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sea. We had children, he thought; we can never be childless. We were moderate, we will never know what it is to spill out our lives …
    He was not himself somehow. The faint sound of the radio playing near the draftsmen’s tables was a strange distraction. He could not think, he was vague, adrift.
    Arnaud came by in the late afternoon. He sat with his coat belted. He looked like a vintner, a man who owns land.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I was just thinking,” Viri murmured.
    “I had lunch today at the Toque.”
    “Was it good?”
    “I’m getting so fat,” Arnaud moaned. “Lunch is not a meal; it’s a profession. It takes your whole life. I had lunch with a very nice girl. You don’t know her.”
    “Who?”
    “She was so … everything she said was so unexpected. She went to school in a convent. The mattresses were made of straw.”
    “Is that unexpected?”
    “You know, there’s a kind of education, a kind of upbringing which is ruinous, and yet if you survive it, it’s the best thing in the world. It’s like having been a heroin addict or a thief. We try to save too many people, that’s the trouble. You save them, but what have you got?”
    “Tell me more of what she said.”
    “It wasn’t only what she said. She ate, that was the thing I liked about her, she ate as much as I did. We were like two peasants striking a bargain. Bread, fish, wine, everything. I began looking at her as something that was going to be served next. And she’s one of these girls who fill their clothes completely. She was—you know how they make those veal and ham pies in England?—she was en croûte . And the most interesting thing: she’s lame.”
    “Lame?”
    “She can’t walk very well. She limps. You don’t find that often. A lame woman … Louise de La Vallière was lame. Louise de Vilmorin, too. She had tuberculosis of the hip.”
    “Did she?”
    “I think so. Something else very nice is a woman with slightly crossed eyes.”
    “Crossed eyes?”
    “Just a little. And teeth. Bad teeth.”
    “You like all three?”
    “No, no, of course not,” Arnaud said. “Not in the same woman. You can’t have everything.”
    There was something hidden in his expression, the smile of someone who should not reveal it. “It’s terrible,” he sighed.
    “What?”
    “I can’t do this to Eve. I can’t be unfaithful for a …”
    “A bad leg.”
    “It just isn’t right,” Arnaud said. “I mean, she cooks meals for me. She has a wonderful sense of humor.”
    “And her teeth aren’t that good.”
    “They’re passable. They’re not really bad.”
    He shifted in the chair slightly, and found a new position. His clothing was somewhat tight on him.
    “It’s so easy to be distracted,” he said. “Eve is good for me.”
    “She loves you.”
    “Yes.”
    “And you?”
    “Me?” He looked about as if for something to involve him. “I love everyone. It’s your daughters I love, Viri. I’m serious.”
    “Well, it’s reciprocated.”
    “I’m jealous of them. I’m jealous of your life. It’s a sensible life. It’s harmonious, that’s what I’m trying to say, and most important, it’s intimately connected with the future because of your children. I mean, I’m sure you realize it, but what moment that gives to each day.”
    “Why don’t you have children?”
    “Yes. Well, first, I would say, I need a wife. And unfortunately, you also have the wife I like. Nedra doesn’t have a sister, does she?”
    “No.”
    “That’s too bad. I’d like to marry her sister. It would really be an act of adultery.” There was no insult in his voice. “No, you’re very fortunate,” he said. “But you know that. Well, if anything should happen …”
    Viri smiled.
    “No, I mean it. If anything happened to you … your wife, your children, I would take care of them. I would continue your love.”
    “I don’t think anything’s going to happen.”
    “Well, you never know,” Arnaud said