It's strange... yet there is nothing in common... I don't know why this animal makes me think... I don't know if you remember... in the Berlin Museum, in the Egyptian sculpture collection, a woman, to the left, as you enter... Yes, yes, I believe I see... - Well, there exists in the line of the thigh, the right thigh, which is in the foreground... there... starting at the hip... He lifts his heavy body on a sudden impulse, stands in the middle of the room, his fat torso leaning slightly backward, puts out his foot, runs his hand the length of his leg... there... you see... Just that... from here to here... Really exquisite... - Oh, yes I see... - Astonishing, isn't it? I was quite staggered by it. One day I spoke of it to Duvivier... Well, believe it or not, he's even more impressed than I am... He told me that it was what had struck him most in that entire Museum... - Oh, there I think he exaggerates. But it is true, for that, I too, would give... They grow silent, deep in though...
Upon this relic brought back from distant pilgrimages, from long peregrinations through time and space, upon this carefully isolated fragment, set apart, transported, preserved intact and deposited in their common fund, in a simultaneous movement their eyes converge... Like two loving parents hovering above their child, through it they come together, they become one... Moments of perfect understanding...
How fragile. is well known. Who does not know that the most complete fusions only last a few seconds. It is imprudent to put them to the test too often, or for too long, even between near relations, even between ourselves... Wouldn't another form, another line, brought back from elsewhere, suffice to make the two soul mates immediately separate, drift apart from each other, surrounded by loneliness? Isn't that the lot of us all, our inevitable common fate?
[Do You Hear Them?, Sarraute, N.]
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