No, not our sort of words, they are too light, too limp, they would never be able to cross what is now opening, yawning, between us... an immense chasm... but compact, heavy words over which no wave of gaiety or sensuality has ever rippled, which no pulse has ever made to beat, no breath to falter... words which are smooth and hard all over like Basque pelotas, which I am propelling at him with all my strength, at him, a well-trained player who is standing in the right place, and who catches them without flinching precisely where they are designed to fall, in the solidly-woven hollow of his chistera.
Not our words, but solemn, glacial nonce-words, dead words in a dead language.
For years, for months, for days, for ever, it was there, behind me, my inseparable reverse side... and now at a stroke, just with these two words, with a terrible wrench, I turn myself upside down... As you see, my obverse has become my reverse. I am what I had to be. Order has finally been restored. Ich sterbe.
With these well-honed words, with this blade of excellent make - I have never used it, nothing has ever blunted it - I anticipate the moment, and I, myself, cut: Ich sterbe.
Prepared to co-operate, so docile and full of goodwill, before you can do it, I put myself in your place, outside myself, and in the same way as you will do it, in the very same terms that you will use, I certify the event.
I gather together all my strength, I raise myself up, I pull towards me, I lower on to myself, the flagstone, the heavy tombstone... and, to make sure that it is in exactly the right place, I lie down underneath it...
But perhaps, as he was raising the flagstone, as he was holding it above him with outstretched arms and was about to lower it on himself... just before he fell back under it... was there maybe something like a faint palpitation, a barely perceptible quivering, a minute trace of living hope... Ich sterbe... And what if the man observing him, and who was the only one who could know, were to intervene, to grasp him firmly, to hold him back... No, though, there's no one, no voice... It's already the void, it's silence.
All we have here, as you see, are a few slight eddies, a few brief ripples captured amongst the infinite number that these words produce. If some of you find this game diverting, they may - with patience and time - amuse themselves by discovering others. At all events they may be sure that they are not mistaken, for everything they may perceive is really there, in every one of us: circles that continue to increase when, propelled from such a distance and with such force, these words fall on us and shake us to the depths of our being: Ich sterbe.
[The Use of Speech, Sarraute, N.]
Sunday, 21 July 2013
...of consumers
But little by little they had gained experience and assurance. With the almost imperceptible, delicate movements of a bird, the infallible instinct that causes it to sort out exactly what is needed to build its nest, they had succeeded, little by little, in picking up, here and there, from everything that came to hand, bits and scraps which they had put together to build themselves a soft little nest, within which they stayed, well protected, watched over on every side, well sheltered.
It was extraordinary to see with what rapidity, skill and voracious tenacity they caught on the wing, managed to extract from everything, books, plays, films, a quite unimportant conversation, a random phrase, a proverb, a song, pictures, chromos - Childhood, Maternity, Pastoral Scenes, The Joys of Home, or even subway posters and advertisements, the principles laid down by manufacturers of soap powders and face creams ("How to hold a husband..."), the advice of Aunt Annie or Father Soury - it was extraordinary to see how unfailingly, among all the things that came to hand, they seized upon exactly what was needed to spin their cocoon, their impenetrable covering, to fashion this armour in which later on, under the kindly eye of the concierges, they went forth - amid general encouragement, unconquerable, calm and assured: grandmothers, daughters, maltreated women, mothers - standing at doors, pressing with all their weight against doors, like heavy battering rams.
Now and then, when I have been seated next to them at the theatre, without looking at them, while they listened motionless and as though turned to stone beside me, I have sensed the trail left across the entire audience in the wake of the images emanating from the stage or from the screen, images that settle on them like steel filings on a magnetic surface; I longed to rise, to intervene and check these images in their flight, to turn them aside; but they flowed with an irresistible force, straight from the screen onto the women; they clung to them; and I felt the women close beside me, in the darkness of the hall, motionless, silent and voracious, spinning these images into an object destined for their own use.
[Portrait of a Man Unknown, Sarraute, N.]
It was extraordinary to see with what rapidity, skill and voracious tenacity they caught on the wing, managed to extract from everything, books, plays, films, a quite unimportant conversation, a random phrase, a proverb, a song, pictures, chromos - Childhood, Maternity, Pastoral Scenes, The Joys of Home, or even subway posters and advertisements, the principles laid down by manufacturers of soap powders and face creams ("How to hold a husband..."), the advice of Aunt Annie or Father Soury - it was extraordinary to see how unfailingly, among all the things that came to hand, they seized upon exactly what was needed to spin their cocoon, their impenetrable covering, to fashion this armour in which later on, under the kindly eye of the concierges, they went forth - amid general encouragement, unconquerable, calm and assured: grandmothers, daughters, maltreated women, mothers - standing at doors, pressing with all their weight against doors, like heavy battering rams.
Now and then, when I have been seated next to them at the theatre, without looking at them, while they listened motionless and as though turned to stone beside me, I have sensed the trail left across the entire audience in the wake of the images emanating from the stage or from the screen, images that settle on them like steel filings on a magnetic surface; I longed to rise, to intervene and check these images in their flight, to turn them aside; but they flowed with an irresistible force, straight from the screen onto the women; they clung to them; and I felt the women close beside me, in the darkness of the hall, motionless, silent and voracious, spinning these images into an object destined for their own use.
[Portrait of a Man Unknown, Sarraute, N.]
...of a siesta
In the early afternoon, as I said before, there are dangerous moments. Not for everybody, of course. Most people - and I'm not speaking only of very busy people who are always peculiarly well protected against such dangers as these - most people pass lightly through these moments the way well-trained mountain climbers leap over crevices without looking underfoot.
This is the hour given over to the "siesta," to rest; the moment, after the excitement of the midday meal, when those who stay behind alone in silent rooms, suddenly experience a sensation of cold; their heart in their mouth, they are seized with a dizziness, an impression that the earth has suddenly fallen out from under their feet and that they are slipping, without being able to restrain themselves, into the void.This is probably a comparable illusion, in reverse, to the one we have when, in a moving train, the telegraph poles seem to be moving too. This impression of falling and dizziness that people have comes perhaps from the fact that they feel, in this silence, before this void, the cold, anonymous touch of time, the ceaseless dropping away of the seconds whose passing they suddenly become aware of, the way, when blood leaves the face, freckles that had passed unnoticed under a rosy complexion becomes visible and stand under pallor.
[Portrait of a Man Unknown, Sarraute, N.]
...of a persecution delusion
"They are simply plotting to frighten me, perhaps, and when they see that I don't mind, that I make no protest, but keep perfectly quiet and put up with it meekly, they'll give it up, they'll give it up themselves, give it up of their own accord."
Such, then, were the thoughts in the mind of Mr. Golyadkin as, stretching in in his bed, trying to rest his exhausted limbs, he waited for Petrushka to come into his room as usual... He waited for a full quarter of an hour. He heard the lazy scamp fiddling about with the samovar behind the screen, and yet he could not bring himself to call him. We may say more: Mr. Golyadkin was a little afraid of confronting Petrushka.
'Why, goodness knows," he thought, "goodness knows how that rascal looks at it all. He keeps on saying nothing, but he has his own ideas."
At last the door creaked and Petrushka came in with a tray in his hands. Mr. Golyadkin stole a timid glance at him, impatiently waiting to see what would happen, waiting to see whether he would not say something about a certain circumstance. But Petrushka said nothing; he was, on the contrary, more silent, more glum and ill-humoured than usual; he looked askance from under his brows at everything; altogether it was evident that he was very much put out about something; he did not even glance once at his master, which, by the way, rather piqued the latter. Setting all he had brought on the table, he turned and went out of the room without a word.
"He knows, he knows, he knows all about it, the scoundrel!" Mr. Golyadkin grumbled to himself as he took his tea. Yet our hero did not address a single question to his servant, though Petrushka came into his room several times afterwards on various errands. Mr. Golyadkin was in great trepidation of spirit. He dreaded going to the office. He had a strong presentiment that there he would find something that would not be "just so."
[The Double, Dostoevsky, F.]
Such, then, were the thoughts in the mind of Mr. Golyadkin as, stretching in in his bed, trying to rest his exhausted limbs, he waited for Petrushka to come into his room as usual... He waited for a full quarter of an hour. He heard the lazy scamp fiddling about with the samovar behind the screen, and yet he could not bring himself to call him. We may say more: Mr. Golyadkin was a little afraid of confronting Petrushka.
'Why, goodness knows," he thought, "goodness knows how that rascal looks at it all. He keeps on saying nothing, but he has his own ideas."
At last the door creaked and Petrushka came in with a tray in his hands. Mr. Golyadkin stole a timid glance at him, impatiently waiting to see what would happen, waiting to see whether he would not say something about a certain circumstance. But Petrushka said nothing; he was, on the contrary, more silent, more glum and ill-humoured than usual; he looked askance from under his brows at everything; altogether it was evident that he was very much put out about something; he did not even glance once at his master, which, by the way, rather piqued the latter. Setting all he had brought on the table, he turned and went out of the room without a word.
"He knows, he knows, he knows all about it, the scoundrel!" Mr. Golyadkin grumbled to himself as he took his tea. Yet our hero did not address a single question to his servant, though Petrushka came into his room several times afterwards on various errands. Mr. Golyadkin was in great trepidation of spirit. He dreaded going to the office. He had a strong presentiment that there he would find something that would not be "just so."
[The Double, Dostoevsky, F.]
...of distance
- Why the Earl Grey?
- What?
- Why're you drinking Earl Grey? It's such a cliche.
- Oh... I dunno... this guy I know... he makes it... and he says the flavour's incomparable.
- Is that the artist?
- No a friend of his, the son of the woman who's the benefactor for the Youth Homeless Project.
- Does he have a name?
- Wooton... Henry.
The silence between them wasn't awkward - it was boorish and stupid. Like a drunk, drooling student it bumped about the trendy minimalism of the penthouse, knocking into the blocky blue divans, the huge coffee table, the varnished wood pediments that supported Cathode Narcissus's nine monitors. Dorian was so easily influenced - they both knew this. He took on other people's styles, modes and even habits the way kitchen towelling sopped up spilt milk. And was there any point in crying over this? When he'd begun fucking Helen he'd taken to drinking Lapsang Souchong - now he was getting infused elsewhere. Of course she'd known he was a poof, but only in the way we all know we're going to die.
[Dorian, Self, W.]
- What?
- Why're you drinking Earl Grey? It's such a cliche.
- Oh... I dunno... this guy I know... he makes it... and he says the flavour's incomparable.
- Is that the artist?
- No a friend of his, the son of the woman who's the benefactor for the Youth Homeless Project.
- Does he have a name?
- Wooton... Henry.
The silence between them wasn't awkward - it was boorish and stupid. Like a drunk, drooling student it bumped about the trendy minimalism of the penthouse, knocking into the blocky blue divans, the huge coffee table, the varnished wood pediments that supported Cathode Narcissus's nine monitors. Dorian was so easily influenced - they both knew this. He took on other people's styles, modes and even habits the way kitchen towelling sopped up spilt milk. And was there any point in crying over this? When he'd begun fucking Helen he'd taken to drinking Lapsang Souchong - now he was getting infused elsewhere. Of course she'd known he was a poof, but only in the way we all know we're going to die.
[Dorian, Self, W.]
...of retreat
It was shortly after the death by murder of her grandmother at the Calton Nursing Home in Edinburgh that Margaret had gone into a silence; she was also thinner and paler. The public fuss had died down, Margaret's aunts had made off with their loot, and her father had made himself comfortable with his mother's fortune. But nothing would induce Margaret to benefit from the money. She made this well known. Her family and their friends were impressed by her attitude. Her sad pallor and silence were deeply felt, too, by Margaret's fellow-workers in the ceramics studio in Glasgow. It came about, now, that everyone was sorry for Margaret. Even her sisters, in their different ways, expressed pity for her suffering and the wrong that everyone had done her in their secret thoughts. Only Dan Murchie, passionate and bemused by his daughter, could not prevent himself from half-wondering what she was up to, without fully realising that he was wondering at all.
[Symposium, Spark, M.]
[Symposium, Spark, M.]
...of a prelude to change
"Shall I stay with you till Mr. Pontellier comes?" asked Robert, seating himself on the outer edge of one of the steps and taking hold of the hammock rope which was fastened to the post.
"If you wish. Don't swing the hammock. Will you get my white shawl which I left on the window-sill over at the house?"
"Are you chilly?"
"No; but I shall be presently."
"Presently?" he laughed. "Do you know what time it is? How long are you going to stay out here?"
"I don't know. Will you get the shawl?"
"Of course I will," he said, rising. He went over to the house, walking along the grass. She watched his figure pass in and out of the strips of moonlight. It was past midnight. It was very quiet.
When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her.
"Did you say I should stay till Mr. Pontellier came back?"
"I said you might if you wished to."
He seated himself again and rolled a cigarette, which he smoked in silence. Neither did Mrs. Pontellier speak. No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire.
[The Awakening, Chopin, K.]
"If you wish. Don't swing the hammock. Will you get my white shawl which I left on the window-sill over at the house?"
"Are you chilly?"
"No; but I shall be presently."
"Presently?" he laughed. "Do you know what time it is? How long are you going to stay out here?"
"I don't know. Will you get the shawl?"
"Of course I will," he said, rising. He went over to the house, walking along the grass. She watched his figure pass in and out of the strips of moonlight. It was past midnight. It was very quiet.
When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her.
"Did you say I should stay till Mr. Pontellier came back?"
"I said you might if you wished to."
He seated himself again and rolled a cigarette, which he smoked in silence. Neither did Mrs. Pontellier speak. No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire.
[The Awakening, Chopin, K.]
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