne for whom I was sorry, as if I were certain of victory.
     
    Part Two
     
     
    1
     
    I am surprised how clearly I remember every thing from that moment. I acquired an added awareness of other people and of myself. Until then I had always been spontaneous and light-hearted, but the last few days had upset me to the extent of forcing me to reflect and to look at myself with a critical eye. However, I seemed to come no nearer to a solution of my problems. I kept telling myself that my feelings about Anne were mean and stupid, and that my desire to separate her from my father was vicious. Then I would argue that after all I had every right to feel as I did. For the first time in my life I was divided against myself. Up in my room I reasoned with myself for hours on end in an attempt to discover whether the fear and hostility which Anne inspired in me were justified, or if I was merely a silly, spoilt, selfish girl in a mood of sham independence.
    In the meantime I grew thinner every day. On the beach I did nothing but sleep, and at meal-times I maintained a strained silence that ended by making the others feel uneasy. And all the time I watched Anne. At dinner I would say to myself, 'Doesn't every movement she makes prove how much she loves him? Could anyone be more in love? How can I be angry with her when she smiles at me with that trace of anxiety in her eyes?' But suddenly she would say, "When we get home, Raymond ..." and the thought that she was going to share our life and interfere with us would rouse me again. Once more she seemed calculating and cold. I thought: 'She is cold, we are warm-hearted, she is possessive, we are independent. She is indifferent; other people don't interest her, we love them. She is reserved, we are gay. We are full of life and she will slink in between us with her sobriety; she will warm herself at our fire and gradually