Double Life of Paul De Man (9780871406934) by Barish Evelyn

Author:Barish, Evelyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
Published: 2014-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

28.

“LIES, AND LIES,

AND LIES”

PAUL AND PAT RETURNED TO BARD IN EARLY JANUARY 1950 TO A PERpetually improvised existence. Paul had already found his salary too meager to maintain his way of life and pay the rent, and this from the beginning he failed to do. Much less could he support a wife and child. Moreover, his reappointment at Bard was not yet technically complete. He had, however, chosen well in Pat, who was the opposite of Anne in every way. Innately attractive, she was indifferent to clothes and social status, much less money. Life with her wealthy but unstable mother had taught her that securing a place in society was a worthless pursuit. Paul was her first real attachment, and once won over by him, she was passionately in love and remained so. With a bent for study and scholarship, she was a natural member of the academic community and felt no need to claim a place as a matron in the class she had abandoned.

As for Paul, although he had willingly entered into collaboration in Belgium, he now wanted to forget the downward spiral of his life there and to bury that past far out of sight. His years with Anne had been toxic. In another time, their affair might have been a passing relationship between two young people. Or had he been in a less turbulent period of his life and less resentful of his father, he might have broken off the relationship before he was totally committed. Instead, it had been cemented by the pressures of war and, above all, Anne’s determination. Now, however, he had found—and seized on—a highly intelligent, cultivated woman who loved him, made no demands, and was amazed and delighted by his talents. Foolish in so many things, when he encountered Pat, he was wise enough to determine not to lose her. Pat recognized his emotional commitment, and it sustained her in the difficult months of her pregnancy and throughout their marriage. She came to see his faults, but early on she learned to close her eyes to many of them. For his part, he clung tightly to her: There is no doubt that in a real sense she became the hero of his story. Without her, the next ten years of his life were unlikely to have ended as well as they did, for it was a decade that only a very strong woman convinced of her husband’s genius could have endured.

Their first year together was operatic in its drama. Having proposed marriage to Pat and written to Anne demanding a divorce, de Man had another woman, Mary McCarthy, to break off with. This he effected in late January 1950. Anne, however, was a different matter. Neither she nor her parents were prepared to let this marriage go. The couple had lived together for eight years, been married since 1944, and had three sons to bring up. She was an attentive mother, if a difficult one, and everything in her determined, emotional character was prepared to fight for the continuation of her legal alliance.

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