This is when you should have seen me. I was absolutely calm faced with the immense pain of the woman I love. I did not move. Although she begged me to speak, I said not a word. Ah! I was exactly as I always was. This, especially, is how great men are recognized. Major events have no hold over them. They are always the same. I was insanely in control of myself. Perhaps I was pale. But it takes so little to grow pale.
“Fernand, Fernand, you know I adore you.”
“I know,” I said with a deliberate smile.
“How could you, my Fernand, suspect me of anything? I love only you. You are the most beautiful man to me.”
Poor Monique, how you suffered!
But I did not weaken for a second. I know all too well that if I had simply consoled her, I would have lost my confidence. I absolutely had to remain pitiless.
“Fernand, I cannot believe it. You’re joking.”
“I am not joking.”
“Well, I just don’t understand. Don’t you love me a lot?”
“Of course I love you.”
“I don’t understand, I don’t understand. Is it because of André? You know I don’t love him. I love you.”
Poor Monique! What did I do to you? From the purest happiness, I sent you into the greatest despair. You cried leaning against me. I saw the tears fall from your eyes. And they were the saddest tears of all because they fell from your eyes that remained open. Poor Monique, you’re alone now. You no longer have any reason to live because we are no longer together.
“Farewell, Monique. Be strong! One must know how to be brave in the face of unhappiness.”
“So it’s true, Fernand?”
“Yes. Farewell.”
“But I didn’t do anything to you.”
“Farewell, Monique.”
And I left. I shut the door very gently so that my darling would not think I was angry. I left. Yes, I left. You see, it’s not difficult. And to think I believed it would be impossible to leave someone. It is not. It’s very easy. You need simply feel no pity. I know this kind of coldness cannot be acquired from one day to the next. But after a time, one manages. You can see that deep down it was not so terrible.
* * *
I spared no one. When I left my beloved Monique’s, I went to see my friend Léon. He was not home. I sat down at his desk, took a sheet of paper, and wrote:
My only friend,
I would have liked to see you one last time. It was not to be. This is sad, because I am leaving you forever. Farewell, Léon. From now on you will follow a path different from mine. It was what fate desired. But know that in difficult moments I will think of you with all my heart. I will always remember our perfect friendship. It will be the invisible companion of my life. I will turn to it whenever I am in pain. I will ask advice of it. My only friend, you are my only friend! Your feelings for me were not overly tender. They were what they should be between men. But they were sweeter to me than all the complicated feelings of love.
You are my only friend and so you will remain in my memory. I am sure you will suffer from my abandoning you, but know that it was necessary. I wanted, I do not yet know why, to be alone in the world. This cannot happen without making those who love me suffer. I beg you to forget me. It will be hard for you. One cannot forget people one loves. They remain as alive as ever in our memory and those who follow do not chase them away. Love does not die. The years have no hold on love.
Above all, Léon, do not be angry with me for destroying your life. It would have been better had you never known me. You would have been happy. The future smiled on you and now, because of me, you are losing everything. My poor friend, how I feel sorry for you! You are deprived of all joy. You are alone and helpless. And if a final word can console you, let me tell you that I, like you, am alone.
Farewell, my best friend. Forgive me for all the pain I am causing you. Forgive me, because forgiveness is the only thing that can revive a man who is losing his life.
Farewell, Léon. Be strong.
Fernand Blumenstein
Ha! That’s what I wrote. Never would I have been able to say all that to him directly. It was better he was not there. I left the letter on his table. When he comes home, he will find it. Before opening it, he will wonder who could have written to him. Then he will read it.
* * *
I also went to see my sister who just married a very commendable man who, it’s true, does not like me all that much, but who in spite of this has always remained very courteous to me. My sister even suffered a bit from this state of things. It was clear she would have liked her husband and me to be good friends.
Yesterday afternoon I went to their home. And in fact they welcomed me amiably. They went out of their way for me.
You poor young couple! If you had known what I had come to say, surely you would not have been so cheerful!
I went into their place with my usual casualness and sat down. They asked me several questions to which I responded calmly. Monsieur Laloz, my sister’s husband, came up to me and, placing his hand on my shoulder, talked to me of my future. He told me that if I was serious, hardworking, and honest, I would find an excellent position. He advised me to watch out for some of my friends and, with a great deal of tact, he let on that Monique was not entirely the woman who could understand and appreciate me. Then we talked about my father. I must say right away that Monsieur Laloz demonstrated a certain bias, rather excusable when you know my father was opposed to his marrying my sister.
Nonetheless, he lauded my father’s good qualities, which proves that Monsieur Laloz is open-minded, generous, and does not hold grudges. My sister, who is older than I am, listened to our conversation without seeming embarrassed in front of me about the authority her husband had over her. I took note of everything they said to me and when on occasion I tried to express my opinion, if Monsieur Laloz continued to speak, I did not insist that he hear me out.
As he was coming to the end of discussing my father’s intelligence with me—for in an hour of conversation one can touch on a variety of subjects—I said to him:
“You know, I don’t want to see the two of you anymore.”
My sister did not even raise her head. No doubt she had not heard, and Monsieur Laloz looked at me without any bewilderment whatsoever.
“You know, I don’t want to see the two of you anymore,” I said again, trying to give this sentence the tone of the conversation that had preceded it so that it would not seem too incomprehensible.
But it was precisely this tone, I believe, that caused Monsieur Laloz not to grasp what I was trying to say.
“You know, Monsieur Laloz, I don’t want to see either you or my sister anymore.”
My brother-in-law, who is in the habit of looking me in the eye, turned his head ever so slightly without taking his gaze off me to show me that he was truly looking at me.
“It’s true. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
My sister, who had surely heard what I said, stood up and went over to her husband, asking him:
“What did Fernand say?”
Married sisters have an odd habit of wanting to learn everything from their husbands’ mouths.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand. It appears your brother is saying he doesn’t want to see us anymore.”
“Did you say that, Fernand?”
“Yes.”
“But why?’
“Just an idea I had.”
“So you’re not thinking about the pain you will cause us?”
It’s true, you poor young couple! You were happy together, side by side in life, and I came to spoil your happiness. What will become of you now? Your life, which promised to be full of future joys, is destroyed. Without me, you would have had children, you would have watched them grow up, you would have loved them!