Adèle

by Leïla Slimani

She finds her life small, shabby, lacking in grandeur. Their money smells of work, of sweat and long nights spent at the hospital.

He has never seemed to care about the solitude in which he abandons his wife. She felt nothing, nothing at all. She just heard the sounds they made, like a toilet plunger: torsos sticking, genitalia bumping. And then, a vast silence.

And seriously, I don’t know why you feel the need to behave like that. To get drunk. To talk down to people as though you alone understand the mysteries of the world and we are just a bunch of moronic sheep. You know, you’re just as ordinary as we are, Adèle. The day you finally accept that, you’ll be a lot happier.”