In “Thérèse and the Doctor,” 10 years have passed and our heroine has been through a few love affairs and also has a history of consultation with a Parisian psychiatrist. They were planning slowly and surely to obliterate her, few though the signs might be their intention.” But even years after Thérèse was finally cast adrift on the streets of Paris, she is not able put her past and her guilt behind her. They were right to look on her as a monster, but in her eyes they too were monstrous. “She had not brought destruction on this family: Rather it was she who would be destroyed. Discovered, tried for her offense, then acquitted through her in-laws’ influence, she returned home a virtual prisoner of Bernard and his family. But the restless Thérèse was so unhappy that she eventually was desperate enough to try to poison her husband with ongoing doses of arsenic. In the first novel, young Thérèse married Bernard Desqueroux mostly out of convenience-their alliance joined two families’ valuable pine forests in Argelouse in the Bordeaux region. Mauriac loved Thérèse enough to continue her story through two short stories “Thérèse and the Doctor” and “Thérèse at the Hotel” (1933) and another novella The End of the Night (La Fin de la Nuit). Que c'est douloureux.įrançois Mauriac ended his 1927 novel Thérèse Desqueroux with his eponymous heroine, a frustrated, then later, disgraced wife and indifferent mother, running off through the streets of Paris, finally liberated by her stultifying husband, and leaving readers with high hopes for an independent and happy future. Peut-être que Thérèse est méprisable, moi je l'ai senti très humaine, l'archétype de la femme bourgeoise trop intelligente pour ne pas souffrir ? C'est une femme qui a raté sa vie, elle n'est pas dupe, elle en a la conscience aiguë. La déchéance de Thérèse est pathétique, le soin apporté aux détails prosaïques pour dire tout en un coup de pinceau est poignant : Anne sa servante, qui l'embrasse sur le front après l'avoir bordé comme son propre enfant, mais quelle force. L'écriture de Mauriac m'a impressionné : ces paysages de Landes qui semblent refléter le désespoir sourd de Thérèse, cette relation à sa fille, le miroir qu'elle tend à Georges sur ses propres mesquineries. J'ai eu un temps de désoeuvrement quand le triangle s'installe, puis le final m'a ébloui à nouveau.

L'intériorité de Thérèse, sa honte, son sentiment d'inadéquation, tout est scruté si habilement qu'on a l'impression d'être dans ses os. On pourrait relire sans cesse le portrait de cette femme diminuée, et toujours en apprendre sur elle. La première partie de La Fin de la nuit est incroyable de nuances, complexités et ressorts psychologiques. Mon coeur a bondi quand j'ai su que Thérèse Desqueyroux avait une suite, et l'épaississement psychologique m'a délecté car je n'en espérai pas tant !

La Fin de la nuit by François Mauriac