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02/25/2010

 

SPIEGEL: Madame Millet, the title of your new book is puzzling. How can a woman who has had the kind of experiences that you describe in your bestselling book "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." be jealous?

Catherine Millet: The entire book deals with a paradox. It has a different title in French: "Jour de Souffrance."

SPIEGEL: "Day of Suffering." That sounds more poetic that the somewhat ugly word "jealousy."

Millet: I suffered in two ways: first, from jealousy as such, and from the pain that came from knowing that the man I was living with was having affairs with other women -- a discovery that shocked me. And, second, from the contradiction I had with myself. I had always led an extremely permissive life, and I prided myself on that. And now there was this total tension within myself. I couldn't cope with this contradiction. Jacques Henric, my husband, held it against me often enough during our arguments.

SPIEGEL: You published your book "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." in 2001. It became a bestseller. In the book, you described, in a very sober way and without a hint of frivolity, your promiscuous sex life over a period of three years. Did you ever ask yourself whether you might have given your husband plenty of reason to be jealous?

Millet: I was certainly overcome by a sort of blindness. I didn't even consider that I was doing something that could hurt Jacques, and so the notion that he might be jealous never even came up, at least not until I felt this jealousy myself.

SPIEGEL: You had no idea? You couldn't possibly have been surprised.

Millet: I had my suspicions, but they hadn't alarmed me in the past.

SPIEGEL: But you had an open marriage and weren't deceiving each other?

Millet: Of course. He was aware of my past and present sexual life, but he didn't know all the details. Sometimes, when I would come home late at night, he was worried and even furious. I saw jealousy in his reaction, but I didn't give it much thought.

SPIEGEL: Perhaps he was just concerned about you?

Millet: Yes, there was some concern in his anger, an accusation, and the fear that something could have happened to me.

SPIEGEL: That too is a sign of affection.

Millet: Indisputably. It's just that I didn't give it much thought.

SPIEGEL: Your jealousy crisis erupted after an accidental discovery, as you write in the book. You found nude photos of a young woman, who also happened to be pregnant, on your husband's desk, and then you began searching through his notebooks.

Millet: Jacques and I are Freudians, so for us coincidence isn't always coincidental. Maybe Jacques left the photos lying around to send me a message, and maybe I found them because I was looking for something that I desired. What I mean to say is that perhaps this crisis had to be triggered, because it was beneficial in the end, even though I went through hell for years.

SPIEGEL: For how long?

Millet: About three years. It was a terrible time, but it was also an opportunity to resolve things between us, to revisit the question of freedom, on which we had based our relationship, and, finally, to find our way out of mental agony after having developed greater trust in each other.

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• Next

• Part 1: 'The Little Demon in Me'
• Part 2: 'I Twisted the Knife'
• Part 3: 'Jacques Didn't Understand'
• Part 4: 'I Separated the Body from the Mind'