more or less certain no other woman was competing with her in Klima's mind.

This very beautiful woman was actually afraid of women and saw them everywhere. Nowhere could they escape her. She knew how to find them in Klima's intonation when he greeted her upon arriving home. She knew how to detect them from the smell of his clothes. Recently she had found a scrap of newspaper; a date was written on it in Klima's handwriting. Of course it could have referred to any one of a variety of events- a concert rehearsal, a meeting with an impresario-but for a whole month she did nothing but wonder which woman Klima was going to meet that day, and for a whole month she slept badly.

If the treacherous world of women frightened her so, could she not find solace in the world of men?

Hardly. Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness. Mrs. Klima's thoughts could go only in the direction of that painful beam, and her husband became the only man in the world.

Now she heard the key in the lock, and then she saw the trumpeter with a bouquet of roses.

At first she felt pleased, but doubts immediately arose: Why was he bringing her flowers this evening, when her birthday was not until tomorrow? What could this mean?

And she greeted him by saying: "Won't you be here tomorrow?"

9

Bringing her roses this evening did not necessarily imply he was going to be away tomorrow. But her distrustful antennae, eternally vigilant, eternally jealous, could pick up her husband's slightest secret intention well in advance. Whenever Klima noticed those terrible antennae spying on him, unmasking him, stripping him naked, he was overcome by a hopeless sensation of fatigue. He hated those antennae, and he was sure that if his marriage was under threat, it was from them. He had always been convinced (and on this point with a belligerently clear conscience) that he deceived his wife only because he wanted to spare her, to shelter her from any anxiety, and that her own suspicions were what made her suffer.