Resuming normal life, she had to hide her determination to get a job no matter what. This was no easy task, since her existence was filled with her obligations to love: the happy and sated animal reappeared. But every day, the clock struck zero. The abeyance painful, she reviewed her possibilities, acerbically and brutally rejecting all opportunities intellectual in nature. She wondered if she shouldn’t humble herself and look for manual labour, as many women did in order to support themselves. It was useless to even consider sewing or needlework – she was entirely incapable – but as a young girl she had learned to knit. She wouldn’t mind making little sweaters for newborns, booties, scarves, blankets, but there was still the problem of how she would sell these items. Idly wandering through the narrow streets in the centre of the city, she had noticed a small haberdasher’s shop displaying exactly these sorts of garments. She passed by the shop repeatedly, and finally, with embarrassment, offered to bring the haberdasher a first sample of her work. She bought pink and blue yarn, then closed herself in her bedroom with the balls of wool and her knitting needles. She knit furiously, terrified that someone would surprise her and think … In fact, the maid, seeing her occupied by that unusual activity, had smiled and winked. Obviously, she thought her employer was expecting. Of course, it was a legitimate supposition and not at all out of line, and yet, even expressed by that simple girl, it made her seethe with resentment. She did not want to lie so, instead, firmly denied it with a harsh glare.

The little jacket was soon finished and she considered it a masterpiece, but as soon as she wrapped it up in tissue paper, her heart sank, feeling she had forfeited the last shred of herself: her past as a rigorous intellectual shamed her, condemned as she now was to this petty deception that was also badly paid. Passing her own work off as that of a poor young girl, she had tried to sell it to the haberdasher, a bitter woman who, after sizing her up, refused to do business with her, as if refusing to give alms to a beggar. Having left the awful shop, all she wanted was to get rid of the bundle, which she couldn’t even look at, as if it were stolen goods. Her attempt to inadvertently drop the bundle failed; a boy picked it up and gave it back to her with a smile, the delicate pink wool visible through the now ripped tissue paper. A pew in an empty church finally offered a solution, but while in the act she was overcome by a profound longing, as if actually abandoning an infant. She had given no thought to maternity, and even as a little girl declared herself aunt, not mother, to her dolls. It had never occurred to her to discuss with her husband the legality of not procreating. She had intuited that paternity would have disrupted his work, and this was enough to silence her scruples, if she’d had any. But she didn’t have any. She liked children, but her attitude towards them was one of a respectful lack of interest.