After I’d calmed down a little I managed to talk. For once, though, talking was more difficult than crying. Mathieu ­listened, motionless; I was sure his right arm, which I was resting on, must be numb, but he was silent and out of sheer apathy I didn’t move. I was at the bottom of a slimy pond, something very ugly was crawling around me and I was totally unable to react. I wanted to stay there and smother in convulsions of rage, to watch myself, in a sense, disappear or vanish or merge into the mud. People often say that you have to touch bottom before you can gather the necessary energy for the leap to the surface, but strangely enough, this plunge into despair had left me rather lethargic. Even though, as far as I know, rage and lethargy are totally unrelated.

“I feel so old all of a sudden! So helpless! I don’t know if I’ve got the courage to go through with it! I only want the good parts, can you understand? The good parts I’ve just discovered after months of worry! Why does this have to land on me now when I’ve stopped being afraid of him? I know it’s selfish, but I don’t want any of the problems Sébastien might . . . might cause us. Especially not that kind! I couldn’t live with that constant threat . . . You’re the one I love, Mathieu, not him! I’m not putting this very well . . . You’re the one who taught me how to love, but if you left tomorrow morning, if we split up, I’m not sure if I’d miss Sébastien—that makes me feel like a monster! I mean, I’m not going to ask you to see him somewhere else or not see him at all!”

Mathieu had wiped my forehead on a corner of the sheet. I was sweating. He obviously had no idea what to say. He saw the problem as I did, and he must have been as ­frightened as I was of the day of reckoning that lay before us.

“If you give in like that you’ll freak out for sure, you won’t make it . . .”

I broke in: