Mania

(Portrait of Germaine Paulhan by Marie Laurencin)

(This tale is extracted from the Famous Causes)

After twenty years of marriage, we have taken all at once a new habit: at the moment of falling asleep, we press against each other. Sometimes she turns her back, and I advance my knees under hers folded. With one hand I hold her at the shoulder, with the other at the hip. Or else she sleeps stretched on the back: then I surround her with the left arm at the false of the body, while my right arm slips under her neck. Thus pass the nights.
It is today Tuesday twenty-two August. On getting up, I had the surprise to find the transom of the window half torn by the storm. In place of the piece of wood, one sees a tree, so close that one has envie to tell it its name. I recognized our oak.
I woke Manie to show her the tree. She was astonished like me. Before lunch, she wanted to try the rapidex, that we bought yesterday. It is a varnish that will allow to erase the stains that I made to the table (claims Manie) by posing too hot dishes on it. The result was not conclusive. Yet the stains seem to me more agreeable to look at.
Few news in the newspaper: one would have observed cracks in the economic edifice of the country. Yes. At the burial of a certain Dessaulle, formerly condemned for polygamy, attended the five wives of the deceased. It would be possible to arrive at ease by raising animals – small I suppose, but who knows? – whose announcement does not say the name.
Before going to work, I asked myself if my life was delicious. Delicious, no; but rather nourished, considerable. One word more.
I have several reasons to call her Manie. First, her name is Germaine, of which I made Maine. Then, it is true that love is a mania, I do not think of her with reason.
Not counting that it is prudent to give to things, and to persons, their most modest name.