alalg501 s. rinzler annales exam ling l3 s5 - Université Paris X ...

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Annette went into the study.
“Spicer,” she said. “We have been together for ten years. I would have thought you’d
have known what I was like by now. Why do you need an astrological chart to tell you? And
who is this ‘we’ you keep talking about which is not you and me?
“None of it is anything to do with you,” said Spicer.
“But it is,” said Annette. “Is this other person a woman?”
“The gender of the other person is immaterial,” said Spicer, “since they are a skilled
professional. You’re a feminist; you should be the first to agree.”
“An astrologer is a professional?”
“Of course,” said Spicer.
“And my chart is bad news?”
“Yes,” said Spicer. “Insofar as it relates to mine.”
“Then it is to do with me,” said Annette. “If you believe this nonsense.”
“Annette,” said Spicer, “I am trying to read.”
“In what way is my chart bad news?
“You are badly afflicted in both the Fourth and Seventh houses. The house of
childhood and the house of marriage. The unhappy, lonely child of elderly parents, a mother
badly treated by a faithless husband-we know all that to be true, don’t we?
“It hardly registered like that, Spicer,” said Annette.
“Your Pluto being afflicted by your Neptune,” said Spicer, “you’re so confused, hardly
anything registers. Look at us. Your total lack of sensitivity.”
“Spicer, what is the matter? Please!”
“Don’t upset yourself. You’re so excitable, these days. I thought pregnancy was
meant to calm women down. The matter is that your moon in the First is quincunx your moon
in the Seventh; you simply have no idea how to be a wife. Well, the unhappy daughter
seldom has.”
“I am a good wife, Spicer. And a good mother.”
“Really? Do good wives nag? (1) Are they obsessively jealous? Do they break plates
and burn books? Do they blab the secrets of the marriage bed to all and sundry? You have
wonderful qualities, Annette, and I love you dearly, but let us not suppose you are without
faults. As for being a good mother, you have a kind heart and a good nature but your idea of
cooking is a bacon sandwich. Your idea of child-rearing is to let the kids watch TV all day.
They are increasingly withdrawn and disturbed. It’s quite a worry.”
“If it’s all written in the stars, Spicer,” said Annette, “there’s nothing we can do about
it, so why worry? I have to have an afflicted whatever it is, to show up in Susan’s and Jason’s
star charts as a persecuting mother. And my parents had to be what they were, in order to
prove my affliction.”
“Everything’s interconnected, Annette,” said Spicer. “I’m surprised you don’t
recognize that.”
“How can I recognize anything if it’s written in my star chart that I won’t? (2) And how
can anything surprise you about me, now you know what I’m like before we even begin?”
Simone RINZLER – Université Paris X - Nanterre - ALA LG 501 BROex-EXAM CORR 05.doc – 3/12
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“Annette, you are becoming upset (3) about nothing at all. Our compatibility chart
shows up problems, that’s all I’m trying to say. I’m tired. I say things I don’t mean because
you provoke me. I wish you wouldn’t say (4) ‘star chart’; you do it to mock and deride. The
proper description is ‘natal chart’. Now please, Annette, leave me alone.”
“Well, Spicer,” said Annette, “if it makes you feel better, I’ll be down to the nearest
fortune-teller the moment I can.”
“You are impossible,” said Spicer. “There’s the phone. How any woman can spend so
much time on the phone beats me.”
[Annette répond au téléphone] (…)
Shall we go back to that? Astrology is nothing to do with fortune-telling. It is a
wonderfully useful diagnostic and therapeutic tool, in the hands of intuitive and sensitive
people. And thank God there are some around.”
“And I’m still not to know the name or gender of this wonderful and sensitive person,”
asked Annette, “who means so much to you?”
“I’ve been advised (5) to tell you as little as possible,” said Spicer. Though in fact she
may want to see you some time.”
“She,” said Annette. “I knew it. You’re having an affair with her.”
“I knew you’d be like this,” said Spicer. No wonder I put off telling you. She’s my
therapist.”
“Your therapist? You have a therapist? You?”
“There’s nothing sexual in my relationship with her,” said Spicer.
“I should bloody hope not,” cried Annette. And why does this astrologer/therapist want
to see me, and why should I go, and why do you want one in the first place, Spicer? What’s
the matter with you?
“The matter is, Annette,” said Spicer, “that, because of scenes like this, and the
perpetual stress of the rows you precipitate, my blood pressure has become dangerously
raised, and I am in danger of falling dead with a heart attack or stroke.”
“Your blood pressure? But you’re too young!”
“Stress can kill at any age,” said Spicer.
“But this is dreadful! What do they say at the surgery? What does Dr. Winspit say? Is
it going to be okay?”
“I’m not seeing Dr. Winspit about this. I’m seeing a homeopath.”
“I don’t believe this,” said Annette.
“I shouldn’t have confided in you,” said Spicer. “I might have known this is how you’d
react. No sympathy, no understanding: nothing except hysteria.”
“Spicer, you have my every sympathy. I’m just terribly worried. You don’t believe in
alternative medicine. Who on earth recommended homeopathy? Your therapist? This
astrologer?”
“Well, yes,” said Spicer.
Fay WELDON, Trouble, pp. 50-54.
Simone RINZLER – Université Paris X - Nanterre - ALA LG 501 BROex-EXAM CORR 05.doc – 4/12
Site UFR EAA : http://anglais.u-paris10.fr/ - Page personnelle : http://anglais.u-paris10.fr/article.php3?id_article=513
Consulter le « tableau d’’affichage » sur le site, rubrique « CoursSimoneRinzler »
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