She Came to Stay

‰ЫПAnyone looking at this whole scene in a mirror could well imagine that it was an old dream come true. When she was twenty, in her dreary little bedroom, she used to prepare mincemeat sandwiches and bottles of cheap red wine for Pierre, pretending that it was a choice supper with foie gras and old Burgundy. Now the foie gras was on the table, together with caviar canapes, and there was sherry and vodka in the bottles; now she had money, any number of connections, and a dawning reputation. And yet, she continued to feel herself on the fringe of society; this supper was only a counterfeit supper in a pseudo-elegant studio, and she was only a living caricature of the woman she pretended to be. ‰Ы_ The pretense used to be fun in the old days; it was the anticipation of a brilliant future. ... She knew that in no way would she ever reach the authentic ideal of which her present self was only a copy.‰Ыќ

—

‰ЫПPeople managed to surround themselves with an impervious world in which their lives had meaning, but there was always a little cheating at the bottom of it all. If you looked carefully, without trying to deceive yourself, you would find beneath all these imposing appearances nothing but a sprinkling of small, futile impressions .... it couldn‰ЫЄt be caught in words, it had to be borne in silence and then it disappeared without leaving any trace, and something else, equally elusive, took its place. Nothing but sand and water, and it was silly to try to build anything on it. Even death did not deserve all the fuss that was made over it. Of course it was terrifying, but only because you couldn‰ЫЄt imagine how you would feel.‰Ыќ