Jezebel – Irene Nemirovsky

‘You’ll be disappointed, Gladys,’ he said quietly. ‘You want me to tell you that I was mad about you. And that’s true. But are you asking if I’m still in love with you? No. That’s the past. What can I say? Nothing lasts for ever.’ ‘Is that really true, Claude?’ she said, smiling, but a sharp pain shot through her heart. ‘You’re still beautiful, Gladys, but when I look at you, I don’t know who you are any more.

To me, you’re merely the ghost of what you once were. I’m finally free, happy, set free at last. I don’t love you any more. I once loved a young girl in a ball gown who stood on a balcony in London one June evening … She mocked me cruelly that night.’ ‘Just a little, but you’re getting your revenge now, Claude.’

‘Not really.’ ‘Just a little …’ They looked at each other in silence. She cupped her face in her hand. ‘You’re holding a grudge against me, Claude. Would it please you to know that you’ve played a greater, more important role in my life than you could know? I was never in love with you, yet I’ll never forget you. I was an innocent child. You were the one who made me realise my power for the first time. You hold it against me, but without realising it, you’re the one who poisoned my life.

I’ve never again experienced that feeling of intoxicating pride, never. I never again felt that exact sense of exhilaration. I’m the one who should be holding a terrible grudge against you.’ ‘Are you mocking me?’ he said with a start. ‘Now, now,’ she said sweetly, trembling with cruel, manipulative emotion. ‘All that is in the past. Tell me, you wanted to kiss me back then, didn’t you? And you were too cowardly to do it?

Well, do it now, and then everything can be forgiven and forgotten.’ ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘As wonderful as your kiss might be, it will never be as sweet as the kiss I desired for such a long time.’ They stared at each other, like two enemies, then Gladys slowly looked away. She let out an angry, stifled, little painful laugh.

‘You wanted to see Marie-Thérèse?’ ‘Yes, please.’ She rang the bell and asked for her daughter. She sat still and silent until Marie-Thérèse came into the room. Her face looked calm but every now and then her mouth grew slightly tense. Marie-Thérèse and Beauchamp talked, and she answered when one of them spoke to her, but her voice, soft and low, echoed in her ears as if it belonged to a stranger.

‘I’m suffering,’ she thought, ‘but I don’t want to, I don’t know how to suffer …’ OceanofPDF.com Beauchamp left.

Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 into a wealthy banking family and immigrated to France during the Russian Revolution. After attending the Sorbonne in Paris, she began to write and swiftly achieved success with David Golder, which was followed by more than a dozen other books.

Throughout her lifetime she published widely in French newspapers and literary journals. She died in Auschwitz in 1942. More than sixty years later, Suite Française was published posthumously for the first time in 2006. OceanofPDF.com ALSO BY IRÈNE NÉMIROVSKY Suite Française Fire in the Blood David Golder The Ball Snow in Autumn The Courilof Affair Dimanche and Other Stories All Our Worldly Goods OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com A VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL ORIGINAL, MAY 2012 Translation copyright © 2010 by Sandra Smith All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in France as Jézabel by Éditions Albin Michel, Paris, in 1936. Copyright © 1936 by Éditions Albin Michel. This translation originally published in Great Britain by Vintage Books, a division of the Random House Group Limited, London, in 2010. Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Némirovsky, Irène, 1903–1942. [Jézabel. English] Jezebel / Irène Némirovsky; translated from the French by Sandra Smith. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-307-74546-0 (trade pbk.) eBook ISBN 978-0-307-94986-8 1. Trials (Murder)—France—Fiction. I. Smith, Sandra. II. Title. PQ2627.E4J4913 2012 843′.912—dc23 2012000607 Cover photograph © Herbert Matter/ Condé Nast Archive/Corbis Based on a design by Chip Kidd www.vintagebooks.com v3.1 OceanofPDF.com Contents Cover About the Author Other Books by This Author Title Page Copyright Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 OceanofPDF.com Introduction A woman takes the stand, accused of murdering her young lover.

A succession of witnesses are called to testify to her character.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 54db9a16f87d5c0e
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,164,439 bytes (1.11 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780307745460, 9780307949868
• Pages: 168
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 259.91 minutes
• Total Words: 51,982
• Total Characters: 286,097
• Average Words per Page: 309.42
• Average Characters per Page: 1702.96

Most Frequent Words

gladys (319), said (295), woman (194), one (157), young (155), love (155), i’m (154), don’t (150), never (140), know (133), want (132), see (131), now (128), child (128), looked (127), old (126), face (118), like (117), thought (117), beautiful (116), you’re (115), marie-thérèse (109), time (108), little (105), it’s (104), life (102), still (97), yes (96), long (93), away (92), well (88), eyes (88), come (88), think (86), even (85), i’ll (85), nothing (84), say (84), look (82), women (80), man (78), that’s (77), bernard (75), years (73), back (73), way (72), day (69), herself (68), night (68), didn’t (66), felt (66), loved (65), monti (61), madame (61), left (60), poor (59), everything (59), money (57), age (55), happy (55), mother (54), right (54), heart (54), hair (53), every (53), without (53), went (53), asked (52), tell (52), head (52), ever (52), hands (51), feel (51), anything (51), first (50), make (50), voice (50), alone (50), you’ll (50), let (48), darling (48), lover (47), cold (46), she’s (46), knew (46), kind (46), get (45), house (45), past (45), room (45), can’t (44), made (44), light (42), give (42), saw (42), really (42), girl (42), dead (41), accused (41), slowly (41).

PDF Download