Simple Passion

by Annie Ernaux

In the same way, when I was reading, the sentences that made me pause were those concerning a relationship between a man and a woman. I felt that they could teach me something about A and that they lent credibility to the things I wished to believe.

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.

Sometimes I told myself that he might spend a whole day without even thinking about me. I imagined him getting up, drinking his coffee, talking, and laughing, as if I didn’t exist. Compared to my own obsession, such indifference filled me with wonder. How could this be? He himself would have been astonished to find out that I never stopped thinking about him from morning to night. There was nothing to suggest that my attitude was more justifiable than his. In a way, I was luckier than him.