...of desire

...It was a little bookstore on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, it was a soft sense of spinning slowly, it was the afternoon and the hour, it was the flowering season of the year, it was the Verbum (in the beginning), it was a man who thought he was a man. What an infinite piece of stupidity, my God. And she came out of the bookstore (I just now realise that it was like a metaphor, her coming out of a bookstore, no less) and we exchanged a couple of words and we went to have a glass of pelure d'oignon at a cafe in Sevres-Babylone (speaking of metaphors, I a delicate piece of porcelain just arrived, HANDLE WITH CARE, and she Babylonia, root of time, something previous, primeval being, terror and delight of beginnings, the romanticism of Atala but with a real tiger waiting behind the tree). And so Sevres went with Babylonia to have a glass of perlure d'oignon, we looked at each other and I think we began to desire each other (but that was later on, on the Rue Reamur) and a memorable dialogue resulted, clothed from head to toe in misunderstandings, maladjustments that dissolved into vague moments of silence, until our hands began to chat, it was sweet stroking hands while we looked at each other and smiled, we lit Gauloises, each in other's mouth, we rubbed each other with our eyes, we were so much in agreement on everything that it was shameful. Paris was dancing there outside waiting for us, we'd barely disembarked, we were barely alive, everything was there without a name and without a history (especially Babylonia, and poor Sevres made an enormous effort, fascinated by that Babylonia way of looking at the Gothic without putting labels on it, of walking along the banks of the river without seeing the Norman ducks take flight). When we said goodbye we were like two children who have suddenly become friends at a birthday party and keep looking at one another while their parents lead them off, and it's a sweet pain and a hope, and you know the name of one is Tony and the other one Lulu, and that's all that's needed for the heart to become a little piece of fruit, and...

[Hopscotch, Cortazar, J.]