Read The Ravishing of Lol Stein for Free Online Page B

seen someone act like this, the way a lot of men in South Tahla acted. Does she suddenly remember having been a victim of it? Does it make her smile? In all probability these tentative advances can be counted among Lol's happy and tender memories. Now she sees their surreptitious stares directed at her, in an absolute equivalence. She, who does not see herself, is thus seen, in others. Therein lies the omnipotence of this substance whereof she is made, without any particular ties.
    They are walking on a beach, for her. They don't know it. She has no trouble following him. He takes big steps, but his torso, carefully controlled, moves hardly at all. He didn't know it.
    It was a weekday. There were few people about. It was just before the height of the holiday season.
    I see this:
    Careful, calculating, she walks a good distance behind him. When he stares at another woman, she lowers her head or averts her gaze. What little he can see perhaps—this gray coat, this black beret, nothing more—is not dangerous. When he pauses in front of a shop window, or anything else, she slows down so that she won't have to stop at the same time as he. If they were to see her—the men from South Tahla—Lol would turn and run away.
    She wants to follow. Follow, then take by surprise, threaten to surprise. She has wanted to for some time. If she wants to be taken by surprise in her turn, she does not want it to happen before she has decided on it.
    The boulevard rises gently toward a square which they reach at the same time. From there three other boulevards head out toward the suburbs. This is the side of town the forest is on. Children's shouts.
    He followed the one that leads farthest away from the forest: a straight avenue, only recently opened, on which the traffic is heavier than on the others, the fastest route out of town. He began to walk faster. It was getting late. The time he had left before his appointment, the time they both had left, both he and Lol, was growing shorter and shorter.
    Thus he was spending this time in a way that, in Lol's eyes, was perfect: looking for something. He wasted it well, he walked and walked. Each one of his steps echoes in Lol, strikes, strikes true, in the same place, the nail of flesh. For the past several days, the past several weeks, the steps of the men of South Tahla have been striking the same way.
    This I invent, I see:
    The only times she feels the suffocating heat of summer are when he does something besides just walking, when he runs his fingers through his hair, when he lights a cigarette, and especially when he eyes a passing woman. At these times Lol doubts that she has the strength to keep on following him, while she continues to do so, to follow this man among all the men of South Tahla.
    Lol knew where this highway led once it had passed the houses on the square, and when it had also passed the small commercial center detached from the town proper, consisting of a cinema and a few bars.
    I invent:
    At that distance, he can't even hear the sound of her footsteps on the sidewalk.
    She is wearing the silent, low-heeled shoes she wears to go walking. Still, she takes an added precaution, she removes her beret.
    When he stops on the square where the boulevard ends, she takes off her gray coat too. She is in navy blue, a woman he still doesn't see.
    He paused beside a bus stop. There was a large crowd of people, many more than in town.
    Then Lol walks clear around the square and takes up a position near the stop for buses leaving in the opposite direction.
    The sun had already disappeared, and its rays were lighting the rooftops.
    He lighted a cigarette, paced back and forth a few times the length of the bus stop. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was not quite time, and waited. Lol found that he was capable of looking around him in half a dozen directions at once.
    There were women there, a crush of women waiting for the bus, women crossing the square, women passing by. Not one of them