"There ensued a string of indistinguishable unfocused days, full because they were so totally empty, tumultuous because they were so serene, with her spirit essentially drifting in an interval of time without start or finish, without landmarks, without purpose. She found herself reliving her old student days, when she had regularly cut classes at the Sorbonne, tasting once again the flavor of flaunting the law that for so long had been forgotten. There was simply no way to compare the free time that Charles had given her and the free time that she was stealing from Antoine. And what better souvenir could one hope to retain from one's adolescence than that of an endless little white lie foisted on others, on the future, and often on oneself?
To what extent was Lucile fooling herself in courting disaster so blatantly, in flirting so dangerously with the chances of infuriating Antoine, of jeopardizing his trust in her, of sparking a showdown in which they would both be forced to face the truth: that she would never, in fact, be able to live that normal, balanced, and comfortable life that he was offering her? She knew very well that in sweeping this whole mess under the rug right now, she was not committing herself to dealing with it seriously in the long term. Something inside her was terribly determined, but she couldn't figure out what it was all about. The truth was, she was determined to do precisely what she enjoyed, and nothing else, but this is a difficult thing to admit to oneself when one supposedly loves someone else. Night after night she came back to Antoine's warmth, his laughter, and his body.. and there was not one moment when she had the feeling that she was deceiving him. Life without Antoine was more imaginable for her than life in an office. And the latter was seeming, with each passing day, less and less plausible."
Francoise Sagan, La Chamade
