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about himself. When they get close todeath, people don’t worry much about those they’ll be leaving behind. It’s as if they’re jealous of them, that they think it’s enough just to be alive, and their resentment makes them think, ‘Oh well, let them manage as best they can. Their gratitude isn’t going to bring me back to this earth.’ Of course, when Maurice died, his sister took everything, even the furniture.”
    As she remembered her bed, made of lemon wood and decorated with shining dark bronze angels, cool and smooth to the touch, she felt downcast and her eyes filled with tears. She stretched out her hand feverishly.
    “You’ll give me one more cigarette, won’t you? Let’s not talk about all that anymore. Tell me about yourself. It does one good to see people who are happy and who love each other. He’s good-looking, your friend. Love is wonderful, you’ll see. Of course, there are things you don’t know about yet, a young girl like you, but you’ll be a fast learner, as they say. Ah! You have nothing to worry about.”
    “I know everything there is to know,” Christiane said, taking a peculiar and rather perverse delight in proving herself to be as mature and worldly-wise as this old sinner. She decided that Ginette had no idea who she was and would probably never find out her name.
    “In any case, I’m not obsessed about virginity,” she thought contemptuously.
    She flicked the ash from her cigarette and said, “Ibelieve you have to find out beforehand if you’re physically suited. After all, that’s the most important thing about love, isn’t it?”
    “It certainly is! Ah, you’re not stupid, are you? And of course, in one way you’re right, that’s why we were created and put on this earth. But in the long run, that’s not what keeps you together. What I miss most is … affection,” she said, having searched for a more intimate, gentle word to express what she felt. “I can assure you, I’m not looking for a boy who’s good-looking, although of course I’d prefer that,” she said, her mouth tightening in a little smile, while her eyes stayed fixed and sad. “If I could find a man who was kind, even if he was old, who would let me have a small monthly allowance and give me friendship, trust, and affection … but it’s difficult to find someone like that. They’re all the same: ‘Hello, good evening, lie down over there.’ And they’re mean as well, and rude. When you’ve known someone who respected you, who introduced you to his friends, who called you his wife. His wife, imagine that,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “That tells you all you need to know … And then from one day to the next, nothing, alone in the world, alone like a dog. Well, we’ll have to hope things will improve. I’m not asking for the moon; after all, I’m over forty. I know I don’t look it, that I look young, but inside,” she said, gesturing vaguely at her heart beating beneath the waist-length string of false pearls, “inside I feel theyears, and they haven’t been easy at all … You’re starting life in the right way, mademoiselle.”
    “Yes,” said Christiane mechanically.
    She was overwhelmed by sadness and hardly listened to the woman, just nodded vaguely in agreement; she was looking at the time. Nearly four o’clock … She couldn’t help thinking, “If he really loved me, if he felt affection for me, like the woman says, he’d be here, he wouldn’t have left me alone tonight in this bar … And what is it he has to tell me that’s so important? I’m scared.” For the first time in her life she felt a tremor of fear about the unknown. It felt as if an icy hand were slowly crushing her heart. “You look for love and all you get are boys who want to sleep with you or who only want your dowry.”
    Like a changing stage set, life seemed to unfold in front of her, revealing dark and terrible depths.
    “I’ve drunk too much champagne. My head feels fuzzy and this