“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”
“And you’d do well not to. I’m a hard woman. And do you know why? Because I’m old. Now look at yourself. What do you see?”
The smile slowly faded from the librarian’s lips.
“I don’t know, it’s difficult to judge oneself.”
“I’ll tell you: a hard young woman.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” said Miss Prim, who had never considered herself a hard woman.
“Don’t take offense, child. Maybe I wasn’t being clear. I’m not saying that you, specifically, are a hard woman. What I mean is that modern women like you are all, to a greater or lesser extent, hard.”
The librarian fiddled nervously with the zip to her bag. According to this last explanation, maybe she hadn’t been insulted personally, only generically, but she still felt she had to object out of a sense of honor. Lulu listened with a slight smile before responding.
“So you’re wondering how I justify what I said, is that right?”
Miss Prim declared that this was indeed what she was wondering.
“It’s the yearning. Plainly and simply, it’s the yearning.”
“Yearning? For what?”
The old lady hesitated almost imperceptibly before continuing and, when she did, it seemed as if she would never fall silent again.
“The yearning you all display to prove your worth, to show that you know this and that, to ensure that you can have it all. The yearning to succeed and, even more, the yearning not to fail; the yearning not to be seen as inferior, but instead even as superior, simply for being exactly what you believe you are, or rather what you’ve been made to believe you are. The inexplicable yearning for the world to give you credit simply for being women. Ah, you’re getting angry with me, aren’t you?”
Prudencia, lips clenched and knuckles almost white, did not reply.
“Of course you are. Yet you only have to listen to yourself talk about the man you work for to realize that some of what I say is true. Why do you seem so angry? Why do you compare and register everything as if life were designed to be measured with a ruler? Why are you so afraid of losing your ranking, of being left behind? Why, my dear, are you so defensive?”
Miss Prim stared at the old lady, lost for words. She tried to calm herself as she wondered how to respond to what she was hearing. Meanwhile, Lulu went on, her voice rasping and weary.
“You say you’re looking for beauty, but this isn’t the way to achieve it, my dear friend. You won’t find it while you look to yourself, as if everything revolved around you. Don’t you see? It’s exactly the other way around, precisely the other way around. You mustn’t be careful, you must get hurt. What I’m trying to explain, child, is that unless you allow the beauty you seek to hurt you, to break you and knock you down, you’ll never find it.”
Miss Prim stood up, roughly shaking the cake crumbs from her tweed skirt. She glanced coldly at the old lady on the sofa, who nodded in silent farewell, and then she walked out of Lulu Thiberville’s sitting room and life, firmly resolved never to return.
6
During her last few days in San Ireneo de Arnois, Miss Prim tried to avoid the Man in the Wing Chair. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but during that time of suitcases, packages, and farewells, she had the feeling that he was avoiding her just as assiduously. The weather had turned particularly cold, as it always did in late February, and the frozen fields beyond gave the house and garden the aspect of a lifeless landscape painting. On the morning of her departure she was in her room checking her packing one last time. Everything was there—the few books she had brought with her, her clothes and shoes, one or two personal objects, and the countless presents received in the past few hours from friends and neighbors all over the village. Miss Prim contemplated the pile of luggage with a sad smile. After inspecting the chest of drawers and bedside tables to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she straightened up and let her melancholy gaze rest on the view outside the window. At that moment, she was startled by a snowball striking the glass with a dull thud. She opened the door onto the balcony and looked down. There in the garden, bundled up to his eyes, stood the Man in the Wing Chair.
“Will you come down?” he called out.
“Come down? It’s several degrees below zero—not a good day for a stroll in the garden.”
He smiled, or so she deduced from the crinkling of his eyes, the only part of his face that was visible.
“I think it’s a perfect day. For the garden and for you there won’t be a better one. I won’t have the pleasure of seeing you both together after today.”
“That’s true,” murmured Miss Prim.
“What did you say?” he shouted.
“I said that’s true,” she repeated more loudly. “But the gardener’s picking me up in half an hour. I haven’t got time to chat.”
He came and stood right beneath the window.
“Come on, Prudencia, surely you’ve got time to say goodbye?”
