"It is crucial that you should understand that I love you. Don't think that I'm going to get over you, or that I'll forget you or replace you. I'm way beyond the age to make such substitutions." With a faint smile, he added "I'm telling you, Lucille-- you'll come back to me. I love you for what you are. Antoine loves you for what the two of you are together. He wants to be happy with you, which is how one is at his age. But as for me, I want you to be happy independently of me. I'll just have to be patient.
She attempted a gesture of protest , but he quickly motioned her to wait, he hadn't finished. "Moreover, he'll resent you , or maybe he even resents you already, for what you are: hedonistic, carefree, and rather weak-willed. He won't be able to keep from criticizing you for what he'll call your 'foibles' or your 'defects'. What he does not yet understand is that whatever makes a woman strong is the reason that certain men will love her, even if behind her strengths hide great weaknesses. This he will learn from you. He will learn that you are bubbly, funny, and sweet only because of you have all your weaknesses. But by then it will be too late. At least this is what I believe. And you'll come back to me-- because you know that I know these things."
Francois Sagan, La Chamade
