The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [367]
condescended to rescue her from an intolerable situation. I think somewhere inside herself, though she is not aware of it, the sense of injustice rankles a little bit; she is faithful to him … how to say?
Slightly contemptuously? I don’t know. But she does love him in this peculiar fashion, the only one he permits. She is a girl of delicate feelings. But what is strange is that our own love —
which neither doubts, and which we have confessed and accepted
— has been coloured in a curious way by these circumstances. If it has made me happy it has also made me a little uncertain of myself; at times I get rebellious. I feel that our love is beginning to wear a penitent ial air — this glorious adventure. It gets coloured by his own grim attitude which is like one of atonement. I wonder if love for a femme galante should be quite like this. As for him he also is a chevalier of the middle class, as incapable of inflicting pain as of giving physical pleasure I should say. Yet withal gentle and quite overwhelming in his kindness and up-rightness. But merde, one cannot love judicially, out of a sense of justice, can one? Somewhere along the line he fails her without being conscious of the fact. Nor do I think she knows this, at any rate in her conscious mind. But when they are together you feel in the presence of something incomplete, something which is not cemented but just soldered together by good manners and con-vention. I am aware that I sound unkind, but I am only trying to describe exactly what I see. For the rest we are good friends and indeed I really admire him; when he comes on leave we all go out to dinner and talk politics! Ouf!’
He lay back in his chair, exhausted by this exposition, and yawned heavily before consulting his watch. ‘I suppose’ he went on with resignation ‘that you will find it all very strange, these new aspects of people; but then everything sounds strange here, eh?
Pursewarden’s sister, Liza, for example — you don’t know her?
She is stone blind. It seems to us all that Mountolive is madly in love with her. She came out originally to collect his papers and also to find materials for a book about him. Allegedly. Anyway she has stayed on at the Embassy ever since. When he is in Cairo on duty he visits her every weekend! He looks somehow unhappy now — perhaps I do too?’ He once more consulted the mirror and shook his head decisively. Apparently he did not. ‘Well any-way’ he conceded ‘I am probably wrong.’
The clock on the mantelpiece struck and he started up. ‘I must get back to the office for a conference’ he said. ‘What about you?’
I told him of my projected trip to Karm Abu Girg. He whistled and looked at me keenly. ‘You will see Justine again, eh?’ He thought for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
‘A recluse now, isn’t she? Put under house arrest by Memlik. Nobody has seen her for ages. I don’t know what’s going on with Nessim either. They’ve quite broken with Mountolive and as an official I have to take his line, so we would never even try to meet: even if it were allowed, I mean. Clea sees him sometimes. I’m sorry for Nessim. When he was in hospital she could not get per-mission to visit him. It is all a merry-go-round, isn’t it? Like a Paul Jones. New partners until the music stops! But you