The Woman With the Bouquet Read Online Free

become ridiculous. And as I have such a high opinion of literature, I could not bear for you to be mediocre.”
    Integrity, such integrity, too much integrity: she vibrated with sincerity.
    I wanted to laugh. Why such anguish over a few pages? Our predicament suddenly aroused a bemused tenderness.
    “Let’s not get angry, Madame Van A. I will take back my novel, and we’ll talk about something else.”
    “Even that is not possible.”
    “What is not possible?”
    “To speak. I cannot tell you whatever I want.”
    “What’s to stop you?”
    She prevaricated, looked for help all around her, scanning the shelves to try to find support, almost found an answer, stopped, and then said, exhausted, “My own self.”
    She sighed, and repeated her answer, distressed, “Yes, my own self . . .”
    Her gaze suddenly held mine and with a burst of hopeless energy she said, “You know, I was young once, I was attractive.”
    Why was she telling me this? What did it have to do with our discussion? Consequently, I stood there with my mouth open.
    She insisted, nodding her head this way and that. “Oh yes, I was ravishing. And I was loved!”
    “I’m sure you were.”
    Incensed, she looked me up and down.
    “No, you don’t believe me!”
    “Yes, I do . . .”
    “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what other people think about me or what they thought about me. Not only do I not care, but it is my fault if people spread untruths about me. I was the cause of them.”
    “What sort of gossip have they been spreading about you, Madame Van A.?”
    “Well nothing, actually.”
    A pause.
    “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
    She shrugged.
    “Gerda hasn’t talked to you?”
    “About what?”
    “About this nothing. My family thinks that my life has been empty. Confess . . .”
    “Uh . . .”
    “There, you see, she told you just that! My life is nothing. And yet, my life has been very rich. It’s wrong to call it nothing.”
    I went up to her.
    “Would you like to tell me about it?”
    “No. I promised.”
    “Sorry?”
    “I promised to keep it a secret.”
    “To whom? To what?”
    “If I reply, I shall already begin to betray . . .”
    She confused me utterly: inside this ancient damsel there burned a strong, sturdy temperament, inhabited by rage and a sharp intelligence, using words like daggers.
    She turned to me.
    “I was loved, you know. As almost no one ever is. And I loved. Just as much. Oh, yes, so much so that if it were possible . . .”
    Her eyes clouded over.
    I placed my hand on her shoulder to encourage her.
    “It’s not forbidden to tell a love story.”
    “To me, it is. Because the people involved are too important.”
    Her hands slapped her knees, as if she were imposing silence upon those who wanted to speak.
    “What would have been the point of keeping silent all these years if now I break my silence? Well? All my efforts, all these years, reduced to nothing?”
    Her knotty fingers seized the wheels of her chair and gave a forceful shove, and she left the room to shut herself in her bedroom.
     
    On coming out of the Villa Circé, I ran into Gerda on the sidewalk, busy sorting garbage into different bins for recycling.
    “Are you sure that your aunt did not have a great love in her life?”
    “’Course I’m sure, you bet. We teased her about it a lot. If there had been something, she would have told us ages ago, for sure, just to get us to leave her alone!”
    Making a terrible racket, with her foot she squashed three plastic bottles so thoroughly they were the size of a cork.
    “Allow me to differ with you, Gerda, I’m absolutely convinced of it.”
    “It’s easy to see that you earn your living spouting lies! What an imagination!”
    Her stubby fingers tore up the cardboard boxes as if they were sheets of cigarette paper. She suddenly stopped and stared at two seagulls flying overhead.
    “Since you’re going on about it, I remember there was Uncle Jan. Yes. He was very fond of Aunt Emma.