How do you mean who? But how could you not know that, without making a move, as soon as they have settled, shut in up there, they can dispose of an immense force, they possess enormous power... One single invisible ray emitted by them can turn this heavy stone into a hollow, flabby thing... One look is enough. Not even a look, a silence is enough... You didn't notice a while back? You didn't feel anything when you said: Why, it would deserve to figure in a museum?... You didn't notice a sort of eddy in that silence?... - An eddy? - Yes, when you said that: figure in a museum... - That's true, I did say that. Exactly: in a museum. I'm ready to repeat it. - Oh, I beg of you, say it. Say it again. Repeat it... with that look of conviction... Hold me back... They are pulling me away, they are snatching me from you... Hold me very tight... I am being carried away... Do you hear them? They're calling me, they're bewitching me, they're luring me up there, with them, toward everything that babbles, skips, rolls, sprawls, leaps, nibbles, squanders, bungles, destroys, mocks... toward offhandedness, indifference, flightiness, frivolousness, thoughtlessness... Hold me back, so I won't take this awful old stone animal set there in front of us and throw it with all my might against the wall... Do you too hear that noise upstairs? Come out here, come and see... They open the door, they lean over the bannister... What happened?... They come down... - You see what I did with it? Come and sit down, come here, close up, so we can enjoy ourselves together... let's put on a record by your favourite singer, let's turn on the radio, let's dance...
[Do You Hear Them?, Sarraute, N.]
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