Free The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras

though I had slapped her, she turns to me:
    "Do you think so?"
    "Yes," says Peter Beugner.
    She laughs again.
    "How ridiculous!"
    Tatiana becomes solemn. She contemplates her friend attentively. I realize that she is virtually certain that Lol is not completely recovered. I can see that this is profoundly reassuring to her; even this pale vestige of Lol's insanity puts a halt to the terrible swift flight of things, slows to some slight extent the insensate flight of past summers.
    "Your voice is different," Tatiana says, "but I would have recognized your laugh anywhere."
    Lol says:
    "Don't worry, there's no need to worry, Tatiana."
    With eyes lowered, she waited. No one answered her. It was to me that she had spoken.
    Curious, amused, she leaned over to Tatiana.
    "What did my voice used to be like? I can't really remember."
    "A trifle harsh. You used to speak fast. We had trouble understanding you."
    Lol burst out laughing.
    "I was hard of hearing," she says, "but no one knew it. My voice was the voice of someone who can't hear."
    On Thursdays, Tatiana relates, they both used to balk at marching in schoolgirl file with the rest of the students, they used to dance instead in the empty playground—shall we dance, Tatiana?—a record player in a neighboring building, always the same one, used to play a medley of old-fashioned dance tunes, a nostalgic program they used to look forward to, the school monitors were gone, there they were alone in the vast school yard where, that day, they could hear the street noises. Come on, Tatiana, come on, let's dance; sometimes, in a fit of exasperation, they play, they shout, they try to frighten each other.
    We watched her as she listened to Tatiana and seemed to call upon me to verify the truth of this past. Is that really it? Is that the way it really was?
    "Tatiana has told us about those Thursdays," says Peter Beugner.
    Tatiana, as she does every day, has let the semi-darkness settle down, and I have a chance to study Lol Stein at length, at sufficient length, before she leaves, so that I shall never forget her.
    When Tatiana switched on the lights, Lol reluctantly got to her feet. To what fictitious home was she returning? I still didn't know.
    Once she is up, on the verge of leaving, she finally says what she had to say: she wants to see Tatiana again.
    "I want to see you again, Tatiana."
    Then, what should have appeared natural seems false. I lower my eyes. Tatiana, who is trying to catch my attention, loses it like a lost coin. Why does Lol, who seems fully able to get along without needing anyone, want to see me, Tatiana, again? I go out onto the steps. It is not yet completely dark, I realize, far from it. I hear Tatiana asking:
    "Why do you want to see me again? Did that photograph make you want to see me again all that much? I'm intrigued."
    I turn around: Lol doesn't know which way to turn, her eyes search for mine, she hesitates between a lie and the truth and, courageously, opts for the lie.
    "That photograph was part of it," she adds, "and besides, I'm supposed to get out and meet people nowadays."
    Tatiana laughs:
    "That's hardly like you, Lola."
    I learn that nothing can match Lol's unaffected laugh when she is lying. She says:
    "We'll see, we'll see where it will all lead to. I feel so much at home with you."
    "Yes, we'll see," Tatiana says gaily.
    "You know you don't have to see me again, I'll understand."
    "I know," Tatiana says.
    A touring theatrical company was in South Tahla that week. Wouldn't that be a good opportunity to get together again? They could go to the theatre and then come back to Lol's afterward, to meet John Bedford.
    Couldn't Peter Beugner and Jack Hold join them as well?
    Tatiana had a moment of hesitation, then she said that she would come, she would give up her plans to go to the shore. Peter Beugner was free. I'll do my best, I say, to cancel a previous dinner engagement. That same evening Tatiana and I have a rendezvous at the Forest Hotel.
    The