†
armchair
†
hand
†
sun
†
machine
†
shrubbery
†
gravel
†
gravel
†
pebble
†
worm
†
grass
†
canalization
†
Villa Floréal
†
abyss
†
thread
†
mountain
†
water
†
water
†
leaf
†
jacket
†
spectacles
†
paper
†
box
†
tar
†
fossil
†
exercise-book
†
revolver
†
finger
†
fish
†
church
†
hour
†
fritter
†
pigeon
Of necessity, one wandered among these tombs without understanding them; the clouds had piled up thicker and thicker in the sky, and rain was pouring down. The turn events had taken came as a surprise, like a precipice beside some mountain road. From this cemetery, and from each of those symbolic crosses beneath which the world lay at rest, there rose the smell and the sound of death; a little way off the ground the two of them formed a still, sluggish layer of mist. It was like walking backwards through the streets of a totally destroyed town: not so much exploring a maze (since everything was clear-cut and visible) but running the gauntlet of trick mirrors, trompe-l’oeil devices, a series of cunning schemes and traps. In this symmetrical pattern there was no room, despite death’s presence, for sleep. True, there was a general atmosphere of tranquillity, or seeming tranquillity, to which the bare external shape of things, the austerity of their proportions, contributed something. Perhaps, indeed, this calm was the genuine article, the only kind of peace possible — that bred of violence and despair. Moreover, the memory of a time when things had been quite different — when colours had been firmly blocked in, when landscapes glittered with light, when every place and time had enjoyed a spell of drowsy relaxation at will, and then faded away as though they had been mere chimeras, without any importance — did not now evoke any self-flattering nostalgia. It had merely become unlivable, so that every allusion to the topic opened a door into Hell; the world’s elements had undergone such a swarming upheaval that the mere idea of the past could no longer restore them to their previous simplicity. In fact, there was no longer any question of purity or simplicity: both had become inevitable casualities. The thread of life running through them was now slender and elusive: so fine now, in fact, that the merest moment’s neglect could have proved fatal. The situation bore some resemblance, perhaps, to that of a giant thousand-year-old tree, so vast and heavy that it seemed, from its appearance, to belong to the mineral rather than the vegetable kingdom. The distance between these two kingdoms was minimaclass="underline" the merest breath — a botanist’s defection, say — would have sufficed to push the tree over the border. Yet, despite appearances, life stirred in it still, though it was hundreds of years since it had last put out fresh branches or new spring leaves, or pushed its roots farther afield. Nevertheless, it continued to exist. Deep beneath its armour, at the very heart of the trunk, a knot, a core of wood still throbbed with life and continued to grow, till its circle was complete and the dry, withered fibres thrust back another tenth of a millimetre. It also bore some resemblance to a flimsy partition, separating two conflicting elements — though without any motive for such an arrangement being found, much less the corroboration afforded by bracketing two opposites together, as it might be air and water, water and stone, fire and air, gold and lead, darkness and light. The line between life and death had by now become so fine that everyone was vaguely expecting it to break at any moment, and let the blue and crimson tides meet in the breech, one mingling with the other, spreading out, rushing on with deep whirling eddies, bearing pebbles and gravel (soon to sink and be lost), ceaselessly driving forward the third, most terrible tidal wave, deeper in hue now, an ominous purple. This ghastly rupture, the one break that could really have fatal consequences, was in fact impossible: the barrier could not be broken down. It existed in analytical terms, could be named, figured out, placed — and yet, and yet, just supposing the situation did break loose, not through a brutal fusion of the two elements, but by an inversion which decreed that henceforth all that pertained to life should become dead, and all that had been dead should become life. Supreme illusion, raucous laughter from the Devil, a syllogism that could expand on the sustenance provided by white walls, staccato movements, carefully observed and described expressions, moments of ecstasy that for the time being managed to keep chaos at bay. At all events, symmetry was preserved; the world, so virgin in appearance, had been reduced to a state of utter weakness. In private rooms and public bars, down streets and alleys, numbers of men and women were living through this process of logical contraction. Their various destinies did not run together in confusion: both in the world of the living, and in that of the dead, excitement mounted steadily. There was discussion and gesticulation, or, if you prefer, muscles came into play and bones cracked, some four and a half yards underground. Gradually the truth began to shape itself, composed of noise no less than of silence, of bodies as well as corpses. Far from horizontal — indeed, decidedly animated — truth, disguised as a middle-aged woman, went striding down the middle of the street, hair plastered down by the rain, a somewhat blurred silhouette, hands shoved into the pockets of an indigo mac and held akimbo against her hips. The rain beat down on the ground in its ancient, delicate, well-worn rhythm; the ground reflected the middle-aged lady’s figure, and at every step she took towards her unknown destination, it seemed that she could no longer escape from herself. From steep roofs down which the rain of heaven coursed, all eternity watched her pass by; the songs in the bars became one united song, the urgent appeals of the upright and godly merged together, hundreds of voices were uplifted in the cold and the wet, wrapped her about in their rhythmical cocoon, then, finally, dwindled away skyward, among the clouds. And this manifestation of truth was neither sad nor gay: from the moment it had accepted the person of a woman, and had donned that indigo macintosh, and had agreed to walk the street in the rain, above her own pear-shaped reflection, it was as though she had saddled herself with a task for all eternity, something compounded of damp earth, tear-stained fabric, heavy breasts stretching the material of the bodice, weary legs plodding yard by yard down the street. Sighing voices murmured in your ear, telling you which way to go. One fell back into the very heart of existence, rather like a stone plummeting to the bottom of a well.