Summary

Book 2, Chapter 1: Bendrix says unhappiness is much easier to convey than happiness. Happiness, he says, “annihilates us: we lose our identity” (p. 47). Bendrix says he felt happy during the phoney war (between Germany’s invasion of the lowlands in 1939 and their invasion of France in 1940), although he says his happiness must have been shot through with anxiety and tension. Bendrix was never sure whether he was Sarah’s only lover—he suspected there were others, and she was only toying with him. Brutally frank, Sarah would only talk about the present moment—never the future—so Bendrix was never sure beyond the sensation of present-tense love. He could never fight off the sensation of his own doubts. Sarah’s effectiveness in arranging meetings with Bendrix delighted him, but it made him crazy with doubt: where did she learn to be so efficient and cold-blooded...