She walked down the street, hastening her steps, tense, looking neither to right nor left . . . the years, the years, the life that was coming . . . that of her child, her own, the new life, the Annette of to-morrow.
[X]
She had this vision in her eyes on the evening when she established herself in Sylvie's house. Sylvie, as soon as her shop was closed, hastened to climb up to her sister's apartment to distract her from the regrets she supposed the latter must be feeling. She found her walking back and forth in her narrow room, not at all tired after the exhausting day, trying to make her too diminutive cupboards hold her clothes and her linen. Unsuccessful in this, perched on a stool, with her arms full of sheets, looking at the filled shelves, she was meditating another plan, whistling like a boy a Wagnerian fanfare that she absent-mindedly travestied, giving it a burlesque turn. Sylvie looked at her and said, "Annette, I admire you." (She did not mean quite as much as this.)
"Why?" asked Annette.
"If I were in your place, how I should rage!"
Annette began to laugh. Absorbed in her work, she made a sign to her sister to be silent.
"I think I've got it," she said.
She buried her head and her arms in the cupboard, arranging, disarranging, rummaging.
"I said so," she remarked, "and I have."
(She was addressing a cupboard that was full, arranged, conquered.)