Simple Passion

by Annie Ernaux

would have liked to keep that mess the way it was—a mess in which every object evoked a caress or a particular moment, forming a still-life whose intensity and pain could never, for me, be captured by any painting in a museum.

Even if he occasionally stumbled, or belched when kissing me. On the contrary, I was happy to be close to him in these moments of incipient abjection.

From the very beginning, and throughout the whole of our affair, I had the privilege of knowing what we all find out in the end: the man we love is a complete stranger.