La malédiction de Manderley

Things do not happen by chance, we make our own destiny, that was what I came to believe.

It is better that we cannot see into the future. We are spared that. The past we carry with us forever into the present and that is enough to contend with.

Is this all? I asked myself. Will there truly be nothing more than this perambulating, pointless life, trundling through our middle years down to old age and infirmity and separation and death. Is this all? No, it was not.

I remember hearing someone once say to me, when I was a child, demanding this or that, 'Beware of wanting something too much - you may get it' and I did not understand. Now I do.

But this morning, my birthday, I was as new born as the day, and the sunshine, the air, the sparkling city, filled me with delight, I would never whine again, I said, I would never be discontented, never look back over my shoulder, pining for lost things. I had no need of that.

The age did not matter, I knew that on some days I was older than my mother had been, as old as it was possible ever to be, and on others, a very few - today was one - O was the age I had been when I met Maxim, and would never alter or grow older.

We had fled from England more than ten years ago, had begun our flight on the night of the fire. Maxim had simply turned the car and driven away from the flames of Manderley, and from the past and all its ghosts.

It was not only the sight of the garden that so moved, so deeply pleased and satisfied me; the smell of the night air, coming through the open window, was indescribably sweet, quite unlike the hot, heady smell of the night air we had grown used to in what I now automatically thought of as our exile.

Nous ne sommes pas punis pour nos péchés, mais par eux.

Il existait sûrement un endroit, un coin où nous pourrions nous
cacher. Je me remémorai désespérément notre voyage en Écosse, m’efforçant de me
rappeler un village attrayant, petit, caché, que nous aurions aimé tous deux, mais
aucun ne me venait à l’esprit ; j’avais vu la maison que je voulais, elle
avait oblitéré tout le reste, pour toujours. C’était plus qu’une maison, et
aujourd’hui, parce que nous n’y habiterions jamais, que nous ne la reverrions
jamais, elle devenait synonyme de perfection pour moi, se transformait en
paradis perdu, et j’étais condamnée à rester pour toujours derrière ses grilles
fermées, contemplant de loin sa beauté insaisissable teintée d’ocre rose
blottie, à l’abri du temps, dans son cirque de verdure.