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them. She bends over a congested old man who wears
bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time the time
black-rimmed eyeglasses on the end of his nose. He hides his
of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide,
cards against his chest and glances at me from under the glasses.
soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain. No sooner
"Go ahead, Monsieur."
than born, it is already old, it seems as though I have known it for
Smiles. His teeth are rotten. The red hand does not belong to
twenty years.
him, it is his neighbour's, a fellow with a black moustache. This
There is another happiness: outside there is this band of
fellow with the moustache has enormous nostrils that could pump
steel, the narrow duration of the music which traverses our time
air for a whole family and that eat up half his face, but in spite
through and through, rejecting it, tearing at it with its dry
of that, he breathes through his mouth, gasping a little. With them
little points; there is another time.
there is also a young man with a face like a dog. I cannot make
"Monsieur Randu plays hearts . . . and you play an
out the fourth player.
ace.
The cards fall on the woollen cloth, spinning. The hands
The voice dies away and disappears. Nothing bites on the
with ringed fingers come and pick them up, scratching the cloth
ribbon of steel, neither the opening door, nor the breath of cold air
with their nails. The hands make white splotches on the cloth,
flowing over my knees, nor the arrival of the veterinary surgeon
they look puffed up and dusty. Other cards fall, the hands go
and his little girl: the music transpierces these vague figures and
and come. What an odd occupation: it doesn't look like a game or
passes through them. Barely seated, the girl has been seized
a rite, or a habit. I think they do it to pass the time, nothing
21
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leather of the bench. He slaps a card down on the table. Dia-
by it: she holds herself stiffly, her eyes wide open; she listens,
monds.
rubbing the table with her fist.
But the dog-faced young man smiles. The flushed opponent,
A few seconds more and the Negress will sing. It seems
inevitable, so strong is the necessity of this music: nothing can bent over the table, watches him like a cat ready to spring.
interrupt it, nothing which comes from this time in which the "Et voila!"
world has fallen; it will stop of itself, as if by order. If I love this The hand of the young man rises from the shadow, glides
beautiful voice it is especially because of that: it is neither for its an instant, white, indolent, then suddenly drops like a hawk
fulness nor its sadness, rather because it is the event for which so and presses a card against the cloth. The great red-faced man
many notes have been preparing, from so far away, dying that it
leaps up:
might be born. And yet I am troubled; it would take so little to
"Hell! He's trumped."
make the record stop: a broken spring, the whim of Cousin
The outline of the king of hearts appears between his curled
Adolphe. How strange it is, how moving, that this hardness
fingers, then it is turned on its face and the game goes on. Mighty
should be so fragile. Nothing can interrupt it yet all can break it.
king, come from so far, prepared by so many combinations, by so
The last chord has died away. In the brief silence which
many vanished gestures. He disappears in turn so that other
follows I feel strongly that there it is, that something has happened.
combinations can be born, other gestures, attacks, counterattacks,
turns of luck, a crowd of small adventures.
Some of these days You'll
I am touched, I feel my body at rest like a precision machine. I
miss me honey
have had real adventures. I can recapture no detail but I perceive
What has just happened is that the Nausea has disappeared.
the rigorous succession of circumstances. I have crossed seas,
When the voice was heard in the silence, I felt my body harden
left cities behind me, followed the course of rivers or plunged
and the Nausea vanish. Suddenly: it was almost unbearable to
into forests, always making my way towards other cities. I have
become so hard, so brilliant. At the same time the music was
had women, I have fought with men; and never was I able to
drawn out, dilated, swelled like a waterspout. It filled the room
turn back, any more than a record can be reversed. And all that
with its metallic transparency, crushing our miserable time against
led me where?
the walls. I am in the music. Globes of fire turn in the mirrors;
At this very instant, on this bench, in this translucent bubble
encircled by rings of smoke, veiling and unveiling the hard smile of
all humming with music.
light. My glass of beer has shrunk, it seems heaped up on the table,
And when you leave me
it looks dense and indispensable. I want to pick it up and feel the
weight of it, I stretch out my hand . . . God! That is what has Yes, I who loved so much to sit on the banks of the Tiber at
changed, my gestures. This movement of my arm has developed like Rome, or in the evening, in Barcelona, ascend and descend the
a majestic theme, it has glided along the song of the Negress; I Ramblas a hundred times, I, who near Angkor, on the island of
seemed to be dancing. Baray Prah-Kan, saw a banyan tree knot its roots about a Naga
Adolphe's face is there, set against the chocolate-coloured chapel, I am here, living in the same second as these card players, I
wall; he seems quite close. Just at the moment when my hand listen to a Negress sing while outside roves the feeble night.
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