The Widow by Georges Simenon

pour the coffee into her glass. She would let the sugar dissolve, push back her chair….
    She had unhooked her black silk blouse, revealing a flannel slip and a bit of white flesh.
    â€œWell, I’ve told you everything. I don’t know yet how it will go with Bocquillon, but if things don’t work out I’ll get somebody else. I’ll fight to the finish, even if it means setting fire to the house. What did you say?”
    â€œI didn’t say anything.”
    â€œIf I get him to sign a paper now, Bocquillon says it would be worthless. A will can always be fought, especially when it’s made by a man like Couderc. What do you think of him?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    Her look reproached him for his inertia, for this absent-mindedness, as it were, which created a void in the kitchen.
    â€œWell, I’ll tell you my honest opinion. Couderc is not such a fool, or so far gone as he looks. I don’t claim he can hear properly, but he guesses what people are saying from the way their lips move. He’s a clever old devil. He doesn’t want to make life difficult for himself. He has his vices. That’s all he thinks of. He knows that so long as he keeps acting stupid no one can get at him. You saw him the other day with his two daughters….
    â€œIf he lived with them, he’d be kept under watch. I bet it wouldn’t be long before they put him in the asylum and the old monkey knows it, too….
    â€œDo you understand?
    â€œWith me, he can have his fun from time to time. He isn’t ashamed.
    â€œAnd those bitches would like to throw me out of the house! Let him have an accident tomorrow and they’ll put the house up for sale. They have a right to, Bocquillon warned me. And I, the one who’s done everything here, working like a horse all my life and putting up with the old man, I get exactly one third, one third of what, by rights, belongs to me, because if they had had the house, the sheriff would have been here long since to take the lot….
    â€œWhat are you thinking about?”
    â€œI’m not thinking.”
    It was true. He simply had an uneasy feeling, like somebody coming down with the flu. He was not digesting his lunch. He felt hot.
    â€œIt bothers me a little that you’re the son of Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur. To think that my sister was in service there! You must have known her.”
    â€œHow long ago?”
    â€œTen years.”
    â€œHer name wasn’t Adéle?”
    â€œYes. Why?”
    â€œNothing. I remember. She used to loathe my sister. Now I think my sister is married to a doctor at Orléans.”
    â€œHe’s a surgeon. Dr. Dorman.”
    Silence. The time had come when they ought to have been getting up from the table. There was no coffee left in the coffeepot, nor in the glasses.
    â€œWill you get the brandy from the cupboard? … You don’t mind me ordering you about and talking to you so familiarly…. ?”
    â€œWhy should I?”
    â€œI don’t know. Don’t pour out so much for me … that’s enough! You can help yourself to a big glass. How old are you?”
    â€œTwenty-eight.”
    Her hands folded across her stomach, her eyes staring at the sparkling windowpanes and the dusty road beyond, she murmured:
    â€œSo that would make you twenty-three when…. Just René’s age now. When René did what he did, he was only nineteen. Tell me, Jean …”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWas it a man you killed?”
    â€œA man, yes.”
    â€œOld?”
    â€œI think he was in his fifties.”
    â€œDid you do it with a revolver?”
    He shook his head and looked at his hands.
    â€œDoes it bother you that I talk about it?”
    No! It didn’t annoy him. He knew he would have to put up with it sometime or another. But it was all so far away! And so different from what people might imagine.
    â€œYou don’t want to tell me? I