Free Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky Page B

a bit, I again asked her what she wanted me to do.
    "Couldn't you tell them ... ?"
    "What difference would that make?"
    "Oh, I don't know. But I think I'd die if I had to tell them myself. You ... You could make them understand that it was a moment of madness, that I'm not completely evil and depraved, that I myself don't even understand how I could have acted the way I did. Would you, dear Cousin Silvio?" I thought about it and replied, "No."
    Poor Colette let out a cry of surprise and despair. "No? Why not?"
    "For several reasons. First of all-and I can't explain why, so you'll just have to take my word for it-if this bad news came from me, as you'd like, your mother would suffer even more. Don't ask me why. I can't tell you. And second, because I don't want to get involved in your problems. I don't want to be running back and forth from one member of the family to the next calming everyone down, reportin g w hat was said, giving advice and spouting moral philosophy. I'm old, Colette, and all I want is a quiet life. At my age, one feels a kind of coldness . . . Of course, you can't understand that, any more than I can understand your love affairs and foolish mistakes. However hard I try, I can't see things the way you do. To you, Jean's death is a horrific catastrophe. To me . . . well, I've seen so many die. He was a poor, jealous, clumsy lad who's better off where he is. You blame yourself for his death? The way I see it, the only things to blame are chance or destiny. Your affair with Marc? Well, you got some pleasure from it. What else do you want? And the same goes for your parents; I wouldn't be able to stop myself telling them truths that would surprise and upset them, good souls that they are . . ."
    "Cousin Silvio," she interrupted, "I sometimes think . . ." She hesitated, then continued, "You don't admire them the way I do."
    "No one deserves to be admired so passionately. Just as no one deserves to be despised with too much indignation ..." "Or loved with too much tenderness .. ."
    "Perhaps ... I don't know. Love, you know ... At my age the blood no longer burns, you feel cold," I said again. Suddenly, Colette took my hand. The poor child, how warm she was! "I feel sorry for you," she said softly.
    "And I feel sorry for you," I said rather harshly. "You torture yourself over so many things."
    We sat very still for a long time. The night was beginning to feel damp. The frogs were croaking.
    "What will you do after I leave?" she asked.
    "What I do every night."
    "What's that?"
    "Well, I'll shut the gate. I'll lock the doors. I'll wind the clock. I'll get my cards and play a few games of Solitaire. I'll have a glass of wine. I won't think about anything. I'll go to bed. I won't sleep much. Instead I'll dream with my eyes open. I'll see people and things from the past. As for you, well, you'll go home, you'll feel miserable, you'll cry, you'll get out Jean's photograph and ask his forgiveness, you'll regret the past, fear the future. I can't say which of us will have a better night."
    She said nothing for a moment.
    "I'll be going now," she whispered with a sigh.
    I walked her to the gate. She got on her bicycle and left.
    T AT., COLETTE TOLD ME that she hadn't gone home, but had continued on to Coudray. She was so frantic that she felt she must do something, at all costs, to try to overcome her grief. She told me that while I'd been talking to her she'd realised that, after herself, or even before herself, the person who would benefit most from avoiding a scandal was Brigitte Declos, Marc's fiancee. She was determined to see her, to tell her what had happened and ask her advice. Did Brigitte know the details of how Jean had died? She must have guessed most of it . . . Anyway, it had happened over two years ago; Marc and Colette weren't seeing each other any more. She couldn't be jealous of something that had happened in the past. Her only thought would be to save the man she was going to marry in two weeks' time . .