She had time to assume an innocent expression. He knew it was false—and he did not resist it.
He was not angry with her, but if he had caught her in the act he would have broken her back. He did not expect from her what she could not give him, frankness and faithfulness. Since she pleased him, and as long as she pleased him, all was well. But he considered himself free to break with her when she no longer pleased him.
Annette had more scruples. She was a woman, and she knew better what was going on in Noémi's heart. Noémi might be false and vain and she might deceive Philippe, but she loved him. No, for her it was not just a game, as he had said it was. She was bound to him as if he were a part of her own flesh, not merely by the fiery bond of sensual pleasure, but from the bottom of her heart, for good or evil. Good and evil. In love nothing counts but the strength of love, that imperious magnet that draws soul and body together, one being into another being. She clung to him as the aim and purpose of her life, as what she had wanted, wanted, wanted through long years. A woman does not always know why she has fallen in love. But because she has fallen in love she cannot liberate herself. She has expended too much of her strength and her desire to be able to transfer them to another object. She lives like a parasite on the being she has chosen. It would be necessary to cut into them both to separate them.
A suspicion began to eat its way into Noémi. A mere nothing, at first, the nibbling of a mouse. There was no change in their life. Philippe, hard as ever, always in a hurry, with little desire to talk, listened to her without hearing her, absorbed, with a flame in his eyes. Just at this time he was deep in a very disagreeable affair, a bitter controversy in which he had involved himself. Noémi knew about it, but the last thing she wanted was to be kept informed of these bothersome matters. When he was in the midst of them he thought of nothing else, and he neglected her. She had only to wait and let him fast; he would come back to her later with more appetite than ever. But he was fasting too long now! At other times she had amused herself by enticing him in a way that moved Philippe to rebuff her, for it annoyed him to be distracted when he was engrossed in something; but although she had protested loudly at his rudeness she had not been angry. She had been like a child playing with a fire-cracker; the more noise it made the more it diverted her. But this time, calamitously, the fire-cracker had not gone off. . . . Noémi's provocations had met with nothing but indifference. Philippe did not even notice them. . . . The mouse of her suspicion went away, came back, took up its abode in her. It nibbled so far that it reached the quick. There came a day when Noémi cried out.
They were both in bed, one morning, side by side. His eyes were open. She had just awakened, but she pretended to be asleep and she watched him. Instinctively she felt that the reflection of another face was passing over this one. (For, unaware of it as we may be, the outer casing of the mind is moulded by the image that dwells in it.) Her jealous attention was instantly caught. From under her lowered lids her eyes pierced him like a gimlet as she lay there, motionless, continuing to breathe regularly as if she were sleeping; she keenly studied this man who was so far away, so near, this man who belonged to her, this eternal stranger whose thigh was touching her own and between whom and herself lay an impassable world. No, she was not mistaken, there was some other anxiety in his mind aside from his ideas. . . . Anxiety? . . . She saw him smile. He was thinking of another woman. To snatch him away from this phantom, to test her own power, she groaned as if she was dreaming and rolled over against him. He drew away from this body that was seeking him, assured himself that she was asleep, rose noiselessly, dressed and went out. She had not moved. . . . But the door was not closed before she sat up in bed with her face distorted. She beat her breasts with her little fists, stifling a cry of rage and anguish.
From this moment she was a huntress. Tense, quivering, she looked about, she sought the scent. The nails of her clenched hands hurt her; she was burning to tear the enemy to pieces. . . . Oh, silently, gently. . . . To tear the woman's heart out. . . . But she could not find this heart. Where was it hidden? She beat the woods, explored with feverish minuteness the circle of his acquaintances. With her painted, youthful smile hiding her sharp teeth, she did not miss the least alteration of Philippe's face in the presence of the other sex, while she watched the hands, the eyes, the vocal inflections of every one of them, while the hunting-dogs that she carried in her heart were constantly casting about for the scent. . . . But the trail was always false and the animal escaped.
The strange aberration persisted which, from the beginning, had led her to place Annette outside the field of her suspicions. For weeks she had forgotten her. Annette never appeared. She felt guilty and, far from being proud, she was humiliated at the thought of Noémi because of her secret victory, her stolen victory. She avoided any reappearance at the Villards' house, and she would have found plenty of excuses if Noémi had expressed any desire to see her again. But Noémi expressed nothing of the kind; she had too much on her mind to remember Annette.
She had tried in van to convince herself that Philippe's caprice would pass. But, far from passing, the all too evident symptoms of his disaffection became even more marked: a cold inattention to what she said and how she looked, to the very presence of his little wife, at times a complete indifference—even when Noémi tried to force the fact of her existence upon him, a bored weariness, an unconcealed disgust that avoided any importunate contact. . . . She quivered with rage and slighted love! . . . She could not hide from herself any longer the seriousness of this misfortune. She became frantic. But she was careful always to force herself not to show it. . . . Always, always to be gay, sure of herself and of him, always to keep offering him the bait which he would not even look at! She was eating her heart out. . . . And against this intangible enemy there rose within her a furious hatred. Unable as she was to lay hold of her, she could have beaten her own head against the wall. She had watched everyone, everyone, in vain—everyone but Annette. Annette was the last person she would have thought of.
And it was Annette who betrayed herself.
She was walking along the street when, twenty steps away, she saw Noémi coming towards her. Noémi did not see her. She was walking with her eyes empty, her head bent; her pretty face was pale and looked older and careworn. She was not conscious of herself at this, moment or of anything about her; for days she had been like a monomaniac who, with a dejected rage, turns the grindstone of a fixed idea. Annette was shocked at the sight of her. She might have passed close beside her without being noticed, or have retraced her steps, but in her clumsy haste she left the sidewalk and crossed the street. This movement broke the continuous flow of the passing people and mechanically attracted Noémi's attention. She recognized Annette, who was trying to avoid her, and, following her with her eyes, she saw Annette furtively glance at her from the other side of the street and then turn her head away. It was like a blinding light. . . . She was the woman!