Free La Chamade by Françoise Sagan

to him that the sound from the new loud speakers came from both sides of the room, converging in the centre on a level with her bed, he always settled down in front of the apparatus, as though fascinated by the record's black, shining rotation. She carefully took off her day time make-up then applied another for the night, specially prepared to conceal wrinkles without deepening them. It was out of the question to let her skin breathe (as advised by women's magazines) any more than she could allow her heart to breathe. She hadn't the time now. She considered her beauty indispensable in holding Antoine, and for that reason, she did not try to save it for a future without interest. Some characters, the most generous ones, concentrate only on the present and burn the rest. Diane was among them.
    Antoine stiffened as he heard faint noises in the bathroom: the tearing Kleenex and the swish of a hairbrush more than covered the violins and brasses of the concerto. Another five minutes and he would have to get up, undress and slip into those so soft sheets, next to that so exquisitely groomed woman, in this so lovely room. But he wanted Lucile. Lucile had come to his room and fallen on the landlady's rickety bed, Lucile had undressed at top speed and vanished as quickly, she was elusive, his little thief, his guest. She would never settle down, he would never wake at her side, she was a transitory being. What was more, he had ruined her evening; he felt his throat tighten with an adolescent despair.
    Diane appeared in her blue dressing-gown and for a second studied the back, the rigid neck that she refused to consider hostile. She was tired, she had, exceptionally, drunk a little, she was in a good humour. She wanted Antoine to talk to her, laugh with her, tell her about his childhood without holding anything back. She did not know that he was obsessed by dissimulation, by the moral obligation of their love-making which he incorrectly thought to be the only thing she wanted of him. So when she sat down and slipped her arm through his in a friendly way, he thought: 'yes, yes, just a second,' with a mental caddishness that was most unusual in him. For even in his shabbiest adventures, he had always preserved a certain respect for love, like the minute of silence, before laying his hand on a woman.
    'I like that concerto,' said Diane.
    'It's very pretty,' agreed Antoine in the polite tone of someone lying on the beach, who has been disturbed to remark on the blue of the Mediterranean.
    'The party was quite a success, wasn't it?'
    'With all of the fireworks,' he replied, and stretched out on the carpet, his eyes closed.
    He seemed immense as he lay there, more solitary than ever. He still heard the sarcastic, unkind intonation of his own voice and hated himself for it. Diane remained motionless, 'handsome, old and painted'. Where had he read that? Pepys' Diary?
    'Were you so bored?' she asked.
    She stood up, walked about the room, straightened a flower in a vase, ran her hand fondly over a piece of furniture. He watched her through his lashes. She loved these things, she loved these damned things, and he was one of them, the prize piece of her collection, he was a kept young man. Not really kept, of course, but he dined with 'her friends', slept in 'her flat', lived 'her life'. It was easy enough for him to judge Lucile. At least Lucile was a woman.
    'Why don't you answer? Were you that bored?'
    Her voice. Her questions. Her dressing-gown. Her perfume. He could stand it no longer. He rolled over on his stomach, his face in his arms. She knelt by him.
    'Antoine... Antoine...'
    There was such desolation, such tenderness in her voice that he turned over. Her eyes were shining a bit too much. Looking away, he drew her to him. Her movement was awkward, frightened, as she lay down by him, as though she were afraid of breaking something or had a touch of rheumatism. And by a lack of love for Diane, he suddenly wanted her.
    Charles had left for