Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky

Author:Irene Nemirovsky [Némirovsky, Irène]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-49545-7
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

IT WAS A WARM EVENING, so I sat down on the bench outside the kitchen, from where I can see my little garden. For a long time I only wanted it to provide me with vegetables for my soup, but for several years now I've been taking better care of it. I planted the rose bushes myself, saved the vine that was dying, dug, weeded, pruned the fruit trees. Little by little, I have become attached to this tiny piece of land. On summer evenings, at dusk, the sound of ripe fruit coming away from the trees and falling gently on to the grass fills me with a sense of happiness. Night descends … but you can't really call it night: the azure blue of the day grows misty, turns almost green; colour slowly melts away, leaving a delicate hue that is midway between translucent pearl and steel grey. But every shape is perfectly clear: the well, the cherry trees, the little low wall, the forest and the head of the cat who's playing at my feet, nipping at my shoe. It's then that the housekeeper goes home; she puts on the light in the kitchen and everything around me is suddenly lost in darkness. Dusk is the best time of day and, of course, the time Colette chose to come and ask for my advice. I was quite cold towards her, so cold, in fact, that she seemed disconcerted. But it's like this: when I go out and mix with other people voluntarily, I agree, more or less, to get involved in their odd lives; but when I've climbed back into my hole, I want to be left in peace, so don't come bothering me with your loves and your regrets.

“What can I do to help you?” I said to Colette, who was crying. “Nothing. I can't see what you're so tormented about. It's your parents' decision whether or not to follow up that little idiot 's story. Go and talk to them. They're not children. They know about life. Tell them you had a lover and that he killed your husband … What exactly did happen?”

“I was waiting for Marc that night. Jean wasn't supposed to get home until the next day. I still don't know what happened or why he came back early.”

“You don't know why, you innocent thing? Because someone told him that you'd be meeting your lover that night, that's why.”

She shuddered and lowered her head every time I said the word “lover.” I could hear her sighing in the darkness. She was ashamed. But what other word could I use?

“I think it must have been the servant who told him,” she said at last. “Anyway, I was expecting Marc at midnight. My husband, who'd been watching out, saw him cross the bridge and threw himself at him. But Marc was stronger.” (What unintentional pride rang in her voice!) “Marc didn't want to hurt him! He was just defending himself … But then he flew into a rage.

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