342
PARTISAN REVIEW
noise . Suddenly a ray of light filtered through under the door and I
heard a voice saying, "Is that you, Pet?" Sounds came from inside . I
squeezed myself into a corner. The door opened. Francine appeared
in her dressing gown. She didn't see me . She went down the stairs. I
rushed into the room. I saw only one thing, yes, really only one , in
the chaos all around: the mauve bra waiting for me on a little table. I
grabbed my fetish and went and hid in my dark hole on the landing
again .
It
was high time. There was the sound of a flushing system on
the floor below, and Francine came back up. She went in and locked
the door. I crept down as quietly as I could. I knew that the doors
of the emergency exits are never bolted on the inside. There's a gad–
get which merely stops you opening them from the outside. I darted
off with my trophy. I pressed it to my heart . I was so happy I could
barely walk.
Antoinette certainly suspected something. At the time , she
didn't say anything. But that bra posed some problems . No question
of her wearing it.
In
the first place, because it obviously wasn't new.
Its smell alone!
It
drove
me
crazy, but there was no likelihood of it
going to Antoinette's head . And in any case, I wouldn't have wanted
that. I've always been against mixing things. Bigamy , orgies, they
disgust me.
It
was Francine's bra, her essence as you might say, the
key to her very being, if I make myself clear . No other woman could
wear it. And even though I hid it on a shelf behind some of my books,
she found it. One day when we were quarreling, she flung it in my
face. "And what's more, you're being unfaithful to me! " she shouted.
Obviously, you'll think, that was just a manner of speaking. But ac–
cording to our system it was , after all , logical. Yes , all right, I
was
being unfaithful to her with Francine , with a bra as proxy . Espe–
cially as that came on top of her previous anxiety. She was on edge,
was my Antoinette . She certainly suspected that I was stealing. But
after all, those thefts were for her. Sure, they were dangerous and
dishonest , but they were for
her.
Whereas in this case....
In
short,
things were already going rather badly when the business of the
metro happened . Now there , I really do wonder what can have got
into me! That was what wrecked everything. I was a real nut!
That day she'd come to Paris with me to buy our Christmas
presents . We'd started going the rounds of the stores . Naturally, the
only thing that interested
me
was elegant lingerie. But what I hadn't
foreseen was the effect it would have on me to see Antoinette in the
middle of it all . Masses of pretty little furbelows on display, with An–
toinette in the middle . Like a barn full of nice dry straw and hay , if
you see what I mean, and right in the middle a big wood fire sending
