He looked at everything that came his way as though it must have something to say to him. A bowl of hard-boiled eggs on the otherwise empty bar of a café. What is there about that black with the bamboo buttons on his coat? And still he was afraid of making some mistake, of missing something essential by not being somewhere else. A woman was coming toward him; her walk appealed to him, so he turned around and followed her, just to see her walking. Now and then she looked over her shoulder, and it seemed as though she were going away from him, only from him.
He saw an overturned wheelbarrow and realized how unmoved it now left him — the fact of its being overturned simply didn’t interest him any more. He was free, at least for this evening and this night. Lusting for conquest, he started running down the hill, and the rows of houses sank, as though reduced by his gaze. “I’m changing right now!” he said. It seemed to him that he hadn’t spoken for ages. He made the kind of sound one might make to frighten an animal, but now it was addressed to everything in the world. Mere breathing, even swallowing, gave him pleasure — every swallowing movement was something new. The world around him was so changed that when, passing a movie house, he saw a photograph of a nude couple covered by a sheet, he thought with amazement: So they’re still making films with lovers draped in sheets! And when, from force of habit, he read in the headlines of a newspaper someone had thrown away: “ … felled by shot in abdomen,” he thought: So people still die of wounds in the abdomen! Although he saw the same things as before, and from the same angle, they had become alien and therefore bearable. Walking with a firm step, he stretched. An unfamiliar perfume came to him through the dusk, but now it did not, as so often in the past, remind him of stifling, hopeless embraces — he no longer remembered, but only anticipated. Passing a shopping arcade, he thought: It could happen here; the unique, never related event could happen here! Outside a café he caught sight of a woman alone; though she was so absent as to be unapproachable, he saw her as the embodiment of a seductive taboo, and once again he thought: Yes, that’s it, that’s her whole story — I would never be able to find out any more about her than in this moment, seeing her sitting there alone. Eagerly he watched his own thoughts, always ready to buttonhole them. He wanted never again to forget anything, and in his mind he recapitulated the moments that had just passed, as though memorizing the words of a foreign language. He had to remember them all, so as to use them later. (Nevertheless he looked forward to every single person he would meet that day, even if they couldn’t talk about anything.) He passed a brightly lighted church; the doors were wide open and he saw the priest raising his arm as a signal for the choir to come in. He saw a hand holding a lighted candle in such a way that the wax dripped onto a tray that was already holding a great many lighted candles. Suddenly the wax dripping from the inclined candle took Keuschnig’s breath away, not because it was dripping candle wax, but because, though he had seen it before, he had never before EXPERIENCED it. When he came to the level streets at the foot of the hill, it still seemed to him that he was looking down at the streets that lay ahead, as though they extended on and on and he was able to encompass the downward-curving surface of the earth in a single glance. Then something on the sidewalk caught his eye (what is it? he wondered); it seemed enormously important — but it was only the last shred of daylight. He read the “Faire signe au machiniste” sign at a bus stop, and it ran through his head like the title of a song hit … Under the evening-blue sky — a star had already come out in the west — the long buildings of central Paris looked totally black, but so furry-soft and rounded that they seemed to have turned into tents, the main tent being the sprawling Grand Palais. He slowed down. The streets were still rather empty, but wherever people were sitting there were a good many of them, talking softly, pressed more closely together than usual. Suddenly he expected a war to break out and bombers to come thundering out of the horizon. A queasy feeling came over him as he thought that everything had been made clear and that nothing more could happen to him.
From the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle on, there were people on the street. Children who should have been home in bed were being dragged coughing through clouds of exhaust fumes. The boulevard was so noisy that the grownups had to bend down to talk to them. Once Keuschnig heard a roaring in the crowd, and all the people seemed to break step and run away. What were they running from? Was he the only one going to the Place de l‘Opéra? Many of the old people looked disgruntled, despite their success in living so long. Seeing a woman at an open window, Keuschnig was sure she was going to jump out. A man yawned and the saliva ran out of his mouth. Keuschnig wanted to take a cab, but the driver, without even looking at him, responded by throwing a black leather bag over his sign. He noticed the swollen ankles of a woman coming toward him, and she made faces at him. Someone leaned against a car with a splintered windshield and vomited. Two men were hopping about on the sidewalk, smiling and pinching each other’s cheeks, but already their teeth were clenched, for in the next moment they would start punching each other. A man with a white handkerchief in his breast pocket was pushed by in a wheelchair. The boulevard was immersed in dark smog; the lower halves of the yellow lamps at the Métro entrances were black with soot. A woman who had been laughing shrilly grew suddenly serious and jerked her head to one side, as though the time had come for her to die. No one got out of anyone’s way; in a moment someone in this jostling crowd would pull a revolver and fire at those faces. The people coming toward Keuschnig looked like people who had been filmed a long time ago; in reality they had ceased to exist — what he saw was only the latest film with them in it. They moved and let themselves drift as if they had had enough of their functions to last them forever. How COMPLIANT they seemed, nevertheless! And meanwhile in their apartments the milk was getting sour, the orange juice was separating, and a viscous scum was forming on the water in the toilet bowls! He passed through the crowd, swaying from side to side for fear of losing his newly won balance. If anyone was in his way, Keuschnig pushed him efficiently aside — after all he had been through, he could allow himself that liberty. He found a trampled letter in the gutter and read it as he went on: “One day, four years ago, I became indifferent to everything from one minute to the next. Thus began the most harrowing period of my life …” It occurred to him that he had never had a real enemy, someone he wanted to destroy mercilessly. I’ll make as many enemies as possible! he thought, grown strangely cheerful. Looking down at the asphalt still soft with the heat of the day, he suddenly saw himself as the hero of an unknown tale … Somewhat listless, almost gloomy at the thought that he was due to make someone’s acquaintance, Keuschnig approached the Café de la Paix just as the three-headed street lamps of the Place de l’Opéra went on. On the terrace a light flashed. The cigarette girl was standing at one of the tables swaying her tray. Someone else, approaching at the same time as Keuschnig, was already being beckoned to.