Moment of True Feeling (11 page)
Outside on the square a half-naked drunk was bellowing; at the sight of him a mood of smug complicity enveloped many of the diners, who were not only clothed but also more or less sober. A few began talking from table to table, even to Keuschnig. He looked down at his trousers. That's their kind of solidarity, he thoughtâthough only a short while ago he had thought of solidarity first as the illusion of being taken back into the fold after being cleared of a grave suspicion, and second as a last moment of belonging before one is isolated forever. The innocence of the child, who, while all the others were smirking at each other, was merely frightened by the bellowing! For the first time he was glad to be alone with her.
North of the
Place Clichy, after crossing the Montmartre Cemetery on the raised rue Caulaincourt and turning left into the somewhat quieter rue Joseph-de-Maistre, you come to a dusty, grassless park with a children's playground in one corner. Keuschnig had lived in the neighborhood some years before and sometimes on Sunday mornings he had put the child, who could barely stand at the time, in the sandbox. Since this park was not far from the Place Clichy, he now headed for it, but took a more roundabout route by way of the Avenue de Saint-Ouen. He saw few SIGNS on the way, and even those seemed to tease rather than threaten him: a single boot in a supermarket cart that someone had left standing in the street; a bus ticket which fell from his hand and blew away every time he stooped to pick it up ⦠The beggar who twittered like various kinds of birds was still standing on his old corner, to which the ladies of the neighborhood were dragged by their leashed dogs, which proceeded to piss right next to him, so that their owners felt obliged to give him a pittance to compensate for the humiliation ⦠It gave Keuschnig a sense of well-being to walk slowly through the bright, hot streets with the child hop-skip-jumping
beside him. He hadn't wanted to go to the movies because to judge by the pictures at the Place Clichy the films seemed to take place entirely indoors. What a lot of automatic machines are still out of order around here, he thought in passing, almost cheerfully: washing machines, stamp vending machines, and now this photostating machine outside the stationery store, which even in those days had an EN
PANNE
sign on it. The air was so hot that vapor formed in cellophane packages of crepes outside a bakery. A thin bony man overtook Keuschnig; of all the people on the street, he was the only one who seemed to be in a hurry; his prominent shoulder blades jiggled under his tight-fitting summer jacket. Here and there North African workers, apparently grown accustomed to the lack of space, were sitting on doorsteps, waiting for the end of the lunch hour. A pale counter girl, with a name tag on the collar of her apron, stepped out of a pastry shop, closed her eyes, sighed and bent back her head so as to get the sun in her face. Another girl, carrying a cup of coffee, crossed the street very very slowly, step by step, for fear of spilling the coffee. Keuschnig stopped still and without a word from him Agnes stopped tooâbecause it was so hot, just plain hot. The street trembled as the Métro passed inaudibly underneath. Keuschnig felt the tremor. This is it! he thought. Yes, this is it!âan experience that he had given up expecting.
Place Clichy, after crossing the Montmartre Cemetery on the raised rue Caulaincourt and turning left into the somewhat quieter rue Joseph-de-Maistre, you come to a dusty, grassless park with a children's playground in one corner. Keuschnig had lived in the neighborhood some years before and sometimes on Sunday mornings he had put the child, who could barely stand at the time, in the sandbox. Since this park was not far from the Place Clichy, he now headed for it, but took a more roundabout route by way of the Avenue de Saint-Ouen. He saw few SIGNS on the way, and even those seemed to tease rather than threaten him: a single boot in a supermarket cart that someone had left standing in the street; a bus ticket which fell from his hand and blew away every time he stooped to pick it up ⦠The beggar who twittered like various kinds of birds was still standing on his old corner, to which the ladies of the neighborhood were dragged by their leashed dogs, which proceeded to piss right next to him, so that their owners felt obliged to give him a pittance to compensate for the humiliation ⦠It gave Keuschnig a sense of well-being to walk slowly through the bright, hot streets with the child hop-skip-jumping
beside him. He hadn't wanted to go to the movies because to judge by the pictures at the Place Clichy the films seemed to take place entirely indoors. What a lot of automatic machines are still out of order around here, he thought in passing, almost cheerfully: washing machines, stamp vending machines, and now this photostating machine outside the stationery store, which even in those days had an EN
PANNE
sign on it. The air was so hot that vapor formed in cellophane packages of crepes outside a bakery. A thin bony man overtook Keuschnig; of all the people on the street, he was the only one who seemed to be in a hurry; his prominent shoulder blades jiggled under his tight-fitting summer jacket. Here and there North African workers, apparently grown accustomed to the lack of space, were sitting on doorsteps, waiting for the end of the lunch hour. A pale counter girl, with a name tag on the collar of her apron, stepped out of a pastry shop, closed her eyes, sighed and bent back her head so as to get the sun in her face. Another girl, carrying a cup of coffee, crossed the street very very slowly, step by step, for fear of spilling the coffee. Keuschnig stopped still and without a word from him Agnes stopped tooâbecause it was so hot, just plain hot. The street trembled as the Métro passed inaudibly underneath. Keuschnig felt the tremor. This is it! he thought. Yes, this is it!âan experience that he had given up expecting.
They walked in a primeval heat, in which far and wide there was no more danger, step by step like the girl with the cup, but for the pleasure of it, not because they had to. Keuschnig no longer had to adjust to the child's slow unthinking gait; now he walked like that of his own accord, and the summer breeze, in which a branch crackled now and
then, nothing more, seemed a fulfillment, yet still full of promise. High in the air a plane flew by and for a short moment the light changed, as though the shadow of the plane had passed quickly over the street. He wanted to shout at far distant trees that were gleaming in the sun and tell them to stay just as they were. Why didn't anyone speak to him?
then, nothing more, seemed a fulfillment, yet still full of promise. High in the air a plane flew by and for a short moment the light changed, as though the shadow of the plane had passed quickly over the street. He wanted to shout at far distant trees that were gleaming in the sun and tell them to stay just as they were. Why didn't anyone speak to him?
In a side street Keuschnig saw the house he had lived in some years before, with a maple tree in front of it that reached just up to the windows of his old apartment. In that moment he was overcome with bitterness at all the wasted time since then and with disappointment with himself. Since then he had experienced nothing, undertaken nothing. Everything was as muddled as ever, and death, from which he had then been safe, was much nearer. I've got to do something, he thought in despair, and no sooner had the thought passed through his mind than he said to the child: “I'm going to start working. I'm going to invent something. I need the kind of job that gives me a chance to invent something.” Agnes, who had heard nothing but his voice, responded with a carefree hopping step, and for the first time in ages his feeling toward her was one of friendliness, rather than of absent-minded indifference and anxious love.
Thinking he'd like to read in the playground, he went to a bookshop and bought a paperback volume of Henry James short stories. Again, as on the morning “when it all began,” he saw a marble plaque in memory of a Resistance fighter who had been shot by the Germans on that spot. This one, too, had a withered fern under it. He told the child what had happened thirty years ago. The man's first name had been Jacques, and he had been killed at this same
season, in late July. And today the Square Carpeaux was as dusty as it had been three years ago, yet as never before.âKeuschnig felt that he was close to discovering the insignificant detail which would bring all other things together.
season, in late July. And today the Square Carpeaux was as dusty as it had been three years ago, yet as never before.âKeuschnig felt that he was close to discovering the insignificant detail which would bring all other things together.
The child, at least, seemed to be changing. Only a few days before, she had gone down the Métro stairs haltingly, always advancing the same foot and drawing the other behind it; now her movements as she walked down the steps to the playground were one smooth continuous flow, left foot right foot, left foot right foot. At first she only stood at the edge of the playground, looking on. The streets had been almost deserted, but here on the square there was suddenly a crush of children and grownups; most of the grownups were elderly Frenchwomen and young foreign women. Keuschnig sat down on a bench. Agnes was standing there deep in thought. He touched her gently with his foot, and without looking around at him she smiled, as though she had been waiting for this touch. In her self-sufficiency she radiated a pride so objective that it carried over to him. If only he could perceive with her! That would drive away his surfeit and disgust. Who was he to look down on these tired, discontented women dragging behind them and occasionally slapping their screaming children, who now and then forgot their misery long enough to hop-skip-jump for a moment. One of these women, plagued by a bawling, wriggling child, was covertly getting ready to strike when she noticed that Keuschnig was looking at her. Suddenly she let down her guard, and her eyes revealed all her anger and hopelessness, as though she knew she was being looked at by a kindred spirit, from whom she had no need to hide.
How much there was to see, and no trace of disgust
dismissed the sights as familiar! The tall, tall ash trees and the dark, dark square ⦠So little sun shone through that the women, especially the younger ones, kept moving their chairs into the few sunny spots. Now and then one of them would stand up and toss a plastic shovel into the sand to stimulate her childâwho would scarcely take noticeâor to reassemble a collection of toys around a child, who had scattered them ⦠Often, when a child misbehaved, the mother would clap her hands menacingly, without getting up from her bench, and at the sound the pigeons, which had been strolling around in the sand among the children, would fly up into the air. One woman, while watching a child, who had just called out to her because he was about to let himself drop from the climbing bars, rocked an occupied baby carriage with one hand, and held the other over her once again swelling belly. Another woman was counting the stitches on her knitting needle, and still another blowing sand out of the eyes of a crying child. Many foreign names were called: TIZIANA! FELICITAS! PRUDENCIA! ⦠Misery and loneliness descended like a last possible harmony on the swarming, dust-veiled square, on the women with their plastic bags beside them, on the park guardian dozing in his octagonal sentry box yet ready to take action at any moment, on the children, who drummed with their heels on the sheet metal before starting down the squeaking slides, while the next in line were impatiently hopping about at the foot of the ladders, on this constantly repeated, spasmodic to-and-fro, in which nothing happenedâeven the sewer gratings were plugged with dust and sand; on this whole wretched playground that smelled of soap and resounded with the children's shrill clamor, the women's cries, the guardian's
police whistle, and the rasping of roller skates on concrete.
dismissed the sights as familiar! The tall, tall ash trees and the dark, dark square ⦠So little sun shone through that the women, especially the younger ones, kept moving their chairs into the few sunny spots. Now and then one of them would stand up and toss a plastic shovel into the sand to stimulate her childâwho would scarcely take noticeâor to reassemble a collection of toys around a child, who had scattered them ⦠Often, when a child misbehaved, the mother would clap her hands menacingly, without getting up from her bench, and at the sound the pigeons, which had been strolling around in the sand among the children, would fly up into the air. One woman, while watching a child, who had just called out to her because he was about to let himself drop from the climbing bars, rocked an occupied baby carriage with one hand, and held the other over her once again swelling belly. Another woman was counting the stitches on her knitting needle, and still another blowing sand out of the eyes of a crying child. Many foreign names were called: TIZIANA! FELICITAS! PRUDENCIA! ⦠Misery and loneliness descended like a last possible harmony on the swarming, dust-veiled square, on the women with their plastic bags beside them, on the park guardian dozing in his octagonal sentry box yet ready to take action at any moment, on the children, who drummed with their heels on the sheet metal before starting down the squeaking slides, while the next in line were impatiently hopping about at the foot of the ladders, on this constantly repeated, spasmodic to-and-fro, in which nothing happenedâeven the sewer gratings were plugged with dust and sand; on this whole wretched playground that smelled of soap and resounded with the children's shrill clamor, the women's cries, the guardian's
police whistle, and the rasping of roller skates on concrete.
It gave him real pain to expel his breath after looking for so long. Suddenly the child fell heavily against him and almost knocked him over; her cheeks were soft and she was crying over something unconscionably heartbreakingâwhat? a trembling toy pinscher being carried past in somebody's bag. “That's nothing to cry about,” he said. Where the tears stopped, the light was refracted on her cheek and made the skin lighter ⦠A butterfly hovered around his fingertips and refused to go away; as though its clinging to him would stop him from killing it. He caught sight of a black-clad Portuguese woman with a knitted vest over her arm. A white petticoat showed below her skirt. She attended absently to everything, and nothing seemed beyond her reach. Radiating the charm of an idiot, she seemed infinitely untouched, and oh, how infinitely sheltered were the movements of the child in her care! She smiled at a wish another child had expressed to its mother, but here again as though caught up in some serene memory, whichâsince the child's wish was immediately satisfiedâmay have been quite unrelated to the scene before her eyes and in any event was totally free from envy. The knitted vest and the showing petticoat turned Keuschnig's thought to the poor peasants among whom he had grown up, and he recalled how, as a rule, they were fond of their kin despite all their peculiarities, but were repelled by the same oddities in others, and how he himself had been no different!
He sat in the square for a long while, one among many, with no thought of the future. He expected nothing; just once he had a vision of all these people taking on a strange look and beginning to sob heartbreakingly, but all the while
excusing themselves on the grounds that they hadn't slept the night before, that the sun didn't agree with them, and that their stomachs were empty. Who could possibly tell them they had nothing to be ashamed of?âWhen for once he turned away from himself and looked up, he was at a loss to understand why everything hadn't changed in the meantime. âAt last Agnes, now comforted, spoke to him as if she trusted him. She told him a little about herself, and he saw how many SECRETS she already had. She has secrets! he thought, with a glow of happiness. All at once, out of friendliness, she began to use some of his words and phrases. And in everything, in clouds, in the shadows of the trees, in puddles, she saw SHAPESâwhich he had stopped seeing long ago â¦
excusing themselves on the grounds that they hadn't slept the night before, that the sun didn't agree with them, and that their stomachs were empty. Who could possibly tell them they had nothing to be ashamed of?âWhen for once he turned away from himself and looked up, he was at a loss to understand why everything hadn't changed in the meantime. âAt last Agnes, now comforted, spoke to him as if she trusted him. She told him a little about herself, and he saw how many SECRETS she already had. She has secrets! he thought, with a glow of happiness. All at once, out of friendliness, she began to use some of his words and phrases. And in everything, in clouds, in the shadows of the trees, in puddles, she saw SHAPESâwhich he had stopped seeing long ago â¦
While she was running about with the other children, he was contentedly reading one of Henry James's frequent descriptions of women's dress. At last something that wasn't a newspaper article. “She was dressed in white muslin, with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-colored ribbon. She was bare-headed; but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty.” He read on and on, and while reading he looked forward to buying something for the first time in ever so long. He thought of himself walking across a square in a new, light-colored summer suit. With all the new things that were happening to him and the old things that he mustn't forget, he was sure to have a most extraordinary experience.
When Keuschnig looked up, the child was gone. And the other children were playing quite naturally, as though Agnes hadn't been there for a long time and they had
arranged their game differently without her. He jumped up but sat right back down again, and even read a few lines in his book, unable to skip a single word. He must paint his face âthis minute! And cut off all his hair! The trees set up a rustling, and he experienced that moment when suddenly, in the middle of the summer, one shudders at the thought of darkest, coldest winter. He held his breath and tried to stop thinking, as though that would stop the course of events. Frantically he tried to make ready for what was to come. A woman looked at him as though she knew something he did not. Who would be the first to tell him? The women screeching behind him weren't laughing; they were prognosticating doom. Up until then everything had been flimflam and foolishness. This was the real thing. In that moment Keuschnig resolved, as though everything humanly possible had been tried, that he would not go on living.
arranged their game differently without her. He jumped up but sat right back down again, and even read a few lines in his book, unable to skip a single word. He must paint his face âthis minute! And cut off all his hair! The trees set up a rustling, and he experienced that moment when suddenly, in the middle of the summer, one shudders at the thought of darkest, coldest winter. He held his breath and tried to stop thinking, as though that would stop the course of events. Frantically he tried to make ready for what was to come. A woman looked at him as though she knew something he did not. Who would be the first to tell him? The women screeching behind him weren't laughing; they were prognosticating doom. Up until then everything had been flimflam and foolishness. This was the real thing. In that moment Keuschnig resolved, as though everything humanly possible had been tried, that he would not go on living.
He searched
the whole square, peered into every car that drove up, but only as a matter of form. The unthinkable, because it was unthinkable, was all the more frightfully real. He wanted to go mad immediately; that seemed the only escape. Only in madness could everything be undone; then THE DEAD WOULD COME BACK TO LIFE! Then one could be with them forever, with no thought of death ⦠But powerless to transform himself into a madman, he could only imagine what it would be like. He remained hideously awake. Automatically, with a pleasure he had never known, his hands passed over the bones of his face. Calmly and deliberately, as the guardian would testify later on, he gave him his addresses, said he was going to notify the police, and started eastward through the city streets.
the whole square, peered into every car that drove up, but only as a matter of form. The unthinkable, because it was unthinkable, was all the more frightfully real. He wanted to go mad immediately; that seemed the only escape. Only in madness could everything be undone; then THE DEAD WOULD COME BACK TO LIFE! Then one could be with them forever, with no thought of death ⦠But powerless to transform himself into a madman, he could only imagine what it would be like. He remained hideously awake. Automatically, with a pleasure he had never known, his hands passed over the bones of his face. Calmly and deliberately, as the guardian would testify later on, he gave him his addresses, said he was going to notify the police, and started eastward through the city streets.
All at once Keuschnig began to feel with the people he saw; his long indifference turned to a sweet sympathy. Those people riding in carsâwhat torture it must be for them to be always on the move, always fighting their way from place to place in those tin cans; in short, what misery for them to go on living! What despair in the howling of the trucks' power brakes! For a short moment it struck him that politics,
seen as the worldwide defense of concrete local interests and not as inanity masked by bustle and violence, might be possible and worth bothering with. His eyes opened to every detail, but he saw none separate from the rest. A woman taxi driver with a woman passenger; a little boy with a toy tommy gun, bawling as he ran after his mother ⦠He felt he had grown powerful, capable of speaking to everyone and bringing happiness to all. Once in passing he informed a man that his shoelace had come undone, and with no show of surprise the man thanked him. He saw a man in a ten-gallon hat and as though doing him a kindness asked him where he was from. Nothing struck him as ridiculous any longer. At the sight of a woman with a red scarf on her head, climbing the steps to an elevated Métro station, he was at a loss to understand how he could ever have thought of himself. Overwhelmed with regret at having to die now, he took care in crossing the street to avoid every single car.
seen as the worldwide defense of concrete local interests and not as inanity masked by bustle and violence, might be possible and worth bothering with. His eyes opened to every detail, but he saw none separate from the rest. A woman taxi driver with a woman passenger; a little boy with a toy tommy gun, bawling as he ran after his mother ⦠He felt he had grown powerful, capable of speaking to everyone and bringing happiness to all. Once in passing he informed a man that his shoelace had come undone, and with no show of surprise the man thanked him. He saw a man in a ten-gallon hat and as though doing him a kindness asked him where he was from. Nothing struck him as ridiculous any longer. At the sight of a woman with a red scarf on her head, climbing the steps to an elevated Métro station, he was at a loss to understand how he could ever have thought of himself. Overwhelmed with regret at having to die now, he took care in crossing the street to avoid every single car.
He had no sensation of his body and hovered weightless in the midst of people dragging themselves painfully along. He was sorry, for the others' sake!, not to have a bit of a toothache. On a bench by a bus stop a man was sitting with his hands in his lap and his head bowed, as though waiting for his pursuers. Keuschnig was sure the man would tell him everything if only he tapped him on the shoulder. He actually did sit down beside him for a moment and asked him what kind of work he did, but the man looked back as though such a question humiliated him!
At one of those little fountains one finds all over Paris, he washed his face in the clear, soundless jet of water, as though he had actually painted it before. How warm the water flowed on this warm day! The closer Keuschnig came
to the Buttes-Chaumont, the richer the Paris scene seemed to him. He saw a girl kick away the prop of a motorcycle with her heel and drive off; a big black woman carrying a full plastic shopping bag on her head; a tractor driving down a busy city street, strewing hay behind it; a bakery girl going from café to café with a basket of long loaves, as bakery girls had done since time out of mind; a fat man sitting on a bench in his suspenders; far away, for a few moments, the gilded tips of a park fence ⦠There was nothing his gaze could not take in. In his eyes a woman wedging her handbag under her chin and holding parcels between her knees as she unlocked a house door and pushed it open with one foot stood for moments in a possible life which was being revealed to him now that it was too late. He saw the glittering metal disks at the pedestrian crossings, the treetops moving with a motion of their own as though wishing at every moment to transform themselves into something else; he heard the soft tittering sound of a flock of pigeons flying into the wind; passing a movie house, he heard shots, screams, and the end of a filmâsoft music and the calm, friendly voices of a man and a womanâsmelled freshly polished shoes through the open door of a shoemaker's shop, saw thick clumps of hair on the floor of a barbershop, saw an ice-cream scoop in dirty water outside a refreshment stand, saw a tailless cat run straight from a doorway to a parked car and sit down under it, heard the whir of a sausage slicer in a horse butcher's shop, heard the crackle of drying plaster from every floor of an almost finished building, saw the
patronne,
bouquet in hand, unlocking the door of her restaurant, which she was reopening to make ready for dinnerâand said aloud: “What a lot of things there are!” The first
grapes of the year, and on them the first wasps; in a wooden crate the first hazelnuts, still in their rufflike carpels; on the sidewalks the outlines of the first fallen leaves, which by then had blown away ⦠The markets were much smaller in the summertime. The coat racks in the cafésâall empty! The post offices freshly painted, the sidewalks dug up for new telephone lines, and the workers down in the ditch grinning as they watched a child wobbling along on plastic roller skates. At a movie house they were running an animated cartoon starring Popeye the Sailorman, who had only to down a can of spinach and he could take on the whole world. How disgustingly squeamish Keuschnig seemed to himself! He felt sure he had overlooked something, missed something that could never be retrieved. He stopped still and looked through all his pockets. A woman wouldn't dare to stop like that in the middle of the sidewalk, he thought. At last he felt unobserved. Almost contentedly he smelled his own sweat. The incessant roar of the traffic made his head feel better and he let out an animal cry. I don't have to see any more signs of death, he thought, because there's no one left to love. Someone dropped a bunch of keys. A well-dressed woman slipped and fell on her behind; but, instead of looking away as usual, he watched her pick herself up with an embarrassed smile. He walked with his hands behind his back like a headwaiter with nothing to do. The cranes moved against the drifting clouds and he moved beneath them, with the calm of eternity.
to the Buttes-Chaumont, the richer the Paris scene seemed to him. He saw a girl kick away the prop of a motorcycle with her heel and drive off; a big black woman carrying a full plastic shopping bag on her head; a tractor driving down a busy city street, strewing hay behind it; a bakery girl going from café to café with a basket of long loaves, as bakery girls had done since time out of mind; a fat man sitting on a bench in his suspenders; far away, for a few moments, the gilded tips of a park fence ⦠There was nothing his gaze could not take in. In his eyes a woman wedging her handbag under her chin and holding parcels between her knees as she unlocked a house door and pushed it open with one foot stood for moments in a possible life which was being revealed to him now that it was too late. He saw the glittering metal disks at the pedestrian crossings, the treetops moving with a motion of their own as though wishing at every moment to transform themselves into something else; he heard the soft tittering sound of a flock of pigeons flying into the wind; passing a movie house, he heard shots, screams, and the end of a filmâsoft music and the calm, friendly voices of a man and a womanâsmelled freshly polished shoes through the open door of a shoemaker's shop, saw thick clumps of hair on the floor of a barbershop, saw an ice-cream scoop in dirty water outside a refreshment stand, saw a tailless cat run straight from a doorway to a parked car and sit down under it, heard the whir of a sausage slicer in a horse butcher's shop, heard the crackle of drying plaster from every floor of an almost finished building, saw the
patronne,
bouquet in hand, unlocking the door of her restaurant, which she was reopening to make ready for dinnerâand said aloud: “What a lot of things there are!” The first
grapes of the year, and on them the first wasps; in a wooden crate the first hazelnuts, still in their rufflike carpels; on the sidewalks the outlines of the first fallen leaves, which by then had blown away ⦠The markets were much smaller in the summertime. The coat racks in the cafésâall empty! The post offices freshly painted, the sidewalks dug up for new telephone lines, and the workers down in the ditch grinning as they watched a child wobbling along on plastic roller skates. At a movie house they were running an animated cartoon starring Popeye the Sailorman, who had only to down a can of spinach and he could take on the whole world. How disgustingly squeamish Keuschnig seemed to himself! He felt sure he had overlooked something, missed something that could never be retrieved. He stopped still and looked through all his pockets. A woman wouldn't dare to stop like that in the middle of the sidewalk, he thought. At last he felt unobserved. Almost contentedly he smelled his own sweat. The incessant roar of the traffic made his head feel better and he let out an animal cry. I don't have to see any more signs of death, he thought, because there's no one left to love. Someone dropped a bunch of keys. A well-dressed woman slipped and fell on her behind; but, instead of looking away as usual, he watched her pick herself up with an embarrassed smile. He walked with his hands behind his back like a headwaiter with nothing to do. The cranes moved against the drifting clouds and he moved beneath them, with the calm of eternity.
Keuschnig wanted nothing more for himself. The usual sights took on a magical sparkleâand every one of them showed him inexhaustible riches. He himself had ceased to count, for he had merged with all those others who were
moving this way and that with selfless energy, and he fully expected the jolt he created by transferring the happiness he had no use for to these people, to make them change their step. He was still in a certain sense aliveâwith them. His state was no longer a momentary mood; it was a conviction (to which all his momentary moods had contributed!), a conviction it would be possible to work with. Now the idea that had come to him on seeing those three things in the sand of the Carré Marigny seemed usable. In becoming mysterious to him, the world opened itself and could be reconquered. While crossing an overpass near the Gare de l'Est, he saw an old black umbrella lying beside the railroad tracks down below: this was no longer a pointer to something else; it was a thing in its own right, beautiful or ugly in its own right, and ugly and beautiful in common with all other things. Whichever way he looked, there was something to see, just as in dreams of finding gold one sees its glitter every time one bends down. Particulars remote from one anotherâa spoon yellowed by egg yolk lying in the street, the swallows high in the airâvibrated with a kinship and harmony for which he required no further memory or dream, and left him with a feeling that one could return home on foot from any point whatsoever.
moving this way and that with selfless energy, and he fully expected the jolt he created by transferring the happiness he had no use for to these people, to make them change their step. He was still in a certain sense aliveâwith them. His state was no longer a momentary mood; it was a conviction (to which all his momentary moods had contributed!), a conviction it would be possible to work with. Now the idea that had come to him on seeing those three things in the sand of the Carré Marigny seemed usable. In becoming mysterious to him, the world opened itself and could be reconquered. While crossing an overpass near the Gare de l'Est, he saw an old black umbrella lying beside the railroad tracks down below: this was no longer a pointer to something else; it was a thing in its own right, beautiful or ugly in its own right, and ugly and beautiful in common with all other things. Whichever way he looked, there was something to see, just as in dreams of finding gold one sees its glitter every time one bends down. Particulars remote from one anotherâa spoon yellowed by egg yolk lying in the street, the swallows high in the airâvibrated with a kinship and harmony for which he required no further memory or dream, and left him with a feeling that one could return home on foot from any point whatsoever.
The sun was already so low that the cars were dark on the dazzlingly bright boulevards. Someone was walking behind him, keeping step with him, neither catching up nor falling backâbut Keuschnig didn't look around. People were standing in line outside a movie house where
Ben Hur
was being shown. How long was it since he himself had seen that picture; how often since then it had been shown all over the place! Yet there were still people seeing it for the first
time, people entirely different from him but at the moment quite the same. How many people were toting bundles of clothing down the street because most of the cleaning establishments closed at the end of July, while others, carrying folded air mattresses in beach bags, were going home from the swimming pools. He sat down on the terrace of a cafe; a sign fastened to the awning said: CHANGEMENT DE DIRECTION: TOUT EST BON. Out in the street, a few yards of old car track that had not been entirely tarred over glistened in the sun. An apartment was still for sale in the new building across the way. Under the café chairs two dogs were barking at each other. A very old man chuckled as he dropped an airmail letter into a mailbox â¦
Ben Hur
was being shown. How long was it since he himself had seen that picture; how often since then it had been shown all over the place! Yet there were still people seeing it for the first
time, people entirely different from him but at the moment quite the same. How many people were toting bundles of clothing down the street because most of the cleaning establishments closed at the end of July, while others, carrying folded air mattresses in beach bags, were going home from the swimming pools. He sat down on the terrace of a cafe; a sign fastened to the awning said: CHANGEMENT DE DIRECTION: TOUT EST BON. Out in the street, a few yards of old car track that had not been entirely tarred over glistened in the sun. An apartment was still for sale in the new building across the way. Under the café chairs two dogs were barking at each other. A very old man chuckled as he dropped an airmail letter into a mailbox â¦
It was only when from time to time he saw a woman pass that Keuschnig became uneasy. The lines of the calves and thighs, the clefts of their bosoms filled him with such longing that he felt his face growing stern. Once, when a woman passed behind the frosted-glass pane of a bus shelter and only her silhouette could be seen, he wished she would go on walking behind the frosted glass forever. He was overcome with rage and chagrin at the thought that all these passing women were not meant for him, that he would never see them again, and an intimation came to him of what they might have meant in his life. How it upset himâeven today! âwhen he failed to get a good look at one of those faces âas though he were missing something crucial.
Then the sunshades were lowered, but they still revolved in their supports, for the wind had risen. The waiter smiled on receiving his tip, and today Keuschnig took that smile very seriously. He was grateful to the people who remained seated near him but paid no attention to him. For
a long while he watched the water from a hydrant gush foaming into the gutter. When in a newspaper someone had left behind he read that a singer had achieved “a glorious C-major,” he was so moved he almost screamed. He wanted to leave his fingerprints all over the table. A man reading a book beside him took off his glasses, and suddenly Keuschnig was afraid he might be leavingâbut the man only thrust the book into the distance and went on reading. What a relief, what peace! ⦠Keuschnig looked around. Maybe something would come of it: a new thought, a possibility. For some time now, a game of ping-pong had been in progress in the cellar under the café, and the regular click-click-click filled Keuschnig with disgust. At last the ball went astray ⦠Thoughtless and unafraid, he left the café and climbed the steep paths of the Buttes-Chaumont.
a long while he watched the water from a hydrant gush foaming into the gutter. When in a newspaper someone had left behind he read that a singer had achieved “a glorious C-major,” he was so moved he almost screamed. He wanted to leave his fingerprints all over the table. A man reading a book beside him took off his glasses, and suddenly Keuschnig was afraid he might be leavingâbut the man only thrust the book into the distance and went on reading. What a relief, what peace! ⦠Keuschnig looked around. Maybe something would come of it: a new thought, a possibility. For some time now, a game of ping-pong had been in progress in the cellar under the café, and the regular click-click-click filled Keuschnig with disgust. At last the ball went astray ⦠Thoughtless and unafraid, he left the café and climbed the steep paths of the Buttes-Chaumont.
He passed a police call box. The deep red post was a tangible consolation in a painfully expanding wasteland, and absurdly he made a note of the spot. Someone was RUNNING behind him; no, not running on his account; someone WHISTLED, why wouldn't he be whistling at him?! Slight incongruities outside him now affected him in his own body; he jumped at the sight of a potato rolling out of a woman's string bag, cringed when he saw, far below, a child riding a bicycle through a puddle.
He felt cold again. Some blue shirts on a clothesline behind bushes at the edge of the park reminded him of his birthplace, not of any particular event, but of a long, mortal eventlessness. As though that were the possibility, he tried to open his mind to other memories. But nothing happened, except that he suddenly found himself outside the entrance to an underground station in wintry Stockholm ⦠Could
new gestures and faces be a way out? How about wagging his head, pursing his lips, and fanning himself with one hand like these French people? No more of that nonsense ⦠By then he was standing on an artificial cliff and looking westward he could see Paris in the yellow evening sun. A little daydream might be his salvation! He felt his pockets to make sure he had his passport. At this point, only someone from another system could hold him back. Not far away, a wrinkled woman with hair on her chin gave a younger man a smacking kiss on the lips, and went off. Keuschnig waited, strangely curious, for the man to wipe away the alien saliva. But he only stood motionless, gazing down at the city, and after a while walked away with long strides.
new gestures and faces be a way out? How about wagging his head, pursing his lips, and fanning himself with one hand like these French people? No more of that nonsense ⦠By then he was standing on an artificial cliff and looking westward he could see Paris in the yellow evening sun. A little daydream might be his salvation! He felt his pockets to make sure he had his passport. At this point, only someone from another system could hold him back. Not far away, a wrinkled woman with hair on her chin gave a younger man a smacking kiss on the lips, and went off. Keuschnig waited, strangely curious, for the man to wipe away the alien saliva. But he only stood motionless, gazing down at the city, and after a while walked away with long strides.
At that moment Keuschnig felt ashamed of having to die and be dead. The way things had turned out, there was nothing left for him to do but draw a last breath and be a corpse. He could put up with being dead if the rest of the world would stop at the same moment. As it was, his body, in death more pretentious than ever, would only be putting on airs. He took a step forward, not for any precise purpose, but for spite, because he no longer knew what he wanted. âThe hair-raisingly repugnant sense of shame he had so often experienced at the thought of living and of being something bodily, nakedly conspicuous and unique, of being ONE TOO MANY, held him back from the last and most singular manifestation of life, and made him for the present stay where he was at the top of the cliff.
Though he no longer envisaged a way out, he looked around from sheer instinct, and saw, some distance away, the fat writer, who had apparently been looking at Keuschnig for some time, for he was not out of breath from the
steep climb. The writer clapped his notebook shut and put it away in the inside pocket of his jacket, as though certain he wasn't going to need it any more. “I've been following you all day, Gregor,” he said. “I have tempered my idea with observations and now I'm satisfied. Incidentally, when the murderess flings herself from the tower of the Spanish church at the end of
Vertigo
, the sky is not blue, it's deep-dark and clouded, in the last light of the day. âGod have mercy on her soul,' says the nun, and tolls the bell. Your child is at my place with Stefanie and that's where she'll stay for the present. I have no further use for you and wish you the best of luck.”âThe writer stood there for some time, then made a face or two, perhaps to convince Keuschnig that he was real, and walked off across the grass, blindly trampling a flower bed. “You don't know anything about me!” Keuschnig shouted after him. At that the writer only raised his arm; he didn't turn around.
steep climb. The writer clapped his notebook shut and put it away in the inside pocket of his jacket, as though certain he wasn't going to need it any more. “I've been following you all day, Gregor,” he said. “I have tempered my idea with observations and now I'm satisfied. Incidentally, when the murderess flings herself from the tower of the Spanish church at the end of
Vertigo
, the sky is not blue, it's deep-dark and clouded, in the last light of the day. âGod have mercy on her soul,' says the nun, and tolls the bell. Your child is at my place with Stefanie and that's where she'll stay for the present. I have no further use for you and wish you the best of luck.”âThe writer stood there for some time, then made a face or two, perhaps to convince Keuschnig that he was real, and walked off across the grass, blindly trampling a flower bed. “You don't know anything about me!” Keuschnig shouted after him. At that the writer only raised his arm; he didn't turn around.
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