She made no excuses for herself. She knew very well that she had cheated him. Love … or rather, a brief romantic adventure: she would give her heart, of course, but he, the man, would only be interested in satisfying his vanity or his desire. She wanted nothing to do with the superficial poetry of some romantic novel. She understood only too well … Like all men, he would woo her the whole day long and then, in the evening, he would knock at her door, and it would last for three weeks, or a bit longer, or a bit less, and then they would separate, as if they were strangers. She wanted no part of it. She could picture the electric look in Yves’s eyes when she saw him the next day, an expression she was familiar with because she had seen it more than once in the eyes of men who had found her attractive. Until today, she’d just laughed, but … now … She began to cry, her heart full of immense, vague, tender pity, pity for herself, for her husband, abroad all alone – he might even be ill – but most especially pity for Yves, for the likely suffering his unrequited love might bring him.

She decided that when she saw him the next day she would be cold and distant. But all morning long he played with Francette on the beach. He barely looked up when he spoke to her; he seemed more embarrassed than she was, which melted her resolve. That evening, when he asked if she wanted to go for a walk before dinner, she went, her heart pounding, but determined to resist his inevitable words of love. But he said nothing. The sun was setting over the sea amid swirling storm clouds. It was high tide; waves rolled and crashed, white and grey, against the sea wall; the birds circled above with plaintive cries. He spoke to her of insignificant things, as he had before. They were sitting on the parapet; night was coming quickly; large drops of rain began to fall; he took her arm to help her run towards the hotel. For a moment she thought he was trembling a little, but he quickly regained his composure. The rain tumbled down in angry torrents; a sharp wind rose up, bending the tamarisk trees, crushing their flowers; Yves threw his jacket over Denise’s shoulders; they ran like mad creatures through the rainstorm; he held her close to him; she could feel his taut fingers gripping her round the waist, but he remained obstinately silent, clenched his teeth, did not glance at her, while she surreptitiously raised fearful, yielding eyes to look at him.

8

THE DAYS PASSED and still he said nothing to her. He didn’t try to kiss her; he didn’t even allow himself to hold her cold, trembling hands longer than he should. He was too happy; with a kind of superstitious terror, he feared words as if they were a curse. He delighted in this moment in his life as if it were a luxury; it was a beautiful, unexpected gift offered to him by fate: peace, time to himself, the sea, this enchanting woman. For the moment, simply being with her was all he needed. Instead of weighing heavily, his long period of abstinence was something precious to savour, as if he had rediscovered his childhood. His desire for her caused him the kind of exquisite pain that is a pleasure to prolong, like when you are thirsty, at the height of summer, and you hold an ice-cold glass, misted with cool beads of water, to your lips for a long time, without drinking from it. He had experienced enough of life to understand the importance of his exhilaration and he jealously nurtured his emotion with pride, as if it were a rare flower. It was strange, but he had the impression of absolute security with her … the way men looked at her – in the morning on the beach, or in the evening when she came down into the hotel wearing a low-cut dress and diamond necklace – left him with a profound sense of calm: he was sure of her; he knew she was his, docile, at peace because of his feigned indifference, yet more intimately bound to him by everything that remained unexpressed between them than by the most passionate declarations of love. He was waiting, not out of any conscious ulterior motive, but because of a kind of innate indolence that was now more powerful than gestures or words.

But summer was nearly over; the weather was changing; the holiday villas closed up, one after the other. In the morning, the long beach was utterly deserted under a pale sky clouded by sudden showers. Instead of taking long siestas on the warm sand, they went for walks. With Yves, Denise walked through the Basque country, down little winding lanes along the Pyrenees, through forests, turning gold at the start of autumn, past sleepy villages where night fell more quickly than elsewhere because the high mountains plunged them in shadow at sunset.