The Inseparables

The whole house was quiet; from the basement window came the distant sounds of the kitchen; the delphiniums and the honesties bordering the wall barely moved. But I was afraid. I didn’t dare seize the seat of the swing, or beg her too strongly, but I thought that the swing was going to go over or that Andrée would be overcome with dizziness and let go of the ropes; just watching her swing back-and-forth into the sky, like a pendulum gone mad was making me nauseous. Why does she keep at it for so long? She passed by me, her lips pressed together. Maybe something had broken inside her mind, and she couldn’t stop. The dinner bell rang, and Mirza began to howl. Andrée went flying up into the trees. “She’s going to kill herself,“ I thought.

Would Andrée have been sad if we have been prevented from seeing each other? Less than i would have been, to be sure. They called us the inseparables, and she preferred my company to that of the other girls.

We spoke in banalities, like grownups, but i suddenly understood, in a joyful stupor, that the empty feeling in my heart, the mournful quality of my days, had but one cause: Andrée’s absence. Life without her would be death.

Nothing so interesting had ever happened to me. It suddenly seemed as if nothing had ever happened to me at all.

I find happiness on every page. Happiness in bigger and bigger writing.

At every instant, blessed eternity was in play, and no clear sign was given to indicate if you were about to achieve it or lose it.

Do I have to spend my life fighting with the people I love?

I like roses. They are ceremonial flowers that die without fading, in a curtsy.