Release Date of the Claude Lelouch Film A Man and a Woman With Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant

July 12, 1966

Eighty

After Natalie left, Charles kept still for a long period of time. He understood perfectly how poorly he’d conducted that conversation. He’d been clumsy. In particular, he’d been incapable of telling her what he was really feeling, of saying, “Yes, it does have something to do with me. You didn’t want to go out with me, because you didn’t want to be with any man again. So, yes, I have the right to know what you’re feeling. I have the right to know what you like about him, and what you don’t like about me. You know very well how in love with you I was, how difficult it was for me. You owe me an explanation, that’s all I’m asking.” That’s about what he would have wanted to say. But it’s never like that: you’re always five minutes behind when it comes to having a conversation about love.He couldn’t concentrate the rest of the day. When he’d set matters straight with Natalie, on that evening of so many ties in championship soccer, he’d come to terms with things. By some strange sexual logic, it had even led to reconnecting with his wife. They’d made love for weeks, finding each other through the medium of their bodies. You could even have called it a magnificent time. There can be a lot more emotion in the rediscovery of love than there is in its mere discovery. And then, the agony had slowly resumed its course, like snickering; how could they have believed they loved each other again? It had been a passage, a parenthesis in the form of masked despair, a patch of level terrain between two mountains of pathos.Charles felt worn out, exhausted. He was sick of Sweden and the Swedish. Of their taxing habit of always trying to stay calm. Never shouting on the telephone. Their way of being Zen, providing employee massages. All this well-being was beginning to grate on him. He missed Mediterranean hysteria, and he sometimes dreamed of doing business with carpet salesmen. This was his frame of mind when he got the information about Natalie’s private life. Since then, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about this Markus person. How had someone with such an idiotic first name been able to attract Natalie? He hadn’t wanted to believe it. He was in a good enough position to know that her heart was sort of like the mirage of an oasis; as soon as you got closer, it vanished. But this time was different. Her extravagant, disproportionate reaction seemed to confirm the rumor. Oh no, it couldn’t be. He’d never be able to bear it. “How did it happen?” Charles kept repeating. The Swede must have cast a spell on her, or something like that. Put her under, hypnotized her, given her a potion to drink. It could only have been that. She’d seemed so different. Yes, maybe that’s what had hurt him the most: she wasn’t his Natalie anymore. Something had changed. A bona fide modification. There was only one solution, then: call in this Markus and see what he was made of. Discover his secret. Eighty-one

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