Free All Our Wordly Goods by Irène Némirovsky

luckier next time. Give me your address,’ he said again.
    ‘I’ll be staying with one of my cousins,’ she replied, quickly and quietly. ‘Madame Hullin, 184 Boulevard Saint-Germain.’
    ‘Good. I won’t forget. Goodbye, Mademoiselle. And good luck.’
    ‘Good luck to you too,’ she said.
    She offered him her hand. With a sudden movement, he picked up the torch she had dropped and shone it towards her face: her forehead, her mouth and her eyes, then the rest of her body. He smiled. ‘Give me a kiss, for luck.’
    ‘You’re mad!’ she cried, starting with fear and secret pleasure.
    His voice was soft and nonchalant. ‘We’re at war, young lady from Saint-Elme,’ he said. ‘A shell could land on our heads at any moment and you would never have known what a kiss was like.’ He walked towards her; she pulled away. He laughed again, took her handand kissed it. ‘Don’t be afraid. The fever and exhaustion are making me feel intoxicated. Well, goodbye then. My strength is back, thanks to your excellent care. Your address in Paris is 184 Boulevard Saint-Germain, right? See you soon, Mademoiselle Renaudin. Until then!’
    He picked up his bag and, dragging his leg behind him, went on his way. She sat there, breathless. The war, the defeat, all that was less real to her than this man’s voice, the way he had kissed her hand. But what about Pierre? Pierre had never touched her. He had briefly kissed her forehead one evening, in front of his parents, chastely, the night of their engagement party. But tonight, the whole of her powerful body, her fiery, rapid blood, had quivered and seemed to come alive. And her weariness, the danger, increased her disturbing exhilaration. After a moment she got hold of herself.
    ‘He doesn’t seem a very serious-minded person,’ she thought. ‘A Parisian, with no family, no friends. Maybe he’s a gold-digger. His name is Roland. That’s a nice name … Roland Burgères … I’ll never see him again,’ she concluded forcefully, her hand placed over her pounding heart. Was it really her heart? This strange, profound beating seemed to come from a place she had never known existed. She sat very still, watching the stream of people all around her. There were so many men … She was intoxicated by the living, sensual heat of all these starving, exhausted men who passed by without even glancing at her. She was ashamed of herself, but she couldn’t curb her thoughts any morethan she could stop the blood from flowing through her veins. At last the driver returned with a truck. They loaded the bags. They coupled the car to it. They continued on their way to Paris. It was just a few days before the Battle of the Marne.

10
    Agnès was waiting for her husband, who was coming home from the front. They were letting her have him for six days. He’d been fighting for two years and every now and then they were granted a few hours, a few days, a few brief nights together. Then he left again. It was the same for everyone. There was nothing they could do. People draw strength from adversity and the greater the struggle, the stronger they grow. Just as she had dragged the refugees along the road without flinching, gritting her teeth, so she had dragged herself forward through 1915 and now pushed through 1916, trying to see nothing ahead but the day that was drifting away, without longing for the past, without imagining the future. She was engulfed by the profound darkness of war, a darkness from which it seemed there would be no escape, a war that would last until the end of time itself.
    ‘But he’s coming home, he’s coming home tonight,’ thought Agnès.
    She was overcome with joy. Prayers of gratitude, tender words of love rose to her lips. Pierre, her Pierre. He would be with her in a moment. She would kiss him, hold him close; he would be smiling, warm, alive, my God, alive!
    ‘Oh, I’m so happy,’ she thought, ‘I’m the happiest woman in the world.’
    Everything looked