Georges Bataille - The Impossible

Georges Bataille

THE IMPOSSIBLE

A Story of Rats followed by

Dian us and by The Oresteia

Translated by Robert Hurley

CITY LIGHTS BOOKS San Francisco

© 1991 by City Lights Books

© 1962 by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris

Cover design by Rex Ray

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bataille, Georges, 1897-1962. [Impossible. English] The impossible I by Georges Bataille : translated from the French by Robert Hurley.

p. em. Translation of: L'Impossible. ISBN 0-87286-262-3 : $10.95 I. Title.

PQ2603.A695I4613

848'. 91209-dc20 1991

91-21312 CIP

City Lights Books are available to bookstores through our primary distributor: Subterranean Company, P.O. Box 168, 265 S. 5th St., Monroe, OR 97456. 541-847-5274. Toll-free orders 800-274-7826. FAX 541-847-6018. Our books are also available through library jobbers and regional distributors. For personal orders and catalogs, please write to City Lights Books, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.

CITY LIGHTS BOOKS are edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Peters and published at the City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.

CONTENTS

PREFACE...................................................... 9

A STORY OF RATS ..................................... II

DIANUS ........................................................ 83

THE ORESTEIA .......................................... II9

"His lips kept murmuring 'jesus!' . . . then, 'Catherine! ' As he spoke my na me I took his head between my hands , reminding hi m of the goodness of God and I said to him: 'I wish it!'

"When he was buried, my soul reposed in peace and quiet and in such a fragrance of blood that I could not bear the idea of washing away that blood which had flowed from him onto me. "

-Saint Catherine of Siena

"During this agony, the soul is inundated with ine xpressi ble delights. "

-Saint Teresa of Avila

PREFACE - 9

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Like the fictional narratives of novels, the texts that follow-the first two at any rate-are offered with the intention of depicting the truth. Not that I'm led to believe they have a convincing quality. I didn't wish to deceive. Moreover there is not in principle any novel that deceives. And I couldn't imagine doing that in my turn better than anyone else. Indeed I think that in a sense my narratives clearly attain the impossi ble. To be honest, these evocations have a painful heaviness about them. This heaviness may be tied to the fact that at times horror had a real presence in my life. It may be too that, even when reached in fiction, horror alone still enabled me to escape the empty feeling of untruth ...

Realism gives me the impression of a mistake. Violence alone escapes the feeling of poverty of those realistic experiences. Only death and desire have the force that oppresses, that takes one's breath away. Only the extremism of desire and of death enables one to attain the truth.

10- PRE FACE

I first published this b o ok fifteen _)'ears ago, giving it an obscure title: T he H at red of Poet ry . It seemed t o me that true poetry was reached only by hatred. Poetry had no powerful meaning except in the vi olence of remlt. But p oetry attains this violence only by evoking the impossible. Almost no one understo od the meaning of the first title, which is why I prefer finally to speak of T he Impossible.

It's true that this second title is far from being clearer.

But it may be one day ... : I perceive the course of a c onvulsi on that inv olves the wh ole m ovement of beings. This c onvulsi on goes from death's disappearance t o that v oluptu ous rage which, perhaps, is the meaning of the disafJpearance .

. Humanity is faced with a double perspectil'e: in one directi on, vwlent pleasure, h orror, and death-precise!)· the perspective of p oetry-an·d· m the opposite direction, that of science or the real world of utzlzty. �r�ly the useful, the real, have a serious character. �e are never wzthm our rights in preferring seduction: truth has

:zghts over us. Indeed, it has f'l'ery right. And yet we can, and mdeed we must, respond t o s omething which, n ot being God is stronger t�an f'l'ery right, that impossible t o which we accede ;nlv b�· forgettmg the truth of all these rights, only by accepting.

dzsappea ranee.

G.B.

PART ONE

A STORY OF RATS

(Journal of Dianus)

I

A STORY OF RATS- 15

{First .Votebook}

Incre dible nervous st ate, trepi dation beyon d wor ds: to be this much in love is to be sick ( an d I love to be s ick).

B . doesn't ce ase to dazzle me: the irr it at ion of my nerves m akes her even more impressive. Everything about her is extr aor din ary ! But in my tremb ling I h ave doubts-she's so f ac ile (She 's f alse, superfici al , equivoc al . . . Isn 't th at obvious? She gets mu ddle d an d extric ates herse lf more or less, s ays fool ish things h aph azar dly, lets herself be influence d by foo ls, an d fusses about use less ly, over look ing the crucib le, the infinite s ieve th at I am !).

I know th at now I bore her . �ot th at I l aid myse lf open to her scorn (I dis appoint her

in th at, out of pl ayfu lness, out of kin dness, she w ante d the impossible from me) but driven as she is, she sets asi de wh at she 's alre ady known: wh at disturbs me about her is this imp atience.

1 6 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

I im ag in e a l arg e n ail and her n ak edn ess. H er flam e-l ik e m ov em ents m ak e m e phys icall y d izzy and t he n ail I d riv e int o her, I can 't l eav e t here! As I w rit e, b eing un abl e t o s ee her and t he hard n ail , I d ream of cl as ping her w aist: it's n ot a feel ing of happin ess but m y pow erl essn ess t o reach her

t hat st ops m e: s he el ud es m e in an y cas e, t he s ick est t hing ab out m e b eing t hat I w ant t his and I w ant m y l ov e t o b e

n ecess aril y un happy. Ind eed I n o l ong er s eek an y happin ess : I d on 't w ant t o g iv e it t o her, and I w ant n on e for m ys el f. I w ould l ik e alw ays t o m ov e her t o anguish and for her t o faint from it: s he's t he w ay s he is, but I d oubt t hat

tw o b eings hav e ev er commun icat ed m ore d eepl y in t he cert aint y of t heir im pot en ce.

In A. 's appartm ent (I d on 't kn ow if A. is l ying w hen he s ays he b el ongs t o t he O rd er of J esu its: he approached B . in t he st reet, amus ing her w it h his g rav e hypocris y; t he first d ay, he put on t he cass ock at his pl ace and onl y d rank w it h her) , in A. ' s apartm ent, t he m ixtu re of an ext rem e d is array of t he s ens es and an aff ect ed el ev at ion of t he heart enchants us, it charms us I ik e a I iqu or.

O ft en in fact, t he t hree of us l aug h l ik e m adm en.

A STORY OF RATS- 1 7

W hat I ex pect f rom mus ic: an add ed d eg ree of d ept h in t hat ex pl o ration of coldn ess w hic h is dark lov e (t ied to B. 's obsc en it y and s eal ed b y an endl ess suff ering -a lov e n ev er v iol ent enoug h, n ev er s had y enoug h, n ev er clos e enoug h to d eat h!).

I d iff er from m y f riends in not c aring a d amn fo r an y conv ent ion, t aking m y pl easu re in t he b as est t hings. I feel no s ham e l iv ing l ik e a sn eak y adol esc ent, l ik e an old m an. End ing u p, d runk and red-f ac ed , in a d iv e ful l of n ak ed wom en: to look at m e t here, sull en, w it h an anxious cu rl of t he l ips, no on e would im ag in e t hat I am coming. I f eel utt erl y vulgar and w hen I c annot att ain m y ob ject I at l east s ink into a real pov ert y.

I f eel d izzy and m y head s pins. I d iscov er t hat m y "s elfconfid enc e" m ak es m e w hat I am -prec is el y b ec aus e it d es erts m e. If I no l ong er hav e m y assu ranc e, a vo id o pens u p at m y f eet. T he real it y of b eing is t he n aiv e c ert aint y of c hanc e, and t he c hanc e t hat el ev at es m e l eads m e to ru in at ion . I am as ham ed to t hink t hat I am inf erio r to t he


greatest: so muc h so t hat I n ev er t hink about it, I forg et t hat ot hers know not hing about m e.

T he f ear t hat B . will ab andon m e, l eaving m e alon e and , l ik e an outc ast, s ick wit h t he d esir e to los e mys elf, i s fin ally g etting to m e. A w hil e ago I w ept -or, dry- ey ed , acc ept ed t he disgust; now d ay is br eaking and t he f eeling of possibl e sorrow exhil ar at es m e: l if e str etc hes wit hin m e lik e a song modul at ed in t he t hro at of a so pr ano.

H appy lik e a broom w hos e w hirl m ak es a windmill in t he air.

Lik e a drowning m an w ho go es down cl enc hing his hands, t he w ay on e drowns for f ailing to str etc h out on e's

body as peac efully as in a b ed, in t he s am e w ay . . . but I know.

You 'r e not willing to los e yours elf. You will hav e to com e on your own acc ount. From anguis h you d eriv ed pl easur es so gr eat -t hey s hook you from head to to e (I m ean your s exu al joys, your filt hy pl easur es of t he " Moulin Bl eu": don't you w ant to t hrow in t he tow el? ).

My r eply: " I will giv e u p on on e condition . . . " " What 's t hat?" "But no . . . I 'm afr aid of B ."

T his dr eary l andsc ape of windsw ept mount ains, t he cold and t he m elt ed snow: how I lov ed living wit h B. in t his

unin habit abl e pl ac e! T he w eeks w ent by quickly . . . In t he s am e circumst anc es: alco hol, stormy mom ents

(stormy n ak edn ess ), painful sl eep.

A STORY OF RATS- 19

W alking, in a st orm, on a dull m ount ain path is n ot a r el axati on (is m or e lik e a r eas on f or b ein g).

Wh at j oins m e t o B. is th e im possibl e, lik e a v oid in fr ont of h er and m e, inst ead of a s ecur e lif e t ogeth er. Th e l ack of a w ay out, th e di ffi culti es r ecurring in any cas e, this thr eat of d eath b etw een us lik e Is old e's sw ord, th e d esir e th at goads us t o go furth er th an th e h eart can b ear, th e n eed t o

suff er fr om an endl ess l acer ati on, th e sus pi ci on ev en -on B. 's part-th at all this will stil l only l ead, h aph azardly, t o wr et ch edn ess, will f al l int o filth and s pin el essn ess: all this m ak es ev ery h our a mi xtur e of pani c, expect ati on, aud acity, anguish (m or e r ar ely, exas per ating s ensu ality) , whi ch only acti on can r es olv e (but acti on . . . ) .

Str ang e, fin al ly, th at th e diffi culty en count er ed by vi cepar alysis, vi ce's br ak e-is du e t o th e f eebl en ess, th e wr et ch edn ess, of th e r eal possibiliti es. It is n ot vi ce th at appalls,

but th e petty figur es th at surr ound it, its pu ppets, stunt ed, d oltish, b or ed m en and w om en. T o t el l th e truth I must b e f or my part a r ath er d es ol at e m ount ain t o l eav e th e summit accessibl e ev en t o old l adi es in wi gs (I alm ost miss th em: in

th e night clubs, th e cl owns, th e b ad, si ckr oom sm ell of g old, th e flashy vul garity ar e agr eeabl e t o m e).

I h at e th os e su ccessful b eings wh o l ack a s ens e of limits ( of abs olut e pow erl essn ess): th e drunk en s eri ousn ess of Fath er A . (h e d oes ind eed b el ong t o th e S oci ety) is n ot f ei gn ed: his dis cr eet pr of aniti es and his b eh avi or corr es pond -with an ind es crib abl e m or al s ev erity -t o th e s ens e h e h as of th e im possibl e.

H ad dinn er y est erd ay with B. and Fath er A . Sh ould I attribut e th e m ad pr on oun cem ents of A. t o th e al coh ol? or

20 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

ag ain: m ig ht st at ing t he t rut h b e a m eans of rais ing d oubt and of d eceiv ing m ore com pl et ely?

A. is n ot d iab ol ical but hum an ( hum an? w ouldn 't t his b e insignificant?): if on e forg ets t he rob e and t he an ecd ot al int erest, t he at heist m onk s erv ing, he s ays, a caus e host il e t o

t he Chu rch. A J esu it in a b at hrob e ( in him t he l ong, b ony b ody and t he un ctu ousn ess are just an ot her s arcasm) is t he m ost n ak ed m an t here is : as for his truth, B. , d el ig ht ed, t ou ched it . . .

I l iv e in t he en chantm ent of y est erd ay's d inn er: B. , b eaut iful as a s he-w ol f and w ick ed , s o el eg ant in a blu e and w hit e st riped d ress ing g own, hal f- open from t op t o b ott om . S he s arcast ic, t oo, in t he Fat her's pres en ce and l aug hing l ik e a d art ing fl am e.

T hes e m om ents of int oxicat ion w hen w e d efy ev ery t hing , w hen, t he an chor rais ed, w e g o m errily t ow ard t he abyss, w it h n o m ore t houg ht for t he in ev it abl e fall t han for

t he l im its g iv en in t he b eg inn ing , are t he only on es w hen w e are com pl et ely free of t he g round ( of l aws) . . .

1\;ot hing exists t hat d oesn't hav e t his senseless sensecomm on t o fl am es, d reams, un cont roll abl e l aug ht er-in

t hos e m om ents w hen consum pt ion accel erat es, b ey ond t he d es ire t o endu re. Ev en utt er s ens el essn ess ult im at ely is alw ays t his s ens e m ad e of t he n eg at ion of all t he ot hers .

(Isn't t his s ens e b as ically t hat of each part icul ar b eing w ho, as su ch, is t he senselessness of all t he ot hers, but only if he

d oesn't care a d amn ab out endu ring -and t houg ht ( phil os ophy) is at t he l im it of t his confl ag rat ion , l ik e a candl e

bl own out at t he l im it of a fl am e.)

In t he face of Fat her A. 's s harp, cyn ical , and lu cidly n arrow l og ic, B . 's d runk en l aug ht er (A . sunk int o an

A STORY OF RATS- 21

arm chair- half-n ak ed, B . st and ing in fr ont of him, d er is iv e and cr az y as a fl am e) w as t hat ins ens at e m ov em ent w hich

w eig hs an chor and s ails off n aiv el y t ow ard t he v oid. (At t he s am e t im e m y hands w er e d is appear ing betw een her l egs . . . bl indl y t hos e hands s ear ched f or t he cr ack, burn ed t hems elv es in t hat fir e t hat opens t he v oid t o m e . . . )

At t hat m om ent, t he t end ern ess of nud it y (t he bar ing of t he l egs or t he br easts ) t ou ched t he infin it e.

At t hat m om ent, d es ir e (t he angu is h t hat accom pan ies fr iends hip) w as s o w ond erfull y gr at ifi ed t hat I d es pair ed.

That imm ens e m om ent-l ik e m ad l aug ht er, infin it el y happy, unm ask ing w hat endur es aft er it ( by r ev eal ing t he in ev it abl e d ecl in e)-su bst itut ed al cohol f or w at er, an ab

s en ce of d eat h, an endl ess v oid, f or t he appar ent n earn ess of t he sk y.

A . , cr aft y, inur ed t o t he w ild est poss ibil it ies and d is illus ion ed . . .

If it isn't B. , I can 't im agin e a m or e lud icr ousl y d es pairing ind iv idu al -n ot fr om a d is appoint ed hope, but w it h a

tru e d es pair. A r ig id hon est y br oug ht ind iff er entl y t o bear on t asks t hat on e can 't m ent ion w it hout l au ghin g (s o

su bv ers iv e and par ad oxical ar e t hey), a v apid it y of m et hods appar entl y d es ign ed t o ast on is h, a pur it y in d ebau cher y

(t he l aw l ogicall y d ism iss ed, he imm ed iat el y finds hims elf, f or w ant of pr econ cept ions, on a l ev el wit h t he w orst ), a m ock er y aim ed at d el ig hts g oing beyond l oss of t he s ens es, m ak e A. t he an al ogu e of a f act or y blu epr int . G ood s ens e s o fr ee of conv ent ions has t he obv iousn ess of a m ount ainand ev en its w ildn ess .

B . expr ess es, in his pr es en ce, ast on is hm ent at F at her A. 's eccentr icit ies .

I point out t o her on t he ot her hand w hat s im pl e

22- THE IMPOSSIBLE

n ecess it ies det erm in e his l if e: t he t en years of deep stu dy, t he slow apprent ices hip in diss imul at ion , in m ent al dislo cat ion , m ak e a m an im pass iv e. In a slig htl y chang ed s ens e .. . , perinde ac cadaver.

"Do you t hink so?" B. ask ed ( consum ed w it h iron y, w it h pl easu re).

Kn eel in g at t at m y foll y. T ilt ed b ack, ou r f rien d's f ace lit u p w it h a

mo ck ing smil e. 1\"ot w it hout st rain , it rel axed. T he b itt er l ips an d t he eyes lost in t he dept hs of t he

ceil ing, sw imming wit h in eff abl e happin ess.

Mo re an d mo re w anton , B . s aid to m e: "Look at t he R ev eren d's ang el ic sm il e." "T he Lo rd's an gels ," A. s aid, " rob t he sl eep of t he just!" H e s pok e t he w ay on e yawns.

I reg ret not b eing dead, look ing at B . w it h her l ips w et , an d looking into her heart of hearts. To att ain exacerb at ed pl easu re, ext rem e au dacit y, exhaust in g t he bo dy, t he int el

l ect , an d t he heart all at on ce, redu ces su rviv al almost to not hing. B an is hes its peace of m in d in an y cas e.

A STORY OF RATS - 23

M y so litud e d emor al izes m e.

A t el ephon e cal l from B . f�r ew arns m e:

s hal l s ee her again for a long t im e.

And "m an alon e" is d amn ed .

I doubt t hat I

B . and A. l iv e alon e, r at her w il l ing ly. A. in a r el ig ious ord er , B. w it h her f am il y- how ev er ins id ious t heir r el at ions m ay b e w it h t hat ord er, t hat f am il y.

I s hiv er w it h cold . Sudd en, un expect ed , B .'s d epartur e d is heart ens m e.

24- THE IMPOSSIBLE

I su rp ris e mys el f: I 'm afraid of d eat h-w it h a fear t hat is c ow ardly and c hild is h. I d on't c are t o liv e un less I 'm c onsum ed (ot herw is e I w ou ld hav e t o w ant t o g o on) . St rang e as it m ay b e, my lack of d et erm in at ion t o g o on t ak es aw ay my st rengt h t o res ist : I liv e d rown ing in angu is h and I 'm afraid of d eat h, p rec is ely b ec aus e I d on't c are t o liv e.

I � an _t ell t hat I hav e t he p oss ib le t oug hn ess w it hin m e, t he mdiff erenc e t o t he w orst, t he m adn ess it t ak es in t orm ents: and I t rembl e n on et heless, I ac he. I kn ow t hat my afflict ion is incu rabl e. � it hout t hat s h�-w o_l f c halleng e of B. -l ig ht ing up t he t hick� ess of t he mists hk e a fi re-ev eryt hing is ins ip id and s� ac e IS e�pty. At t his m om ent, as t he s ea g oes d own, l ife is w ahd raw mg from m e.

But if I w ant t o . . . But n o. I refus e. I 'm ass ail ed by fear in my b ed.


That c halleng e-her li ly fr es hn ess and t he fr es h hands of n ak edn ess- lik e a summit of t he heart, in acc essib le . . .

But t he m emory is unc ert ain.

I r em emb er badly, mor e and mor e b adly. I am so w eak, oft en, t hat I lack t he str engt h to writ e. The

str en gt h to li e? I hav e to s ay it, too: t hes e words t hat I strin g to get her li e. In prison I wou ldn't writ e on t he w al ls: I wou ld hav e to t ear out my n ails s earc hing for t he w ay out.

To writ e? to turn b ack on e's n ails, to ho pe, utt er ly in v ain, for t he mom ent of d eliv er anc e?

My r eason for writing is to r eac h B.

The most dis heart enin g id ea: t hat B. mi ght fin ally los e t he Ari adn e's t hr ead w hic h, in t he labyrint h of her lif e, my lov e for her is.

S he knows but forg ets (is it not n ec ess ary, for t hat, to for get? ) t hat s he and I hav e ent er ed t he d arkn ess of a prison t hat w e wi ll not g et out of aliv e, t hat w e ar e r educ ed

to pr essing, in t he co ld, t he n ak ed heart ag ainst t he w all, aw aitin g an ear pr ess ed against t he ot her sid e.

D amn ation ! t hat to r eac h t hat mom ent, prison is n ec ess ary, and t he d arkn ess, t he cold t hat fo llow t hat mom ent!

S pent an hour y est erd ay wit h A. I w ant to writ e t his first of all. W e don't hav e t he m eans

of r eac hin g at our dis pos al: to t el l t he trut h, w e do r eac h; w e sudd en ly r eac h t he n ec ess ary point and w e s pend t he r est of our liv es s eeking a lost mom ent; but how oft en w e miss it , for t he pr ecis e r eason t hat s eekin g it leads us aw ay from it. Joining tog et her is doubtl ess a m eans . . . of missing t he mom ent of r eturn for ev er. -Sudd enly, in my d arkn ess, in my solitud e, an guis h giv es w ay to conviction:

26 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

it's un cann y, n o l ong er ev en w ren ching (t hroug h const ant w ren ching , it n o l ong er w ren ches) , suddenly B.'s heart is in my heart.

I n t he cou rs e of t he conv ers at ion , t he m ov em ent of su ffering, l ik e t he ag it at ion of a hunt ed an im al , t ook aw ay m y d es ire t o b reat he. I w as t em pt ed t o s peak: m y t em pt at ion w as g reet ed b y a m ock ing f ace (A. s eld om l aug hs , s eld om sm il es; in him t here is n o lost moment t hat he w ould b e cond emn ed t o s eek : he is despairing (l ik e m ost); usu all y t here rem ains a lu rk ing t houg ht of access ibl e happin ess.)

St rang e reflect ions , in a cel l ar-l ik e d arkn ess, of t he gl eam of n ak edn ess: L.:"'l. and his w if e, E. , b ot h of t hem el eg ant.

E. w it h her b ack t o m e, bl ond , in a pink , l ow- cut , period d ress. S he w as sm il ing at m e in t he m irror. H er ins id ious g aiet y . . . H er husb and rais es t he d ress , w it h t he t ip of an umb rel l a, u p t o her w aist.

Tres dix-huitieme, s ays N. in b ad Fren ch. E. 's l aug ht er, in t he mirror, had t he di zzy m al ice of al cohol .

St rang e t hat t he s am e s ens el ess gl eam s hin es f or ev ery m an . N ak edn ess is f rig ht en ing : ou r n atu re w holl y d eriv ing f rom t he s cand al in w hich it has t he s ens e of t he horribl e . . . W hat is call ed naked presu ppos es a l acerat ed fid el it y, is

but a s hak y, g agg ed res pons e t o t he un clearest of cal ls. T he fu rt iv e gl eam caug ht s ig ht of in t he d arkn ess , d oes it n ot d em and t he giving of a l if e? S houldn 't each on e, d ef ying t he hypocris y of all (su ch stu pid it y at t he b as is of " hum an " b ehav ior!), red is cov er t he w ay t hat l eads him, t hroug h flam es , t o filt h, t o t he d arkn ess of nud it y?

A STORY OF RATS- 27

T he owl fli es, in t he moonlig ht, ov er a fi eld w her e t he wound ed cry out.

Lik e t he owl, I fly in t he ni ght ov er my own m isfortun e.

I am a wr et ched m an, a crippl ed r eclus e. I am afr aid of d eat h; I lov e, and, in diff er ent w ays, I suff er: then I ab andon my sorrows and I say that they lie. Outsid e it is cold.

I don't know w hy I am burning in my b ed: I hav e no fir e, it's fr eezing. If I w er e n ak ed outsid e, stru ck down , halt ed, lost (I would hear b ett er t han in my room t he w histlings and d eton ations of bombs -just now t he town is b ein g

bomb ed), t he chatt erin g of my t eet h wou ld still li e. I undr ess ed so m any wom en at t he brot hel. I dr ank, I w as

into xi cat ed and w as happy only if I w as ind ef ensibl e.

T he fr eedom on e has only at t he brot hel . . . At t he brot hel I could t ak e off my p ants, sit on t he

assist ant m ad am's kn ees and cry. T hat w as of no cons equ en ce eit her, w as only a li e, exhaustin g t he mis er abl e possibiliti es non et hel ess.

28 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

I hav e a pu eri l e, hon est id ea of my r ear end, and s o mu ch f ear at bottom.

A mi xtur e of horr or, un happy l ov e, and lu cidi ty (t he owl!) . . .

Lik e a lun ati c es caped fr om an asylum, my m adn ess at l eas t still confin es m e.

My d elirium is convuls ed. I d on't kn ow if I l aug h at the nig ht, or if t he nig ht . . . I am al on e, and, wit hou t B. , I cry out . My cry gets l os t in t he s am e w ay t hat l if e is l os t in

d eath. O bs cenity exacer bat es l ov e.

A frig ht en ed m em ory of B. n ak ed und er t he ey es of A. I em br aced her d es p er at el y an d ou r m ou t hs

int ermingl ed. A., exci ted, k ept qui et, "It w as lik e being in chur ch ". And n ow?

I l ov e B. s o mu ch t hat I l ov e her abs en ce, s o mu ch t hat in her I l ov e my an guis h.

My w eakn ess: t o burn, t o l aug h, to exult, bu t w hen t he cold com es, to l ack t he cour ag e t o liv e.

The w ors t: s o m any ind ef ensi bl e liv es -s o mu ch v ani ty, uglin ess, and m or al em ptin ess. That w om an wit h the d oubl e chin w hos e imm ens e tur ban pr ocl aim ed t he rul e of err or . . . The cr owd -stu pidity, f ailur e-on the w hol e

isn 't i t a mis tak e? the f al l of bein g in t he individu al , of t he individu al in the cr owd , isn't it, in our d arkn ess, an " any thing r at her t han"? The w orst w ould be G od: r at her M ad am e Charl es excl aimin g, " My goodn ess, it 's the l ov e of a l i ttl e d arling!" -r ather mys elf in bed wi th Mad am e

Charl es, but the r est of t he ni ght s obbin g: cond emn ed t o w ant t he im possi bl e. In t hat r egard, the t or tur es, t he pus, t he sw eat, the ign ominy.

A w hol e d eat hlik e activity f or paltry r esults.

A STORY OF RATS- 29

In t his m aze of hel pl esssn ess (d elusi on on all sid es), I f org et t he m om ent w hen the curtain rises (�. r aising t he dr ess, E. l aug hing in t he mirr or: I rus hed ov er , t ook t he m out h and t he br easts s pr ang fr om t he dr ess . . . ).

E. 's n ak edn ess . . . , B.'s n ak edn ess, will y ou d eliv er m e fr om an guis h?

But n o . . . . . . giv e m e m or e anguis h . . .

11

A STORY OF RATS - 3 3

E xtr em e d ev oti on i s t he opposit e of pi ety, extr em e vi ce t he opposit e of pl easur e.

W hen I t hink of my m ad an xi ety, of t he n eed I hav e t o b e w orri ed, t o b e in t his w orld a m an br eat hing un easily, on his gu ard, as if he w er e g oing t o b e s hort of ev eryt hing, I

im agin e t he horr or of my peas ant an cest ors, eager t o tr embl e wit h hung er and cold , in t he r ar efi ed air of t he nig hts.

H ow t hey demanded, in t he m ount ain b ogs w her e t hey liv ed, t o br eat he un easily, t o tr embl e tig htly wit h f ear (t hinking of f ood, m on ey, t he dis eas es of anim als and m en , dr oug hts, s elling at a l oss ) and t heir vig or ous j oys at t he m er cy of pr owlin g ghosts.

As t o t he in herit an ce of anguis h ov er n ak edn ess t hat t hey b equ eat hed t hems elv es, t he t or ches b ar e at t he t oad m om ent of con cepti on , n ot hing m or e "s ham eful" of cours e.

"T he f at hers at e gr een gr apes and t he s ons' t eet h ar e on ed ge."

I t m ak es my skin cr awl t hat my gr andm ot hers hav e a lum p in t heir t hr oat in m e.


Hearing not hing from B . , endl essl y I fo llow t he pat h of a d ead-drunk blind m an , and it s eems to m e t hat t he w hol e eart h (sil ent, bor ed , cond emn ed to a int ermin abl e w ait) is

following it wit h m e.

It is snowing t his morning. I am alon e and wit hout a fir e. T he answ er would be: t he bl aze, t he w armt h of B . But al co ho l would fill t he gl ass es , B. would l aug h, would t alk about A. , w e wou ld go to sl eep, n ak ed as anim als , t he w ay

t he cloud of st ars in t he sk y elud es ev er y con ceiv abl e pur pos e . . .

I r eceiv e fin e answ ers, amon g w hi ch t he n ak edn ess, t he l aug ht er of B . But t heir m eaning s car cel y v ari es. T her e is not on e of t hem t hat d eat h do es not sn at ch aw ay in adv an ce. T he fin est , is it not t he co ars est -r ev ealing its pov ert y of its own accord in a burst of jo y- provo cativ e,

im pot ent ( as w as t he n ak edn ess of B . t he ot her ni ght, in front of A. ).

B . l aug hed , f acing A. , her l egs s av ag el y bar e to t he br easts . Her inso len ce at su ch a mom ent r ecal l ed t he

tortur ed lov ers , s pittin g t heir insults into t he f aces of t heir torm entors. Isn't t his im puls e t he freest (in w hi ch t he fl am es in t he ni ght s hoot u p to t he clouds)? t he most volu ptuous? t he most insi pid? I att em pt in writing to captur e a r efl ection of it , but not hing . . . I go into t he nig ht wit hout flam es and wit hout r eflection; ev er yt hing sli ps aw ay wit hin m e.

O h, senseless sorrow , wit hout r egr et, wit hout r eflection! Her e I am , burning wit h t he d esir e to burn from su ch agoni zing, s plint er ed flam es. B etw een d eat h and physi cal pain -and pl easur e, d eeper t han d eat h and pain -I dr ag

m ys elf along in a m el an chol y nig ht , at t he edg e of sl eep.


The powerlessness of memory.-L ast y ear I w as g oing t o s ee t he T abarin s how. E ag er in adv an ce f or t he n ak edn ess of t he girls (s om etim es t he col or ed g art er, t he g art er belt pl aced on t he chair , m or e rig or ously ev ok e t he w orst, t he

n ak ed and d esir abl e fles h-r ar ely d o I s ee girls on t he boards wit hout pen etr atin g t heir insipid intim acy, m or e

d eeply t han in a b ed ). I hadn't g on e out f or m ont hs. I w ent t o T abarin as if I w er e g oing t o a f east, s parkling wit h easy li ps and s exu al parts. I n adv an ce, dr eamin g of t he smilin g cr owd of girls -s o beautiful and d ev ot ed t o t he pl easur es of n ak edn ess -! dr ank; a t ast e of s ensu al pl easur e r os e u p

in m e lik e a s ap: I w as g oing t o see and I w as happy in adv an ce. I w as drunk as I w ent insid e. Fr om im pati en ce and

t o b e in t he first r ow, I arriv ed t oo early (but, exas per ating as it is, t he w ait f or t he s how is en chanting ). I had t o ord er,

just f or mys elf, a bottl e of cham pagn e. In a f ew minut es I em pti ed it. T he int oxi cati on fin ally ov erw helm ed m e: w hen

I cam e out of my stu por the show was over, t he hal l em pty and my head ev en m or e s o. As if I hadn't s een anyt hing.

Fr om t he beginnin g t o t he end, I only had a bl ank s pace in my m em ory.

I l eft in t he bl ack out. It w as as d ark insid e m e as it w as in t he str eets.

I didn't t hink t hat ni ght about t he m em ori es of my gr and par ents, w hom t he m ars h mists k ept in t he mud, t heir ey es dry and t heir li ps m ad e t hinn er by an guis h. D erivin g

fr om t he hars hn ess of t heir cir cumst an ces t he ri ght t o curs e ot hers, dr awing fr om t heir suff ering and t heir bitt er

n ess t he guidin g prin ci pl e of t he w orld.

My anguis h d oes n ot com e s ol ely fr om kn owing I am fr ee. It r equir es a possi bl e t hat entices m e and fri ght ens m e at t he s am e tim e. T he anguis h diff ers fr om a r eas on abl e

36 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

fear, in t he same way as a fear of hei ghts. The possibi lity of a fa ll is disturbing, but t he an xi ety r edoub les if t he prospect, instead of re pe lling, finds an invo luntary com plicity in

t he one it fri ghtens: t he fascination of verti go is basica lly on ly a d esir e t hat is obscur ely und ergon e. The sam e is tru e of t he e xcitation of t he senses. If one stri ps naked t he part of a pretty youn g woman goin g from ha lfway u p t he le g to t he waist, d esir e vivifi es an imag e of t he possib le t hat nakedness points to. There ar e t hos e w ho remain insensib le and likewise one is not necessari ly subject to vertigo. The pur e and sim ple d esir e for t he abyss is scarc ely conc eivab le;

it's aim wou ld be immediate d eat h. But I can love t he young woman stri pped naked in front of me. If t he abyss se ems to m e to answ er my expectations, I imm ediat ely dis pute t he answer, w hi le t he lower b elly of young women revea ls an abysma l as pect on ly in t he long run. It wou ld not b e an abyss if it w er e end less ly avai lab le, r emaining tru e to its elf, forever pretty, forever stri pped naked by desire, and if, for my part, I had ine xhaustib le strengt h. But if it does not hav e t he imm ediat ely dark c haract er of a ravin e, it is no less em pty for t hat and leads to horror nonet he less.

I am g loomy t his evening: my grandmot her's joy in pursing her li ps in t he mud, my damnab le meanness toward

myse lf, and t hat is w hat is left to me of t he ot her ni ght's pleasur es (of t he beautifu l o pen dressing gown, of t he void

between t he legs, of t he defiant laug hs).

I s hou ld have known t hat B. wou ld be afraid. :\"ow I 'm afraid in my turn.

Te lling t he story of t he rats, how cou ld I have misjudged t he horror of t he situation, t he ext ent of it?

(The Fat her laug hed, but his ey es di lated. I to ld t he two stories one after t he ot her:

A STORY OF RATS- 37

X. (d ead for tw ent y years, he is t he on ly writ er of our tim e w ho dr eam ed of equ al ing t he w ealt h of t he Thousand and One Nights) o ccu pyin g a hot el room w her e m en dr ess ed in diff er ent uniforms (dr agoon, fir em an, s ai lor, mi lit ar y pol ice, d eliver y m an . . . ) wou ld be s hown in. A l ace co ver

wou ld con ceal X., str et ched out on t he bed. The ro leplayers would w alk about in t he room w it hout s ayin g a

word. A young elevator m an, lo ved by X., would arri ve l ast, dr ess ed in t he fin est un iform and carr yin g a cage w her ein li ved a r at . S ett ing t he cag e on a ped est al t able, t he el evator

o per ator would arm hims elf wit h a hat pin wit h w hi ch he wou ld pi er ce t he r at. At t he mom ent w hen t he pin pen etr at ed t he heart, X. wou ld soi l t he lace co ver.

X. wou ld also go to a bas em ent brot hel in t he S aintSe verin d istri ct.

"M ad am e, " he wou ld s ay to t he pro pr ietr ess, "do you have an y r ats tod ay? "

The pro pr ietr ess would answ er as X. ex pect ed. "Y es, Monsi eur, " s he wou ld s ay, "w e have r ats. " "A h . . . " "But, M ad am e, " X. wou ld continu e, " ar e these rats ni ce

on es? " "Y es, Mons ieur, ver y n ice r ats. " "R eal ly? but t hes e r ats . . . ar e t hey big? " "You'll s ee, t hey'r e enormous r ats. " "B ecaus e I n eed hug e r ats, you und erst and . . . " "A h, Monsi eur, gi ants . . . " X. would t hen poun ce on an o ld prostitut e w ho w as

w aiting for him. )

I to ld m y stor y in t he end t he w ay it must be told. A. got u p and s aid to B. : "W hat a s ham e, m y d ear fri end, you ar e so youn g. " " I 'm sorr y too, F at her. " "For l ack of m ag pi es, rig ht? "


(Ev en th e . . . . . . . . . . . . of el eg ant pers on ag es has th e hug en ess of a r at .)

This is n ot exactly t o f all int o a v oid: as th e f al l extr acts a s cr eam , a fl am e ris es u p . . . , but th e fl am e is lik e a s cr eam , is n ot gr as pabl e.

The w orst is n o d oubt a r el ativ e dur ati on , g 1v mg t he il lusi on t hat on e gr as ps , th at on e will gr as p at l east. Wh at r em ains in our hands is t he w om an and t her e is th e choi ce of tw o t hings , eith er sh e es capes us or t he f al l int o t he v oid

t hat l ov e is es capes us: w e ar e r eassur ed in th e l att er cas e, but lik e du pes. And t he b est t hat can happen t o us is t o h av e t o s ear ch f or th e l ost m om ent (w hen s ecr etly , per haps ev en wit h happin ess, but r eady t o di e of it , w e g av e our only s cr eam) .

A child's s cr eam , a cry of t err or and y et of int ens e h appin ess.

Thos e r ats t hat com e out of our ey es as if w e dw el l ed in t ombs . . . :A . hims elf has th e d ash and char act er of a r atall t he m or e al arming b ecaus e on e d oesn 't kn ow w her e he com es fr om n or w her e he m ak es off t o.

That p art of .th e y oung w om an b etw een t he mid-l eg and

t? e w aist-w hiC? em ph ati cally answ ers on e's expect at iOns- answ ers hk e t he elusiv e tr ansit of a r at. W hat fas cin at es us is v ertigin ous: si ck ly sm ells , r ecess es , t he s ew er , hav e t he s am e illusory ess en ce as t he v oid of a r avin e int o w hi ch on e is ab out t o fal l . The v oid als o attr acts m e ot herwis e I w ouldn't hav e any v ertig o-but I will di e if I

f al l , .and w hat can I d o wit h a v oid -except f al l int o it? If I

surv iv ed t he f al l I w ould confirm th e in anity of d esir e- as I 'v e d on e countl ess tim es wit h t he " littl e d eat h. "


Unf ai ling ly, inst ant ly, th e "litt le d eath" exh austs d esir e (do es aw ay with it) and puts us in th e st at e of a m an at th e edg e of a r avin e, tr anqui l, indiff er ent to th e sor cery of th e

void. Comi cal th at A. and B. and I , str et ch ed out tog eth er,

d eb at ed th e most dist ant po liti cal qu estions -at night, in th e r elax ation th at fo llow ed s atisf action.

I w as car essing B. 's h ead. A. w as ho ldin g B. 's foot in his h and -sh e showing no

r eg ard for elem ent ary d ecen cy.

W e bro ach ed m et aphysi cs . W e r edis cov er ed th e tr adition of th e di alo gu es!

Might I writ e th at di alogu e? I dro p th e id ea for now, I 'm getting irrit ab le.

Too mu ch anguish (du e to B. 's abs en ce) . I 'm stru ck by this: r eportin g th at di alogu e h er e, I wou ld

ab andon th e pursuit of d esir e. But no , at th e mom ent d esir e b linds m e. Th e w ay a dog gn aws a bon e . . .

Might I giv e u p my unh appy s ear ch? It must also b e s aid: lif e is mor e mobi le th an langu ag e

ev en m ad lan gu age-wh en th e most str ain ed lan gu ag e is not th e most mobi le (I jok e end lessly with B . ; w e ar e riv als in laughing at on e anoth er: in s pit e of my con cern with b eing truthfu l, I can 't s ay any mor e about this. I writ e th e w ay a chi ld cri es: a ch ild s low ly r elinquish es th e r easons h e h as for b ein g in t ears) .

Might I los e my r easons for writing? And ev en . . . If I s pok e of w ar, of tortur e . . . : s eeing th at w ar and

tortur e, tod ay, ar e situ at ed at points whi ch ordin ary Ian -

40 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

gu ag e has d etermin ed, I would str ay from my obj ectw hi ch dr aws m e b eyond t he accept ed limi ts.

In this w ay I s ee, too, how philoso phi cal r efl ection b etr ays, for i t canno t com e u p to on e's expectations, having only a limit ed obj ect-w hi ch is d efin ed in terms of ano ther, d efin ed in adv an ce-so t hat com par ed wit h t he object of d esir e it is n ev er any thing but a m att er of indiff er en ce.

W ho would r efus e to s ee that, in t he guis e of frivolity, my object is w hat m att ers, t hat ot hers r eg ard ed as t he most s erious ar e r eally jus t t he m eans l eadin g to t he expect ation of min e? Fr eedom is not hin g if it is not the fr eedom to l iv e at t he ed ge of l imits w her e al l com pr ehension br eaks

down.

T he ot her ni ght's n ak edn ess is t he only point of appli cation of my thou ght that fin ally l eav es it f al terin g (from t he excess of d esir e).

B . 's n ak edn ess calls my expectation into qu es tion, w hen t hat expect ation alon e is capabl e of qu es tionin g that which is (t he expectation wr en ches m e aw ay from the known, for the los t moment is los t for ev er ; und er t he cov er of t he dejCt vu, I s ear ch avidly for w hat li es b eyond it: t he unknown).

W hat do es philoso phy m atter sin ce i t is this n aiv e con test ation: the qu es tionin g t hat w e can only und ert ak e w hen w e ar e appeased! how could w e b e appeas ed if w e did no t r ely

on a w hol e body of pr esu ppos ed knowl eg e? In trodu cing a m et aphysi cal giv en at t he extr em e limit of t houg ht comi cally r ev eals i ts ess en ce: t hat of ev ery philoso phy.

As for that di alogu e, only t he br eakdown that follows . . . m ad e it possibl e.

A STORY OF RATS- 41

How ex as per ating it is to be abl e to s peak only w hen appeased by war ( appeas ed, eager for peace), so t hat t hinking it t hroug h, I writ e t his book, w hich appears to be by an im parti al bl ind m an .

(To s peak of w ar in t he usu al w ay r equ ir es t hat on e forg et t he fund am ent al im possi bl e. T he s am e is tru e of philoso phy. On e can't f ace t hin gs wit hout sl ack en in gev en to fi ght and get ours elv es k il l ed div erts us from t he im possi bl e. )

W hen I glim ps e, as I do tod ay, t he simple bottom of t hings (t hat w hi ch, provid ed an infin it e good fortun e, agony w il l fully r ev eal) , I know t hat I s hould k eep sil ent: by

s peak in g, I post pon e t he mom ent of t he irr em edi abl e.

I just r eceiv ed t hes e sim pl e words from B . , postm ark ed at V. ( a l ittl e town in t he Arde che), writt en in a child is h hand ( aft er si x d ays of s il en ce):

Slightly injured, I'm writing with my left hand. Scenes from a bad dream. Adieu. Hug the Reverend all the same.

W hat's t he point of go in g on? Continu e t he losing g am e?

B.

No r eason to writ e or to go t his ev enin g to t he st ation. Or t his on e: I would r at her s pend t he nig ht in a tr ain, pr ef er ably in t hird cl ass. Or t his: if l ik e l ast y ear t he

g am ek eeper of B. 's est at e beats m e u p in t he snow, I know som eon e w ho w il l l au gh.

Me n atur ally!

I s hould hav e gu ess ed. B. has t ak en r efug e wit h her f at her . . .

42- THE IMPOSSIBLE

I'm d iscou rag ed. B. runs aw ay f rom m e, tak es refug e w here I c an 't reac h

her in an y w ay, ev en t houg h that d runk of an old m an b eats her (her f ather: that old fool j abb ering abou t accoun ts), ev en thoug h s he had promis ed . . . I f eel wo rs e and wo rs e.

I l aug hed, I l aug hed alon e. I go t u p hiss ing and l et m ys elf f al l to t he floo r, as if, at on e go, I had hiss ed aw ay t he l i ttl e s tren gt h t hat I hav e l ef t. A nd I w ept on t he c arpet.

A STORY OF RATS- 43

B. is runn ing aw ay from hersel f. A n d ye t . . . N o one has c hallenge d fate t he w ay s he has (with A.). I kn ow ver y well : s he di dn 't g ive t his an y t houg ht. W hile m ysel f am aw are (s o muc h s o an d how pain ful t he

aw areness is! an aw areness puffe d out l ike a c heek! but how c an I be sur pr ise d t hat B. w oul d run aw ay fr om me!).

M y tem ples are still t hr obbing. Outsi de, t he sn ow is falling. I t 's been fal ling for sever al days apparentl y. I 'm feveris h an d I hate t his bl aze; for sever al days m y l onel iness has been trul y ins ane. N ow even t he r oom lies: as l ong as it

w as c ol d an d wit hout a fire I ke pt m y han ds un der t he c overs an d I w as less harrie d, m y tem ples t hr obbe d less. I n a hal f-slee p, I dre ame d I w as de ad: t he c ol dness of t he

r oom w as m y c asket, t he houses of t he t own ot her t ombs. I g ot use d to it. I felt a cert ain pri de in be ing un happy. I tremble d, w it hout hope, un done like fl owing s an d.

Absur dit y, b oun dless im potence: sick , a few ste ps fr om B . in t his sm al l t own inn, wit hout an y w ay of re ac hing her.

44 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

W ould s he writ e t o m e on finding in Paris t he addr ess of t he hot el at V.?

S he w ouldn't w ant t o int erf er e wit h b ad luck, I im agin e.

D ecid ed, s ev er al tim es, t o s end her a n ot e.

It's d oubtful w het her s he w ould c om e and ev en w het her s he c ould ( ev eryt hing g ets kn own in littl e t owns). I c alcul at e endl essly; it's c ert ain t hat Edr on (t he g am ek eeper -c ar et ak er) w ould int erc ept t he n ot e and giv e it t o t he f at her.

T her e w ould b e a kn ock at my d oor and , lik e l ast y ear, it w ouldn't b e B., but littl e Edr on ( a tiny old m an , quick as a r at) w ho w ould f al l u pon m e and , l ik e l ast y ear , b eat m e t o t he gr ound wit h his w alking stick. T he finis hing t ouc h is t hat t od ay, n o l ong er c apabl e of b eing sur pris ed , I still w ouldn't b e abl e t o d o anyt hing. In my b ed, I d on't hav e t he l east bit of str engt h.

O h b ogus D on Ju an in his frigid inn, victim of t he c omm and er's c ar et ak er!

L ast y ear , it w as in t he sn ow , at t he cr ossr oads w her e I w as w aiting f or B . : he lung ed f orw ard; I didn't und erst and t hat he w as att acking m e, I did und erst and r ec eiving a big bl ow on t he head. I bl ack ed out and c am e t o und er t he old m an's kicks. H e w as hitting m e in t he f ac e. I w as c ov er ed wit h bl ood. H e didn't pus h it any furt her and l eft running t he w ay he had c om e.

R ais ed u p on my hands, I w atc hed my bl ood run. Fr om my n os e and l i ps ont o t he sn ow. I g ot u p and piss ed in t he sun. I w as in pain, cr am ped by t he w ounds. I w as n aus eous and, n o l ong er having any m eans of r eac hing B . , I ent er ed

int o t his d arkn ess w her e, ev er sinc e, I plung e d eeper ev ery hour and l os e mys elf a l ittl e m or e.

A STORY OF RATS- 45

I am c alm (m or e or l ess) if I r eflect: littl e Edr on is n ot t he c aus e of it, I never hav e an y m eans of r eac hing B. B. elud es m e in ev er y w ay, appearing as sudd enl y as Edr on, dis appearing just as sudd enl y. I w ant ed t he hot el, its l ack of an exit, t his v ain ant er oom of t he v oid. I d on 't kn ow if I 'm

g oing t o d i e ( per haps?), but I c an n o l ong er im agin e a b ett er c om ed y of d eat h t han m y st ay at V.

M y t eet h c hatt er, I s hiv er wit h f ev er, and I l aug h. M y burning hand s haking t he ic y hand of t he Comm and er, I im agin e him in m y hand, c hang ed int o a n ot ar y's cl erk, b ald, littl e, fl at as a pi ec e of paper. But m y l aug h sticks in m y t hr oat : he drinks and b eats his d aug ht er. B., anxi ous t o hold her own ag ainst t hem, f or w eeks at his m erc y! And her

m ot her is ill . . . : he tr eats her l ik e a w hor e in fr ont of t he m aids! But I'm l osing m y mind, w hil e he's b eating his d aug ht er and will kill her.

"T he trut h is, t he act or didn't c ar e ab out B. On e c ouldn't ev en s ay ex actl y t hat he l ov ed her. His s o-c all ed l ov e had n o m eaning apart fr om t he anguis h he dr ew fr om it. W hat he l ov ed w as t he nig ht. H e pr ef err ed B. t o ot her w om en, b ec aus e s he ev ad ed him, fled fr om him, and, during her l ong flig hts, w as und er t hr eats of d eat h. H e l ov ed t he nig ht, trul y, lik e a l ov er l ov es t he w om an of his lif e."

N ot at all . B. hers elf is t he nig ht, yearns f or t he nig ht. I will l et g o of t his w orld on e d ay: t hen t he nig ht will b e t he nig ht, I will di e. But b eing aliv e, w hat I l ov e is t he l ov e t hat lif e has f or t he nig ht. It's fitting t hat m y lif e, sinc e it has t he n ec ess ar y str engt h, is t he antici pati on of an ob ject l eading it t ow ard t he nig ht. W e t oil v ainl y in s earc h of happin ess : t he nig ht its elf d em ands fr om us t he str engt h t o l ov e it. If w e l iv e on, w e must find t he n ec ess ar y str engt h-w hic h w e'll hav e t o s pend out of l ov e f or it.

46 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

W hen I l ef t Par is I cut t he br idg es b ehind m e. My l if e at V. , fr om the outs et, w as n o l ong er d iff er ent fr om a b ad d ream; only the absu rd ity of it r em ain ed: my luck w as t o b e s ick, in unb ear abl e c ircumst anc es.

A l ett er w as f orw ard ed to m e fr om Par is: my s adn ess is s o gr eat t hat t hat at c ertain m om ents I t ak e to m oan ing out l oud.

T he l ett er is, l ik e t he first n ot e, wr itt en w ith t he l ef t hand, but l ess und ec id ed:

" . . . my f ather," s he s ays, "dr agg ed m e ac ross t he r ooms by the hair. I sc ream ed-t hat hurts l ik e hell. My m other v ery n early put her hand ov er my m out h. H e will k ill us, my m ot her and m e, he s ays, and he'l l k ill y ou n ex t, b ec aus e he sn eers that he d oesn 't w ant t o m ak e y ou un happy ! H e t ook on e of my fing ers and f orc ed it b ack w it h suc h a d iab ol ic al

m eann ess that he b rok e t he b on e. And I c ouldn 't hav e im ag in ed suc h a v iol ent pain. I d on 't qu it e und erst and w hat happen ed: I sc ream ed, w ith t he w ind ow open , just as a

fl ock of c rows w as pass ing; t heir cr ies bl end ed w it h m in e. M ayb e I 'm g oing c razy.

" H e is sus pic ious of y ou: he g oes int o t he hotels at m eal t im e, pass ing thr oug h t he d in ing r oom. H e's ins an e: t he d oc tor w ants t o c onfin e him, but his w if e, w ho's as cr azy as w e ar e, w on 't hear of it . . . Y ou 'r e on his m ind fr om m orn ing t o n ig ht: he hates you above all else. W hen he s peaks of y ou he pu ts ou t a l ittl e r ed t ongu e fr om his fr og-l ik e head.

"I d on 't kn ow w hy, bu t at all hours of t he d ay he c alls y ou 'my l ord ' and 'cr oc od il e. ' H e s ays y ou will m arry m e, b ec aus e he s ays y ou w an t t he f ortun e, the c as tl e: w e s hall hav e a 'fun eral w edd ing ' "!

N o d oub t ab out it, I 'm g oing m ad mys elf her e in my r oom.

A STORY OF RATS- 47

I ' l l go to the castle through the snowstorm, shivering in my overcoat. At the door of the entrance gate old Edron will appear. I ' l l see his spiteful, furious mouth and I won't hear his abuse, drowned out by the noise of the barking!

I curled up in my bed and cried.

Crocodile tears ! She, B . , doesn't cry, has never cried. I imagine her in one of the hallways of the castle, l ike a

current of air, slamming the doors one after the other, and laughing, in spite of everything, about my crocodile tears.

It's still snowing. My heart beats more violently if I hear footsteps in the

hotel: B. going to general delivery would find my letters there and would come?

Someone knocked and I no longer doubted that she had come, that the wal l separat ing me from her would open . . . I already imagined that fleeting pleasure: seeing her again, after so many days and night s. Father A . opened the door, a slight smile, a strange mocking look in his eyes.

"I 've heard from B. ," he said. "I 've finally received a note asking me to come. She says there's nothing you can do. Me, my robe . . . "

I begged him to go immediately to the castle. He saw me thin and haggard beneath an eight-day beard. "What's the matter with you? I ' l l give her your news ." "I 'm sick ," I told him. " I haven't been able to let her

know. The news that I have is older than yours.''

I described the state I was in. "Where was it," I continued, "that I read this phrase:

This cassock is undoubtedly a bad omen"? I imagine the worst .

48 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

" Don't worry," he said, "I 've spoken about you in the hotel. A misfortune is quickly made known in a l ittle town. " "The castle i s far from here?"

"Three kilometers. B. was definitely alive a few hours ago. We never know more than that. Let me rekindle your fire, it's cold as an ice pack in your room."

I knew she wouldn't go t o general delivery! And now? My messenger is hurrying through the snow: he resem

bles those crows whose cries blended with those of B. in her room.

Those birds flying over the snows are probably accompanying the Jesuit, going towards the room where B. cried out. A t the same time I imagine B. 's nakedness (the breasts, the hips, the fur), the torturer 's toad face, the red tongue: and now, the crows, the priest.

I feel my heart slowly stirred, to the point where one touches the intimacy of things.

A . scurries l ike a rat! My disorderly behavior, the window looking onto the

void and my exasperating "No matter !" , as if I were gripped, harrassed by the weather, on the eve of gruesome events . . .

As if the meeting at the father's castle (of the daughter, my mistress, and her lover, the Jesuit) gave my pain some imperceptible extravagance . . .

A STORY OF RATS- 49

• • • • • 0 • • • • • • • 0 • • • •

. . . . . . . . . . . . . wh at d awn is bre aking in me ? wh at inconceiv able light ? i llumin ating the snow, the c assock, the crows . . .

. . . so much cold, p ain, and obscenity ! but th at rigorous clockwork (the priest) , suited for the most delic ate missions, obliged to w alk with his teeth ch attering! . . .

. . . I don't know wh at is turning in my he ad -in the clouds -l ike an imp alp able grinding wheel -d azzlingboundless void, bitterly cold, yielding a pure we apon . . .

. . . oh, my sickness, wh at an chil ling ex alt ation, t ant amount to a murder . . .

. . . henceforth I h ave no more limits: wh at grinds in the emptiness within me is a consuming p ain from which there is no esc ape short of dying . . .

. . . B . ' s cry of p ain , the e arth, the sky and the cold are n aked l ike bell ies in love-m aking . . .

50 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

A. , h is teeth ch attering on the thresh old, hurls himself at B . , strips her n aked, te ars o ff her clothes in the cold. At th at moment the f ather arrives (not Father A . but the f ather of B.), the we asel -f aced little m an, be aming like a fool, s ay ing softly:"I knew it, it's a f arce!" . . . . . . . . .

. . . . the l ittle m an, the f ather, creeps up, jeering, and str addles the m ad couple on the threshold (spre ad out on the snow, and ne xt to thembe aring in mind the c assock, and above the all the sweat of death-shit would look pure to me): he cups h is h ands (the f ather, his eyes glittering with spite) and cries in a low voice: "Edron !" . . . . . . .

. . . . something b ald and must ached, with the cr afty movements of a burgl ar, a

soft, p atently f alse, sweet chuckle: he c alls out in a low voice: "Edron! the shotgun !" .

m the sleepy silence of the snow, an e xplosion resounds .


I w ake up a l ittle une asy and yet cheerful .

The obli que sides of being, by which it esc apes the me ager simplicity of de ath usu ally reve al themselves only to cold lucidity: only the cheerful m alice of indifference re aches those dist ant l imits where even the tr agic is unpretentious. It is just as tr agic, but it is not ponderous. It's stupid at bottom th at we usu ally accede to those disconcerting regions only in a contr acted st ate.

It's str ange th at A. , he who . . . , guided me in my dre amlike actions.

In this suspended moment, when even the ide a of B . 's de ath le aves me indifferent, I still don't doubt th at if I h adn't loved her as I do, I couldn't h ave known my condition.

Reg ardless of the re ason, A . helped me a good de al in one ye ar to pose, lucidly, those problems imposed on life by

52- THE IMPOSSIBLE

the poverty of reflection ("poverty" is e asily s ai d, when the me aning of ri ch and poor i s given in reflection!). The empty lucidity o f A. , the contempt he h as for th at which it isn't, flowed into me like the wind into a sh ack with empty windows. ( It's true, I 'm obl iged to st ate this qu alific ation : A . would scoff at this comp arison which i mmedi ately shows contempt's l ack of self-confidence.)

A .'s in anity: to be without desire (no longer to expect anything). Lucidity excludes desire (or perh aps kills i t, I

don't know): as for wh at rem ai ns, he controls i t, while I . . .

But wh at am I to s ay, in f act, about mysel f? At this extreme, exh austing moment I c an i m agine th at I let desire become ex acerb ated i n order to find th at l ast moment, when the gre atest l ight im agin able il lumin ates wh at is r arely seen by the eyes of men, d arkness il lumin ating the l ight !

I am so tired ! How did I write these ambiguous sentences, when e ach thing is given simply? D arkness is the s ame thing as light . . . , but no. The truth i s, nothing c an be s aid about

the st ate I 'm in other th an th at's th at.

It's biz arre: the elements subsi st in a comic al light: I c an still distinguish them and see them as comic al, but as a m atter o f fact, the comic al goes so far th at one c an't t alk about it.

A complete accord is re ached by wh at c annot by any me ans re ach an accord: i n this new l ight, the discord is gre ater th an it ever w as. Love for B. m akes me l augh at her de ath and her p ain (I don't l augh at any other de ath) and the purity of my love undresses her down to the shit.

The ide a th at Father A., a while ago, w as h alf-de ad with

A STORY OF RATS- 53

cold coming to my assist ance. He 's h ard to discompose. It's a sh ame.

Obviously I doubt whether I w anted . . . I 've suffered. My current st ate, m arked by a keen lucidity, is the effect of an ex agger ated anguish. Which I know wil l st art ag ain

l ater.

A.'s lucidity depends on a l ack of desire. Mine i s the result of an excess -undoubtedly i t is also the only true lucidity. If i t i s only the neg ation of del irium, lucidity i s not completely lucid, i s stil l a bit the fe ar of goi ng all the w aytr ansposed into boredom, th at i s, into contempt for the object of an excessive desire. We re ason with ourselves and we tell ourselves : this object doesn't h ave in itself the v alue th at desire gives i t . We don't see th at mere lucidity, which we also att ain, is sti l l blind. We must see at the s ame time the delusion and the truth of the object. No doubt we h ave to know th at we are deluding ourselves, th at the object is first of al l wh at is perceived by a desireless bei ng, but it is also wh at a desire percei ves in it . B. is also wh at is only att ained by the extremity of deliri um and my lucidity would

not exist if my deli ri u rn were not so gre at. Just as it would not exist if the other, ri di culous sides of B. esc aped me.

D ay is f al ling, the fire i s dyi ng, and I ' l l soon h ave to stop wri ti ng, obliged by the cold to retr act my h ands. With the curt ains dr awn aside, I c an m ake out the silence and the snow through the window p anes. Under a low sky, this in finite silence w eighs on me and fri ghtens me. It l ies he avy l ike the int angible presence of bodies l aid out in de ath.

I i m agine this p added silence alone me asures up to an immensely tender, but entirely free, wonderstruck and defenseless, exh alt ation. When M. l ay before me i n de ath ,

54- THE IMPOSSIBLE

lovely and obli que l ike the silence of the snow, unobtrusive l ike it but, like it, l ike the cold, m ad with ex acerb ated rigor, I alre ady knew this immense tenderness , which is only the l ast degree of sorrow .

. . . how gre at is the silence of de ath in the recollection of deb auchery, when deb auchery itself is the freedom of de ath! how gre at is the love in deb auchery ! the deb auchery in love !

. . . if now I think -at this most f ar aw ay moment of a bre akdown, a physic al and mor al disgust -of the pink t ail of a r at in the snow, it seems to sh are in the intimacy of "th at which is" ; a slight une asiness clutches my he art. And cert ainly I know th at the intim acy of M ., who is de ad, w as l ike the t ail of a r at, lovely as the tail of a rat! I knew alre ady th at the intim acy of things is de ath .

. . . and n atur ally, nakedness is death-and the more truly "de ath" the lovelier it is!


The anguish h as slowly returned, after th at brief spell of immense tenderness . . .

It is l ate. A. doesn't return. He should at le ast h ave telephoned , notified the hotel .

The thought of a finger deliber ately broken, by the m adm an . . .

This del ay, this silence, my w aiting, open the door to fe ar . It's been d ark for hours . In the long run the composure th at I usu al ly h ave, even during the unple as ant hours of anguish , ab andons me. Like a bitter ch allenge, the memory comes b ack to me of wh at a prostitute told me one d ay (she w as h aving a session with me): her employer bo asted of h aving, in July 1 9 1 4 , stockpiled thous ands of widows' veils.

The horrible w ait for wh at doesn't come, the widow's w ait, irremedi ably a widow alre ady, but with no w ay of knowing, living on hope. E ach addition al moment th at m arks the acceler ated be ats of the he art tells me it's fool ish

56 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

to hope (we h ad agreed th at A . would telephone if he w asn't coming b ack).

No more question of my indifference to B.'s de ath, except th at I tremble at h aving felt it.

I get lost in conjectures, but the evidence grows.

A STORY OF RATS- 57

[Second Notebook]

The hope for a telephone disturb ance: I got up, covered mysel f with an overco at, went downst airs: the feeling, in the b ack of the lobby, of being -at l ast -beyond hum an limits, exh austed, with no return im agin able. I l iter ally trembled. Now, remembering th at I trembled, I feel re duced, in this world, to th at trembling, as if my whole l ife h ad no other me aning th an my cow ardice.

The cow ardice of a h alf-be arded m an, w andering, re ady to weep, through the icy corridors of a st ation hotel and h aving a h ard time distinguishing between the clinic al l ights (nothing re al any more) and the definitive d arkness (de ath), reduced in this world to th at trembling.

The ringing of the telephone went on so long th at im agined the whole chate au alre ady in the grip of de ath. A wom an 's voice fin ally answered. I asked for A.

"He's not here," the voice s aid.

58 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

"Wh at?" I shouted. I insisted , spe aking intel ligibly. "The gentlem an is perh aps somewhere else." I protested. "Somewhere else in the house," s aid the voice, "but the

gentlem an is not in the office ." She resumed in an une xpected tone, neither too stupid,

nor clever: "There are things h appening at the c astle." "Ple ase, m ad ame," I begged, "this gentlem an is un

doubtedly there. I f he is still alive, tell him th at someone is c al ling him."

This w as answered by a stifled l augh, but the kind voice conceded:

"Yes, monsieur. I ' l l go look for him." I he ard the receiver being put down and even the sound

o f footsteps receding. Someone closed the door and then nothing.

At the height o f e xasper ation, I seemed to he ar a c al l and a noise l ike dishes bre aking. The unbe ar able w ait contin

ued. A fter an endless time, I no longer doubted th at the connection h ad been cut. I hung up and asked for the number ag ain but w as told, "The line is busy." At the si xth try the oper ator s aid:

" Ple ase don't try ag ain, there's no one on the line." "Wh at?" I shouted. "The receiver is off the hook, but nobody is t alking.

Nothing c an be done. They must h ave forgotten it."

Useless in fact to keep on trying. I stood up in the booth and gro aned: "W ait all night . . . "

No longer the sh adow o f a hope, but I w as domin ated by the ide a o f knowing at all costs.


Returning to my room, I rem ained frozen and huddled on a ch air.

I got up fin ally. I w as so we ak th at dressing myself w as incredibly diff icult: I wept from the effort.

On the st airs I h ad to stop and le an ag ainst the w all.

I t w as snowing. I h ad the st ation buildings in front of me, a g as refinery cylinder. Suffoc ated, m angled by the cold , I

w alked in the virgin snow. My p ace in the snow and my shivering (my teeth were ch attering feverishly) were utterly futile.

Dr awn into myself, I voiced a tremulous " . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh." It w as in the n ature of things: should I persist in the undert aking, lose myself in the snow ? This project h ad only one justi fic ation: wh at I absolutely refused w as to w ait and I h ad chosen. It so h appened, it w as my luck, th at this

p articul ar d ay there w as only one w ay to avoid w aiting.

"So, " I told myself (I don't know whether I w as overcome: the difficulties were bringing me relief fin ally) , "the only thing left for me to do is beyond my strength . "

I thought: " Precisely bec ause it's beyond my strength, and wh at's

more it c an ' t succeed in any c ase-the c aret aker, the

dogs . . . -I c annot ab andon it."

The wind-driven snow l ashed my f ace, blinding me. My curse w as r aised in the d arkness ag ainst a doomsd ay silence.

I gro aned l ike a m adm an in this solitude: " My sorrow is too gre at!" My voice c alled out sh akily.

60 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

I he ard the crunching of my shoes: the snow er ased my tr acks as I adv anced, as if, c le arly, there w as no question of going b ac k.

I went forw ard in the night: the ide a th at behind me the bridges were cut soothed me. It reconciled my st ate of m ind with the sever ity of the cold! A m an c ame out of a c afe and dis appe ared in the snow. Noticing the l ighted interior, I he aded for the door and opened it.

I m ade the snow f all from my h at. I went over to the stove: at th at moment I decided it

w asn't good to feel how much I l iked the he at of a stove. "Th at being the c ase," I s aid to myself, l aughing inside

with a dull chuckle, "I sh all not return : I sh all not le ave!"

Three r ailro ad workers were pl aying b ar billi ards. I asked for a grog. The proprietress poured the br andy

into a little gl ass, then emptied it into a big one. I got a l arge amount : she st arted l aughing. I w anted some sug ar and to obt ain it I tried a crude joke. She l aughed loudly and

sug ared the hot w ater.

I fel t degr aded. The joke m ade me the accessory of those people who expected nothing. I dr ank th at ste aming grog. In my overco at I h ad some t ablets for the flu. I remembered they cont ained c affeine and I sw allowed sever al.

I w as unre al , light. Next to a g ame in which rows of colored footb all pl ayers

confronted e ach other. The alcohol and the c affeine stimul ated me: I w as alive. I asked the proprietress for the address of . . . I p aid and left the pl ace. Outside I took the ro ad to the c astle. The snow h ad stopped f alling, but the air w as frigid. I

w alked ag ainst the wind.


I w as now t aking the step th at my ancestors h ad not been able to t ake. They l ived next to the bog where at night the

cruelty of the world, the cold, the frost, sust ained their bitter ch ar ac ter: av arice, toughness in the face of excessive suffering. My ex asper ated entre aty, my expect ation, were just as l inked to the n ature of the night but I w as no longer resigned : my hypocrisy did not ch ange this ludicrous condition into a test willed by God. I w as going to pursue my m ani a for questioning to the end. This world h ad given me- and t aken aw ay-WHAT I LOVED.

How I suffered by going out into th at immensity before me: it w as no longer snowing, the wind w as r aising the snow. In pl aces the snow c ame up to my c alves. I h ad to climb an intermin able slope. The icy wind fi lled the air with such a tension, such a r age th at it seemed my temples would burst, my e ars bleed. No w ay out im agin ableexcept for the c astle . . . where Edron's dogs . . . de ath . . . I w alked, in these circumst ances, with the energy of delirium.

Obviously I w as suffering, but I w as aw are th at in a sense this excess of suffering w as volunt ary. No connection with the suffering, undergone without recourse, of the prisoner being tortured, of the deportee prostr ated by hunger, of fingers th at are only a s alt-freshened wound. In this r age of cold, I w as m ad. Wh at lies within me in the w ay of senseless energy w as str ained to the bre aking point-I seem to h ave l aughed, deep down, biting my s ad l ips-l aughed, no doubt, while crying out, at B. Who knows B . 's limits better th an I ?

But -will they believe me ? -the suffering n aively sought , B. 's limits, only sh arpened my p ain; in my simplicity, my tremors opened me to th at silence th at extends f arther th an conceiv able sp ace.

I w as f ar, so f ar from the world of c alm reflections, my

62 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

unh appiness h ad th at empty, electric sweetness which IS

l ike fingern ai ls th at are turned b ack.

I re ached the limits of exh austion, my strength ab andoned me. The cold h ad the impossible, senselessly str ained cruelty of a b attle. Too f ar to return, would it be long before I fel l? I would rem ain inert and the snow, which the wind w as blowing, would cover me. I would soon die once f al len. Unless I arrived first at the c astle . . . (Now I l aughed at them, at those people of the c astle: they would do wh at they ple ased with me . . . ). In the end I w as we ak, incredibly so, adv ancing more and more slowly, l ifting my feet from the snow only with gre at difficulty, in the st ate of an anim al th at froths, fights to the end, but is reduced, in

the d arkness, to a miser able de ath.

I w anted nothing more th an to know -perh aps with my frozen h ands to touch a body (my h and so cold alre ady th at it could join with hers) -the cold th at w as cutting my lips w as l ike the r age of de ath: it w as the f act of bre athing it in, of desiring it, th at tr ansfigured those p ainful moments. I rediscovered in the air, around me, th at etern al, senseless re ality which I h ad known only once, in the room of a de ad wom an: a kind of suspended leap.

In the de ad wom an's room there w as a stony silence, pushing b ack the l imits of the sobs, as if, the sobs no longer h aving an end, the whole rent world let one glimpse the infinite terror through the opening. Such a silence is beyond sorrow: the silence is nothing of course; it even conjures aw ay the conceiv able responses and holds every possibi l ity suspended i n the complete absence of tr anquillity.

How sweet terror is!

A STORY OF RATS- 63

Unim agin able, b asic ally, the J ack of suffering and the skin-deep n ature of sorrow, the J ack of re ality, the dre aml ike consistency of the horrible. Yet I w as in the suspense of death.

Wh at do we know by dint of I iving if the de ath of the beloved does not usher in horror (emptiness) at the very point where we c annot be ar for it to enter: but then we know wh at door the key opens.

How changed the world is! how be autiful it w as, b athed in a h alo of lun ar light! I n the very bosom of de ath, M.

exh aled in its sweetness a holiness th at c aught my thro at. The f act th at before dying she bec ame depr aved, but l ike a child -in th at bold and desper ate w ay, which is doubtless a sign of holiness (which gn aws and consumes the body)finished giving her anguish a sense of excess -of a le ap beyond the bounds.

Wh at de ath tr ansfigured, my sorrow re ached like a cry.

I w as torn ap art and my brow w as frozen -from an inner and p ainful sort of frost -the st ars reve aled at the zenith

between the clouds m ade my p ain complete: I w as n aked, defenseless in the cold; in the cold my he ad w as bursting. It no longer m attered whether I fel l , whether I continued to suffer in the extreme, whether I died. A t l ast I s aw the d ark m ass -no lights-of the c astle. The night swooped down on me like a bird on its miser able prey; the cold suddenly spre ad to my he art: I would not re ach the c astle . . . which de ath inh abited; but de ath . . .

III


Those crows on the snow, in the sun, whose flying throngs I see from my bed, whose c alls I he ar from my room, could they be?

. . . the s ame ones -th at answered B . 's cry when her f ather . . . ?

How surprised I w as w aking up in th at sunlit room, cozy from the he at of the stove! The crimps, the stresses, the fr actures of p ain, persisting l ike a h abit, still connected me to anguish, which nothing around me justified any longer. I hung on, the victim of a b ad turn : "Remember your wretched situ ation," I told myself. I got up p ainfully, I suffered, sh aking on my legs. I slipped, le aning on the t able -a medicine bottle fel l and broke. It w as nice and w arm but I w as trembling, oddly dressed in a shirt th at w as too short, its front t ail coming up to my n avel.

B. d ashed in and shouted: "M ani ac! b ack to bed quick! no, w ait . . . ," st ammering,

shouting.


The w ay a crying b aby, suddenly seized with a desire to l augh , w ants to go on suffering but c an't . . . , I pulled at the t ail of the l ittle shirt, I w as trembling with fever and, l aughing in spite of myself, I couldn't keep the shirtt ail from rising . . . B. flew into a temper but I noticed th at in th at fury she w as l aughing . . .

She w as obliged (I asked her to, un able to w ait any longer) to le ave me alone for a moment (it w as less awkw ard for her to be overcome out of my presence, to go and p ace the emptiness of the corridors for a short while). I

thought of the dirty h abits of lovers . I w as exh austed but cheerfully so; the endless time which the det ails of the oper ation re quired ex asper ated me, amused me. I h ad to put off for a few minutes my e agerness to know. Letting myself go, forgetting myself, like a de ad m an, inert in my sheets, the question "Wh at is h appening?" h ad the g aiety of a sl ap in the f ace.

I clung to the l ast possibility for anguish .

. B. asked me timidly, "Are you better?". Answering her

With "Where am I?," I let myself resort to th at fixed sort of p anic which the eyes express by opening wide.

"In the house," she s aid. "Yes," she continued, sheepish . "In the c astle." "But . . . your f ather?" " Don't worry about th at." She looked l ike a child who's done something wrong. " He's de ad," she expl ained after moment h ad p assed. She let the words drop quickly, with her he ad bowed . . .

(The telephone scene bec ame cle ar. I found out l ater th at, shouting, sobbing: " Ple ase, m ad ame," I h ad m ade a little girl of ten l augh.)


N o doubt about it, B.'s eyes were avoiding mine.

"Is he here . . . ?" I asked. "Yes."

She c ast a furtive gl ance. Our eyes met: she h ad a smile at the corners of her

mouth. " How w as I found?" B. looked positively t aken ab ack. It w as her desper ation

th at m ade her s ay: "I asked the Reverend, ' Why is there a hump in the

snow?' " In a sick person's cr acked voice I insisted: "Where ex actly?" "On the ro ad, at the entr ance to the c astle drive . ' ' "You c arried me?" "The Reverend and I ." " Wh at were you doing, the Reverend and you?" " Don't be upset any more; you should let me t alk now,

without interrupting . . . We left the house around ten. We ate dinner first, A. and I (Mother didn't w ant to h ave

dinner). I did my best but it w as h ard for us get aw ay. Who could h ave known how cr azy you would become?"

She pl aced her h and on my forehe ad. It w as the left h and (It seemed to me at th at moment th at everything w as going wrong; she h ad her right h and in a sc arf).

She continued, but her h and w as trembling.

"We were b arely l ate: if you h ad only w aited for us . . . " I gro aned feebly: "I didn't know anything. "

"The letter w as r ather cle ar . . . " I w as astonished: I le arned th at a letter given to the

doctor should h ave re ached the hotel before seven o'clock.

70 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

A . announced the father's death, telling me that he would be coming back late and that B. would accompany him.

I said to B. in a soft voice: ";\l o o�e delivered any letter to the hotel ." (In actual �act,

. he felt so cold that he got drunk; he forgot the letter

m h1s pocket.)

B. took my hand in her left hand, "gauchely" interlacing her fingers with mine.

"If you didn't know anything you should have waited. Edron would have let you die! and you didn't even make it to the house!' '


When B . discovered m e I had just fallen. My body was completely covered with a thin layer of snow. The snow would have quickly killed me if, contrary to all expectations, someone, B . , had not turned up.

B. drew her right hand out of the scarf, joined it to the left and I saw that despite the plaster cast she was trying to wring her hands.

" Did I hurt you?" I asked. "I can no longer imagine . . . "

She fell silent, but she continued to move her hands restlessly on her dress. She resumed speaking:

"Do you remember, at the junction where you fel l , coming from the castle you go through a grove of l ittle pines where the road starts to wind up the hill? You reach the saddle at the h ighest place. just when I was about to notice the hump, the wind took hold of me, I wasn't dressed warmly enough , I had to stop myself from crying out, even A. began to groan. A t that moment I looked at

72 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

the house, which you look down on from there-I thought of death and remembered that he had twisted my . . . "

She fel l silent.

She was painfully absorbed in her thoughts. After a long while, her head low, continuing a difficult

twisting movement of her hands, she spoke again-rather softly:

" . . . as if the wind had the same hostility as he."

Despite the prostration of my physical suffering, I wished with all my strength that I could help her. I understood at that moment that the "hump" and my inanimate bodywhich were not in any way distinguishable from a corpserepresented in that darkness a greater cruelty than her father's or than the cold . . . It was hard for me to bear that terrible language-which love had found.

We finally extricated ourselves from these heavy reflections.

She smiled: "You remember m y father?" " . . . such a little man . . . " " . . . so comical . . . He was mad; everything would

tremble in his presence. He would break everything in such a absurd way . . . "

"It makes you tremble?" "Yes . . . "

She fel l silent but didn't stop smiling. She said finally: "He's there . . . " She pointed with her eyes. " Hard to say what he looks like . . . a toad-that has just

swal lowed a fly . . . How ugly he is!" "You're fond of h im-still . . . ?" "He fascinates."

Someone knocked.


Father A . swiftly crossed the room. He doesn't have that nul lified look of clergymen. His

bearing reminds me of large, lean birds of prey that I saw at the Anvers zoo.

He came to the foot of the bed, wordlessly exchanging looks with us; B. could not hold back a smile of complicity.

"Everything works out, in the end," said A. State of exhaustion. A. and B. , next to the bed, l ike

haystacks in a field, on which the sun fixes its last rays. A feeling of dreaming, sleeping. I must have spoken but

my unfaithful memory withheld from me what at all costs I must have said. I nwardly tense, but I had forgotten.

A painful , irremediable feeling, l inked to the roaring of the fire.

B. put in more wood and slammed the stove door. A. and B. on a chair, an armchair. A dead man a l ittle

further away in the house. A. with his long birdlike profile, hard, useless, "deconse

crated church ."

The doctor called back for m e apologized for forgetting the letter the day before; found that I had congestion of the lungs-a mild case.

On all sides, oblivion . . .

I imagined that l ittle dead man in the state room, with his gleaming cranium. Night was fal ling-outside, the clear sky, the snow, the wind. Now the peaceful boredom, the

74 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

pleasantness of the room. My distress finally boundless, precisely in that it has the opposite appearance. A . , serious, was speaking to B. about electric heating: " . . . the heat reaches twenty degrees in a few minutes . . . ," B. responded: " . . . wonderful . . . ," the faces and the voices got lost in the darkness.

I was alone, measuring the extent of the sickness: a tranquillity that wouldn't quit. The excess of the preceding day was useless! Extreme lucidity, stubbornness, happiness (chance) had guided me: I was in the heart of the castle, I was living in the house of the dead man and I had passed all bounds.

My thoughts went off in every direction. I was stupid to give things a value they didn't have. This inaccessible castle-inhabited by insanity or death-was a place like any other. The day before I seemed to be conscious of my game: it was make-believe, mendacity even.

I could make out the silhouette of the others. They were no longer tal king, the night had effaced them. In spite of everything it was my luck to be staying, i l l , in the dead man's house: my artful malaise, my poignant cheerfulness-of doubtful authenticity.

At least the bald one was lifeless, authentically dead , but what did authentic mean?

From the idea he gives of himself, I can't accurately gauge A. 's misery. I imagine a calm reflection, inserting its tedious l impidity in the universe. By these slow labors of action and reflection following one another, by this execution of bold strokes that are basically so may acts of lucid prudence, what can he achieve?

His vices have just one goal according to him: to give his


position a material consequence. "The impostor!" I said to myself at the end of my

reflection . (I was calm and ill .) Could he really not know that his attempt has the same

effrontery as a die? No one of us is more a die, drawing from chance, from

the bottom of an abyss, some new derision .

That share of truth which we unquestionably draw from the games of the intel lect . . .

How can we deny the depth, the reach of the intellect? A nd yet. The zenith of the intellect is at the same moment its

breakdown. It melts away: what defines man's intell igence is that it

escapes him. Seen from the outside, it is only weakness: A . i s only a man intoxicated by its possible depth and n o one could resist it were it not for the fact that greater depth gives us a superiority (manifest or hidden) over others. The greatest intellect is basically the most easily duped: to think that one apprehends the truth when one is only evading, vainly, the obvious stupidity of everyone. And no one really has what each one thinks: something more. A childish belief of the most rigorous ones in their talisman.

What no one before me achieved, I cannot achieve, and striving to, I have only been able to mimic the mistakes of others: I dragged the weight of others along with me. Or better, bel ieving that I alone had not succumbed, I was only they, bound by the same shackles, in the same prison.

I succumb: A. and myself, close to B . , in a mystical castle . . .

At the banquet of the intellect, the ultimate imposture!

76 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

Even the bald one next door-doesn't he have a false rigidity in death?

His image obsesses B. (a corpse separates us) .

A wax museum dead man! Jealous of the dead man! perhaps of death itself! The idea came to me-sudden, clear, irremediable

that incest l inked the dead man to B.

A STORY OF RATS- 77

I fel l asleep and woke up much later. I was alone. e nable to satisfy a need, I rang. I waited. They had left only a dim l ight and when he

opened I didn't recognize Edron at first. He stood before me. His feral eyes stared at me. I stared back at him. The room was immense; he came slowly toward the bed. (But a white jacket is reassuring.)

I simply said to him: "It 's me. " H e didn't reply. To find me lying in bed, that day, in B.'s room was

beyond his comprehension. He didn't say a word. He looked like a forester in spite of

the jacket, and my defiant attitude was not that of a master. A poor, sick man, let in on the sly, prowling with a corpse's beard, was more in the position of a poacher.

78 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

I remember the time he spent in front of me, frozen in an undecided posture (he, the master's man, looked cornered, not knowing what to say nor how to exit . . . ) .

I couldn't help laughing inside, and I had to painfully calm that laughter: I was suffocating.

Considering that just then the discomfort from which I might have screamed gave me a startling flash of lucidity!

B. often talked to me about Edron and her father, hinting at the unnatural friendship of the two men. It finally became clear to me . . . The background of anguish against which B . 's uncertain boldness, her despondent mirth, her excesses in two contrary directions, l icentiousness and submission, stood out-at the same moment I had the key to it all : B. as a l ittle girl, victim of the two monsters (Now I 'm sure of it!).

In these circumstances and because of the great calm I was in, I felt the l imits of anguish recede. A . stood in the doorway without saying a word (I didn't hear him come): "What have I done," I thought,"to be thrown back l ike this into the impossible in any case?" My eyes went from the gamekeeper to the clergyman: I imagined the God that the latter denied. In my calm an inner wail , from the depths of my solitude, shattered me. I was alone-a wail that no one heard, that no ears will ever hear.

What unimaginable force would my lamentation have had if there were a God?

"Think about it though. Nothing can escape you now. If God doesn't exist, this moan, choked back in your solitude, is the extreme l imit of the possible: in this sense there is no element of the universe that is not under its power! It is not subject to anything, it dominates everything and yet is


formed out of an infinite awareness of impotence: out of a sense of the impossible to be exact!"

Stirred by a kind of joy. I looked the old man straight in the eyes. I could tell he

was wavering inside.

I realized the Father was enjoying himself on the threshold . . .

Motionless (he was enjoying himself at my expense; his cunning ideas, by no means excluding friendship, were lost in indifference), A. remained in that pose for just a few moments.

(He takes me amiably for a fool . Moreover he makes fun of my "play-acting. " I had no doubt about the bluff of anguish . . . )

At that suspended moment-I had sat up on my bed opposite the gamekeeper, and my life was escaping me in my powerlessness-! thought: " I was cheating in the snow yesterday, it was not the leap that I imagined. ' ' This lucidity connected with A. ' s presence did not change my state in the least: Edron remained in front of me and he was a man I could not laugh at.

I had thought at first of the big knife he probably had under his jacket (I was sure he had it in fact and I knew he was thinking about it himself but he was paralyzed). Hearing the ring and seeing him walk by, A. was afraid . . . , but he was wrong: it was the forester who gave in.

Confronting him, in the horror I was in, I even experienced a slight sensation of triumph. I had the same feeling with regard to A. (at that moment my lucidity reached

80 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

exaltation). At the height of fear there was no limit to my joy.

It no longer matters to me that my state, in the eternal absence of God, exceeds the universe itself . . .

The sweetness of death radiated from me; I was sure of a faithfulness. Far beyond Edron and A. , B. 's distress approached the plunge that M . had made into death. The gaiety, the frivolity of B. (but I had no doubt that at this very moment she was in the dead man's room wringing her hands), was just one more access to nakedness: to the SECRET that the body abandons with the dress.

Until then I had never had that clear awareness of my farce: my whole life making an exhibition of itself and the curiosity I had had to reach the point where I was, where the farce is so complete and so true that it says:

"I am farce. "

I saw so far i n m y passion for seeing. The haggard, irascible face of the world. The fine, ludicrous visage of the gamekeeper . . . , I

cheerfully brought his ignominy into focus against an inaccessible background . . .

Suddenly I realized that he would walk away, that in due time he would come back, bringing the tea tray.

In the end I made all those connections that link each thing to the other: so that each thing is dead (stripped naked) .

. . . that SECRET-that the body abandons . . .

B. didn't cry but awkwardly wrung her hands. . . . the darkness of a garage, a male odor, an odor of

death . . .


. . . finally the bald one's inanimate body . . .

I have the naivete of a child; I say to myself: my anguish is great, I am taken aback (but I had in my hands the sweetness of her nakedness: her awkward hands being wrung were just the dress raised up, revealing . . . There was no longer any difference between the two and that painfu l awkwardness l inked the cornered nakedness of the little girl to the cheerful nakedness in front of A.).

(Nakedness is only death and the tenderest kisses have an aftertaste of rat.)

PART TWO

DIANUS

(Notes Drawn from the Notebooks of Monsignor Alpha)

The Bird

D IANU S - 87

. . . not a line where, like the morning dew in the sunshine, the sweetness of anguish does not come into play .

. . . I really ought rather to . . .

. . . but I want to wipe out my footprints . . .

88 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

. . . the senseless attention, analogous to the fear that intoxication can be, to the intoxication that fear can be . . .

I 'm becoming gloomy and a kind of hostility keeps me in the darkness of the room-and in this dead silence.

Since it may be time to answer the riddle that's entered the house like a thief. (Better to answer in my turn by ceasing to live, instead of getting excited like a girl).

Now the water of the lake is black, the forest in the storm is as funereal as the house. It was no use saying to myself, "A dead man in the next room! . . . " and smiling at the idea of an entrechat; my nerves are on edge.

A few minutes ago E. went out, haphazardly, into the night: since she was in no condition even to close the door, the wind slammed it.

I wanted to be utterly in command of myself. I fancied that my freedom was complete: and now my heart has sunk. My

D IA!\IU S- 8 9

l ife has n o way out: this world surrounds me with malaise. It begs a grinding of teeth from me.-" Imagine that E. , having betrayed you (when you only wanted it physically), now kills herself out of love for a dead man, for D.!"

E. is pining with love for a man who held her in contempt. In his eyes she was nothing but an orgy partner. I don't know if I still have the heart to laugh at her foolishness-or to weep at my own.

No longer being able to think of anything but her, and the dead man, I can't do anything-but wait.

The bitter consolation: that to a life of l ibertinage E. prefers anguish, wandering at the shore of a lake! I don't know whether she'l l kill herself . . .

The last few days, at the thought of my brother dead, even because of the affection I have for him, I imagined it would be hard for me to keep from laughing. But now death is there.

It's odd to be in such agreement, in the deepest part of oneself, with the denial of what one wants and doesn't cease wanting.

Or maybe? I prefer for D. to be dead . . . I would rather that E. , wandering in the dark near the lake, no longer hesitated to fal l . . . The idea revolts me now . . . : just as the water that would drown her would revolt her.

My brother and I had wanted to live an endless festival up to his death! Such a long year of playfulness! The disconcerting thing was that D. remained open to depression, to shame: he always had a comical temperament, connected, I imagine, with the "infinite interest" given to what surpasses, not just l imited being, but the very excesses

90 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

by which we try to transcend its limits. And myself, now, in the state he has left me in, l ike a fish on the sand, I remain tense.

At the limit of sleeplessness, of fatigue, to yield to superstition!

Naturally it's curious (but much more distressing) that, cut off by the storm, there is no light at this wake.

The rumbling of the thunder doesn't cease answering to a nauseous feeling of lost possibility. The glimmer of a church candle il luminating a photograph of E. , masked, half-naked, dressed for the ball . . . , I don't know any more, I 'm here, without recourse, empty like an old man.

"The sky stretches over you, immense and dark, and the dim moonlight through a cloud chased by the wind only blackens the ink of the storm. There is nothing on earth and in the sky, inside you and outside you, that doesn't contribute to your prostration ."

-" Here you are about t o fal l , ungodly priest!" And I start repeating that stupid curse out loud, sneering, at the window.

So painful('v comical! . . .

After all, the moment of ruin, when you don't know if you're going to laugh or cry, if it weren't for the fatigue, the sensation of musty eyes and mouth, of nerves slowly worn out, has the greatest leaping power. Later at the window (at the moment when the unpredictable light of a lightning flash would reveal the expanse of the lake and the sky), I would l ike to address God with a false nose on my face.

DIAI'.'C S - 9 1

The infinitely tender sensation of living-E., the dead man, and I-a possibi l ity that can't be grasped: the slightly stil ted and majestic absurdity of death, something preposterous, mischievous, about the dead body on a bed-like the bird on the branch-there is nothing that isn't suspended, a magic silence . . . , my collusion with D. , a whole childish mischievousness, the gruesome ugliness of the grave digger (who doesn't seem to be blind in one eye by chance); E. roaming the water's edge (it's dark inside her; she holds out her hands for fear of knocking against the trees) . . .

. . . a few moments ago, I myself was in the state of empty, inexhaustible horror that I can have no doubt she is in: Oedipus wandering with his eyes torn out . . . and his hands outstretched . . .

. . . an image, at the exact moment, the way a bit of food gets stuck in the throat: E., naked, wearing precisely the

92- THE IMPOSSIBLE

false nose with mustache I was thinking of . . . she was at the piano singing a tender love song, the one that suddenly breaks out of tune with a violent:

. . . Ah! come on and put your . . . in my . . .

. . . drunk and overstrained from having sung with a vulgar violence: a stupid smile acknowledged this exhaustion. To the point where one trembles with excitement. Already a slight panting l inked us . . .

At this degree of exasperation, love has the rigor of death. E. had the simplicity, the elegance and eager timidity of an animal . . .

But how does one-the electric l ight having abruptly come back on-keep from feeling the emptiness of insomnia so strongly that one staggers, on seeing written that gruesome word, "had" . . .

Her image as a carnival slave . . . and that scanty clothing . . . in the harsh light.

I have never doubted that a day would in fact dawn in me when the unbearable would be there. And the hope never left me, even here, that I would grip the stone hand of the commander.

DIA:'-JUS - 93

How theatrical it was, holding the wax candle, to go look, in the returned darkness, at the dead man lying between the flowers, the odor of mock orange mixed with that of death detergent!

My calm resolve, my simple composure responding to an appearance of boundless irony (the indefinable and affected side of the face of dead people), how difficult it is to connect a feeling of faithfulness to one of jealousy and envy! But precisely what helps me endure the unbearable is that utterly dark tenderness which invades me . . .

To the point of, remembering the depression which, after his break with B., made him decide to come end his life at . . . , experiencing the suffocating impression he gave me as an orgasm .

. . . completely, life consisting of the dark tenderness that joins me to D., in the morning twil ight-and dawnatmosphere of an execution . . . : what is neither tender


nor dark doesn't touch us. The only annoying factor, at the threshold (but, slowly, I gained control of myself) of an outburst of impotent spite, was this: that D. never reached that degree of hateful friendship, where mutual understanding arises from the certainty that both are blamable.

E. will no longer come back, the clock having struck six . . . Only death is beautiful enough. Crazy enough. And how could we bear this silence without dying? It's possible that no one has ever reached my degree of solitude: I endure it on condition that I write! But since E. , in her turn, wanted to die, she would not have been able, of course, to do anything that answers as well to the need which my mood conveys.

D. told me one day, with a laugh , that he was gripped by two obsessions (which made him il l ). The first: that in no case could he bless anything (the feelings of gratitude that he had sometimes expressed had later proved to be false). The second: that the ghost of God having vanished and the guardian immensity being absent, it was necessary for him to live an immensity that no longer l imited and did not protect. But that element which a feverish search had not been able to attain-a kind of impotence made him tremble-I find in the peacefulness of sorrow (which required his death . . . and that of E . . . : my irremediable solitude). What a man once might have felt to be chilling, but agreeable, in recognizing that a hand pressed against the window pane is that of the devil , I 'm experiencing now, letting myself be suffused, and intoxicated, by an unavowable tenderness.

( . . . would have the courage to laugh about it, or not? . . . )

DIA�CS - 95

I l iterally crawled to the window, faltering like a sick man: the sad l ight of the dawn, the low sky over the lake, correspond to my state.

All the mediocre qualities that railroad tracks and signals bestow on what, in spite of everything, is located in their domain . . . : my uncontrollable, out-of-the-way laughter is lost in a world of stations, mechanics, workers up at dawn.

So many men and women met in the course of my life who didn't thenceforth cease for a moment to live, to think one thing then another, to get up, wash themselves, etc. , or to sleep. C nless an accident or some illness withdrew them from the world, in which they left only an unbearable cadaver.

Almost no one avoids, one day or another, the situation that confines me now; no question posed in me that life and l ife's impossibility have not posed to each of them. But the sun blinds, and even though the blinding l ight is familiar to all eyes, no one gets lost in it.

I don't know if I will fall , if I will even have the necessary strength in my hand to finish the sentence, but the implacable will prevails: the remains which at this table I am, when I 've lost everything and a silence of eternity reigns in the house, are there l ike a bit of light, which perhaps is fal l ing into ruin, but does radiate.

96 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

When the dark light into which the certainty of E. 's death had plunged me was replaced by the consciousness of my fol ly, my malaise-! need now to say it-was miserable. When the gravel of the driveway crunched under E. 's footsteps, I drew back from the window and hid in order to see her: she was the image of weariness. She passed near me slowly, with her arms hanging and her head low. It was raining, by the sad morning light. Was I at the end of things any less than she was after this endless night? It seemed to me that she was making a fool of me: fal len from a high place, I felt ridiculous and my situation combined odiousness with a dead silence.

Yet, if at some moment a human being can say, "Here I am! I have forgotten everything; up to this point it was nothing but phantasmagoria and delusion, but the noise has hushed, and in the silence of tears, I am l istening . . . , " how t o keep from seeing that that impl ies this odd feel ing: to be vexed?

DIANt.:S - 97

I am different from D. in having that mania for being able which raises me up suddenly l ike a cat. He wept and I dissemble. But if D. and his death did not humiliate me, if I did not experience D., deep within me, in death, l ike a spell and a vexation, I no longer could surrender to passionate impulses. In this humiliated transparency constituted by the distraught but enraptured consciousness of my folly and, through it, of a deathlike emanation, I might finally be able to arm myself with a whip.

That is not the sort of thing that calms the nerves . . .

9 8 - T HE IMPOSSIBLE

My misery is that of the devout believer who can't satisfy the unpredictible whim of the god. I went into E. 's room with the whip in the back of my mind, and I came out with my tail down . . . and worse.

A brief glimpse at madness . . . E . wild-eyed, her teeth clenched by a monotonous curse,

muttering this insult and nothing else: "bastard . . . ," in his absence, slowly tearing her dress, as if she had lost the rational use of her hands.

I hear my temples throbbing and the sweetness of my brother's room is going to my head, drunk with the fragrance of the flowers. Even in his moments of "divinity," D. never reached and never communicated this transparency that embalms.

That which life does not radiate, that miserable silence of laughter, veiled in the intimacy of being, death may haverarely- the power to lay bare.

DIANUS - 99

What is doubtless the bottom of things: a staggering naivete, a l imitless abandon , a drunken exuberance, a vehement "No matter!" . . .

. . . even the Christian's measured infinity defines, by an unfortunate setting ofbounds, a power and a need to break them all.

The only way to define the world was to first bring it down to our measure and then, with a laugh, to discover it in this: that in fact it is beyond our measure. Christianity finally reveals what truly is, the way a dike at the moment it's breached reveals a force.

How not to be tempted, being moved to dizziness by an uncontrollable impulse inside me, to rebel, to curse, to want at all costs to l imit that which cannot be given any limit? How to keep from collapsing, tel ling myself that everything within me demands that this movement that's killing me come to a stop? And this movement not being unconnected with D.'s death nor with E. 's sorrow, how not to admit it finally: "I cannot bear that which I am?" This trembling in one hand, which a few minutes ago I saw armed with a whip, is it not already a wailing in front of the cross?

But if chance changed, this moment of doubt and anguish would make my pleasure doubly intense!

Is it not the key to the human condition that Christianity's having set the necessary limits to life, to the extent that fear placed them too close, is at the origin of anguished eroticism-of the whole erotic infinity?

I cannot even doubt that without the shameful intrusion on E. 's privacy I would not have been enchanted next to the

1 00- THE IMPOSSIBLE

dead man: the room, with the flowers, was l ike a church, and what pierced me with the long knife of ecstasy was not the eternal light, it was the insufferable, and empty, laughter of my brother.

A moment of complicity and intimacy, holding hands with death. A moment of levity on the edge of the abyss. A moment without hope and without an opening.

I know, I only have to give way to the imperceptible slide of trickery: a slight change and I put an eternal stop to what chilled me: I tremble before God. I raise the desire to tremble to infinity!

If human reason (the human limit) is exceeded by the very object to which the l imit is given, if E . 's reason succumbs, I can only harmonize with the excess that will destroy me in my turn. But the excess that burns me is the harmony of love within me and I don't tremble before God, but with love.

D IA:-.JU S - 1 0 1

Why did I go, anguished, into the inhuman silence o f the forest, in the leaden, oppressive l ight of massive black clouds, with the ridiculous image of Crime pursued by justice and Vengeance on my mind? But in the end what I found, in a magical sunbeam and in the flowery solitude of the ruins, was the fl ight and the entrancing cries of a bird-tiny, mocking, and dressed in the gaudy plumage of a bird of the islands! And I came back holding my breath, bathed in a halo of impossible light, as if the ungraspable, grasped, left me standing on one foot.

As if a dreamlike silence was D., whom an eternal absence would manifest.

I crept back in: struck with enchantment. It seemed to me that this house, which the evening before had stolen my brother, would be blown over by a breath of air. It would steal away like D., leaving behind it an empty space, but more exhilarating than anything in the world.

1 0 2- THE IMPOSSIBLE

Went back, once more, into my brother's room.

Death, myself and the house suspended outside the world, in an empty part of space where the diaphanous smell of death intoxicates the senses, tears them and streches them to the point of anguish.

If tomorrow I re-entered a world of easy, sonorous words, I would have to dissemble, as a ghost would have to

do, even though it would like to pass for a man.

DIANUS - 1 0 3

I had advanced, on t iptoes, not far from E.'s door: I didn't hear anything. I went outside and made my way to the terrace, from which one sees the interior of the room. The window was half-open and I could see her spread out motionless on the carpet, her long body indecently dressed in a black lace corset.

The arms, legs, and hair were radiating in every direction, uncoiled in abandon l ike the spirals of an octupus. The center of this radiance was not a face turned toward the floor, but the other countenance, deeply cleft, whose nudity was accentuated by the stockings.

The slow rush of pleasure is in one respect the same as that of anguish ; that of ecstasy is closely related to both. If I had wanted to beat E . , this was not the effect of a voluptuous desire: I 've never had the desire to beat except when I was worn out; I believe that only impotence is cruel. But in the state of intoxication that the closeness of death kept me in, I couldn't help sensing an awkward analogy

1 04 - THE I M POSSIBLE

between the spell of death and that of nudity. From D. 's l ifeless body there emanated a murky feeling of vastness and perhaps because of that lunar immobility, the same was true of E. on the carpet.

Leaning on the balustrade of the terrace I saw one of the legs move: I could tell myself that a dead body might have had that slight reflex. But her death, at that moment, would have added only an imperceptible difference to what was. I went down the steps intoxicated with horror, not for any definite reason, but under the trees whose leaves still dripped with rain it was as if this unintel l igible world were communicating its wet secret of death to me.

In what way are that moan-that sob that welled up without breaking into tears-and that sensation of infinite decay less desirable than the happy moments? comparing these moments to those of horror . . . (I picture absurd delights, an apricot pie still warm, a hawthorn bush in the sunshine, humming with the mad buzz of bees).

But I cannot doubt that in my absence E. put on that party outfit before going into the dead man's room. Talking about her l ife with my brother, she had told me that he l iked her scantily dressed in that way.

The idea of her entry into the dead man's room l iterally wrings my heart . . .

Returning to her senses, she must have broken down sobbing: this image glimpsed in a flash is not that of death, nor of an untenable lasciviousness-it is the distress of a child.

The need of misunderstandings, of misapprehensions, of forks grating on the window pane, everything that a child's

DIAI\'US - 1 05

despair announces, the way a prophet announced the approach of misfortune . . .

Going by E.'s door again, I didn't have the heart to knock: there was no sound. I have no hope and apprehension of the irremediable gnaws at me. Indeed, I can only desire feebly that, with E. restored to her right mind, l ife will resume.

The Dominion

Will I allow myself to fal l in my turn? In the long run, writing muddles me.

DIA:-JCS - 1 09

I am so tired that I dream of a total dissolution.

If I start from any meaning, I exhaust it . . . or eventually I fal l upon meaninglessness.

The unexpected splinter of bone: I was chewing heartily! . . .

But how to stop there, dissolved, at meaninglessness? That can't be done. A piece of meaninglessness, and nothing more, opens onto some meaning or other . . .

. . . leaving an aftertaste of ashes, of dementia. I look at myself in the mirror: circles around the eyes,

the dul l look of a cigarette butt.

I would l ike to fal l asleep. But seeing, a few minutes ago, E.'s window closed gave me a shock, and being unable to bear it, I remain awake, stretched out on the bed where I

1 1 0 - THE I M POSSIBLE

write. (Actual ly, what gnaws at me is my not being able to accept anything. When I saw her on the floor through the open window, I was afraid she had taken some poison. I no longer doubt that she's alive, since the window is closed, but can't stand her either alive or dead. I don't admit that she escapes me, under shelter of closed windows or doors.)

DIANCS - I l l

I don't shut myself inside the idea o f sorrow. I imagine the freedom of a cloud filling the sky, forming and breaking apart with an unhurried rapidity, drawing the power to invade from unsubstantiality and sunderance. Concerning my sorrowful reflection, which without the extreme anguish would have been ponderous, I can thus tell myself that it grants me, just as I 'm about to succumb, the dominion . . .

Epilogue

DIANUS - 1 1 5

I slept lightly. It was a sleep that had the quality of an intoxication at first: it seemed to me, as I dropped off, that the solidity of the world gave way to the lightness of slumber. This ironic indifference did not change anything: the vehemence of desire, suspended in a letting go of everything, returned free of the restraints that block it in the state of anguish. But sleeping is perhaps an abortive image of victory and the freedom that we ought to steal is snatched away. What an opaque horror I fell victim to, an ant in the caved-in anthill, and no longer having any logical thread. Each downfall, in this world of bad dreams, is by itself the whole experience of death (but without the decisive clarity of the awakening).

It's funny we're so unconcerned about this quagmire of sleep. We forget it and don 't see that our unconcern gives our "lucid" airs a mendacious quality. just now, the slaughterhouse animality of my recent dreams (everything around me disturbed, but delivered over to appeasement) awakens me to the feeling of death's "violation. " In my view nothing is more precious than the exuberance of rust; nor than a certainty in the sunshine of barely escaping the mildew of the earth. The truth of l�fe cannot be separated from its opposite and if we flee the smell of death, "the disorder of the senses" brings us back to the happiness that is

1 1 6 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

connected with it. The truth is that between death and the endless renewal of life, one cannot make a distinction: we cling to death like a tree to the earth by a hidden network of roots. But we're comparable to a "moral" tree-which would deny its roots. If we didn't naively draw from the wellspring of suffering, which gives us the insane secret, we could not have the transport of laughter: we would have the opaque visage of calculation. Obscenity is itself only a form of pain, but so "lightly" linked to the sudden outpouring that, of all the pains, it is the richest, the craziest, the most worthy of envy.

It matters little, in the fullness of this movement, that it is ambiguous, now lifting one to the clouds, npw leaving one lifeless on the sand. Broken, it will be a poor consolation to imagine that an eternal joy springs from my defeat. Indeed, I have to yield to the evidence: the breakers of joy only take place on one condition: that the ebb of pain be no less dreadfUl. The doubt born of great sorrows cannot help but illuminate those who enjoy-who can fully know happiness only transfigured, in the dark halo of sorrow. So that reason cannot resolve the ambiguity: extreme happiness is possible only at the moment I doubt it will last; it changes on the contrary into heaviness, from the moment I'm certain of it. Thus we can live sensibly only in a state of ambiguity. There is never a clear-cut difference, for that matter, between sorrow and joy: the awareness of sorrow on the prowl is always present, and even in horror the awareness of possible joy is not entirely suppressed: it is this awareness that adds dizzily to the pain, but by the same token it is what enables one to endure the torments. This lightness of the game is so much a part of the ambiguity of things that we feel contempt for the anxious, if they take things too seriously. The Church's error lies less in its morality and its dogmas than in its confusion of the tragic, which is a game, and the serious, which is the mark of labor.

On the other hand, because they didn't have any serious character, those inhuman suffocations from which I had suffered

DIA:-.!CS - 1 1 7

i n my dreams, i n my sleep, were the favorable pretext for my resolution. Remembering the moment when I was suffocating, the suffering seemed to me to arrange a kind of ruse, without which the trap of thought could not be "set. " At the moment, it pleases me to linger over that imaginary sorrow, and connecting it with the absurd expanse of the sky, to find in lightness, in "lack of concern, " the essence of a notion of myself and of the world that a leap would be. In a mad, cruel, and ponderous symphony, amusingly performed with my dead brother, the hostile and hard tip of a finger, stuck a short while ago, in my dream, in the small of my back-so cruelly that I would have cried out, but I couldn't utter a sound-was a rage that absolutely should not be but was, was inexorable and "demanded" the freedom of a leap. Everything started from there in a violent transport, propelled by the inflexible cruelty of the finger: there was nothing, in my torment, that was not uprooted, raised to the unbearable pain where one awakens. But when I woke up from that sleep, E. was standing before me, smiling: she wore the same clothing, or rather the same lack of clothes as when she was spread out in her room. I hadn't yet recovered from my dream. With the ease she would have had as a marquise in a crinoline, an indefinable smile, a warm inflection of her voice brought me back immediately to the delight of living: "Would it please the Monsignor?" . . . she said to me. Something coarse, I don 't know what, added to the provocation of the costume. But as if she couldn 't sustain an act for more than a moment, she let me see the crack, and in a rough voice asked: "You want to make love?"

A stormy, fairylike gleam of light bathed my room: like an armed, youthful and illuminated Saint George attacking a dragon, she hurled herself at me, but the harm she intended me was to tear off my clothes and she was armed only with a hyena 's smile.

PART THREE

THE ORESTEIA

Oresteia skydew bagpipes of life

night of spiders of countless hauntings inexorable play of tears

ORESTEIA - 1 2 1

o sun in m y breast long sword o f death

rest alongside my bones rest you are the l ightning rest viper rest my heart

the rivers of love turn pink with blood the winds have ruffled my assassin hair

1 22 - THE I MPOSSIBLE

Chance o pale deity laugh at the l ightning invisible sun thundering in the heart naked chance

chance in long white stockings chance in a lace nightdress

Discord

ORESTEIA - 1 2 5

Ten hundred houses fal l a hundred then a thousand dead at the window of the clouds.


Belly open head removed reflection of long storm clouds image of immense sky

Higher than the dark top of the sky higher in a mad opening a trail of l ight is the halo of death

ORESTEIA - 1 2 7

I 28 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

I 'm hungry for blood hungry for bloody earth hungry for fish hungry for rage hungry for filth hungry for cold

Me

ORESTEIA - 1 3 1

Heart greedy for l ight belly sparing of caresses the sun false the eyes false words purveyors of the plague

the earth loves cold bodies

1 3 2 - THE I M POSSIBLE

Tears of frost uncertainty of the eyelashes

dead woman's lips inexpiable teeth

absence of life

nudity of death

ORESTEIA - 1 3 3

Through falsehood, indifference, the chattering of teeth, insane happiness, certainty,

in the bottom of the wel l , tooth against tooth of death , a tiny particle of dazzling life springs from an accumulation of refuse,

I avoid it, it insists; conjested, in the forehead, a trickle of blood mixes with my tears and bathes my thighs,

tiny particle born of deceit, of shameless avarice, no less indifferent to itself than the upper reaches of the

sky, and the purity of an executioner, of an explosion cutting

off the screams.

I 34 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

I open in myself a theater where a false sleep is pia ying an aimless sham a disgrace that sickens me

no hope death the candle blown out

ORESTEIA - 1 3 5

Meanwhile, I 'm reading "The Nights of October, " surprised at feeling an incongruity between my cries and my l!fe. At bottom, I am like Gerard de Nerval, happy with cabarets, with tr!fles (more equivocal?). I remember in Tilly my fondness for the people of the village, when the rains, mud, and cold had ended, the bar viragos handling the bottles, and the noses (the snouts) of the big farm domestics (drunk, muddily shod); at night the rural songs would weep in the common throats; there was the coming and going of carousal, farting, laughter and girls in the courtyard. I was happy to listen to their life, scribbling in my notebook, lying in bed in a dirty (and chilly) room. Not a hint of boredom, happy with the warmth of the cries, with the charm of the songs: their melancholy caught one's throat.

The Temple Roof

ORESTEIA - 1 39

The feeling of a decisive fight from which nothing would divert me now. I'm afraid, being certain I will no longer avoid the fight.

Wouldn't the answer be: "that I forget the question?"


It seemed to me yesterday that I spoke to my mirror. It seemed to me that I saw rather far in the distance as if by lightning flashes a region where anguish has led . . . A feeling introduced by a sentence. I've forgotten the sentence: it was accompanied by a perceptible change, like a trip release cutting the ties.

I perceived a backward movement, as deceptive as that of a supernatural being.

Nothing more detached or more contrary to malevolence.-

ORESTEIA - 1 4 1

I sensed, like a self-reproach, the impossibility of ever annulling my declarations.

As if some intolerable oppression hindered us.

A trembling desire that chance, appearing unexpectedly, but in the uncertainty of the night, imperceptible, be seized nonetheless. And as strong as this desire was, I could not help but observe silence.

Alone in the night, I continued reading, prostrated by that sensation of helplessness.

1 4 2 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

I read Berenice s traight through (I had never read it). Only a phrase from the preface made me pause: " . . . that majestic sadness which forms the whole pleasure of tragedy. " I read, in French, "The Raven. " I got up and took some paper. I remember the feverish haste with which I reached the table: yet I was calm.

I wrote:

a sandstorm advanced I cannot say that in the night she advanced like a wall turned to dust or l ike the draped swirl of a phantom she said to me where are you I had lost you but I who had never seen her shouted in the cold

who are you crazy woman and why pretend not to forget me at that moment I heard the earth fal l ing I ran through an endless field I fel l the field a lso fel l a boundless sob the field and I fel l

starless night empty a thousand times extinguished did a cry l ike that ever pierce you a fall as long as that.

ORESTEIA - 1 43

At the same time, love was consuming me. I was limited by words. I exhausted myself with love in the void, like being in the presence of a desirable woman who was undressed but inaccessible. Without even being able to express a desire.

Stupor. Impossible to go to bed in spite of the hour and the fatigue. I could have said about myself what Kierkegaard said a hundred years ago: "My head is as empty as a theater in which there has just been a performance. "

As I stared into the void before me, a touch-immediately violent, excessive-joined me to that void. I saw that emptiness and saw nothing-but it, the emptiness, embraced me. My body was contracted. It shrank as if it had meant to reduce itself to the size of a point. A lasting fulguration extended from that inner point to the void. I grimaced and I laughed, with my lips parted, my teeth bared.

I throw myse(f among the dead

The night is my nudity the stars are my teeth

ORESTEIA - 1 4 7

I throw myself among the dead dressed in white sunlight


Death dwells in my heart like a little widow she sobs she is a coward I 'm afraid I could vomit

the widow laughs to the skies and rips the birds to pieces

At my death the horse teeth of the stars whinny with laughter I death

blank death moist grave one-armed sun

ORESTEIA - 1 49

the death-toothed gravedigger effaces me

the raven-winged angel cnes

glory to thee

I am the emptiness of caskets and the absence of myself in the whole universe

the horns of joy trumpet madly and the sun's bull's-eye explodes

death 's thunder fills the universe

1 50 - THE I MPOSSIBLE

too much joy turns back the fingernails.

I imagine in the infinite depth the deserted expanse different from the sky that I see no longer containing those glittering points of light but sheets of flame greater than a sky dazzling like the daybreak

formless abstraction striated with fractures heap of inanities of things forgotten here the subject I there the object universe littered with dead notions where I throw out the rubbish the impotent gestures the gasps the shri l l cock-crows of ideas

o manufactured nothingness in the factory of infinite vanity like a trunk ful l of false teeth

I leaning on the trunk I feel my desire to vomit desire

o col lapse ecstasy from which I fal l asleep when I cry out you who are and will be when I will be no more deaf X giant mallet crushing my head

ORESTEIA - 1 5 1

! 52 - THE IMPOSSIBLE

The sparkle the top of the sky the earth and me.

My heart spits you out star

incomparable anguish

I laugh but I 'm cold

ORESTEIA - ! 53

To Be Orestes

ORESTEIA - 1 57

The gaming table is the starry night where I fall, cast like the die on a field of fleeting possibilities.

I see no reason to "find fault" with it.

Being a blind fall in the night, I exceed my will in spite of myself (which is only the given within me); and my fear is the cry of an infinite freedom.

If I did not exceed nature, in a leap beyond "the static and the given, " I would be defined by laws. But nature plays me, casting me further than herself, beyond the laws, the limits that make humble people love her.

I am the outcome of a game, that which if I were not, would not be, might not be.

Within an immensity, I am a more exceeding that immensity. My happiness and my very being stem from that excessiveness.

My stupidity gave its blessing to succoring nature, on her knees before God.


What I am (my drunken laughter and happiness) is nonetheless at stake, handed over to chance, thrown out into the night, chased away like a dog.

The wind of truth responded like a slap to piety's extended cheek.

The heart is human to the extent that it rebels (this means: to be a man is "not to bow down before the law").

A poet doesn't justify-he doesn 't accept-nature completely. True poetry is outside laws. But poetry ultimately accepts poetry.

When to accept poetry changes it into its opposite (it becomes the mediator of an acceptance)! I hold back the leap in which I would exceed the universe, I justify the given world, I content myself with it.

Fit myself into what surrounds me, explain myself, or see only a children's fable in my unfathomable night (give myself a physical or mythological image of myself)? No! . . .

I would drop out of the game . . .

I refuse, rebel, but why lose my way. Were I to rave, I would be merely natural.

Poetic delirium has its place in nature. It justifies nature, consents to embellish it. The refusal belongs to clear consciousness, evaluating whatever occurs to it.

Clear discrimination of the various possibles, the gift for going to the end of the most distant one, are the province of clear attention. The irrevocable venturing of oneself, the one-way voyage beyond every given require not only that infinite laughter, but also that slow meditation (senseless but through excess).

It is penumbra and uncertainty. Poetry removes one from the

ORESTEIA - ! 5 9

night and the day at the same time. It can neither bring into question nor bring into action this world that binds me.

The menace of it is maintained: nature can annihilate mereduce me to that which she is, cancel the game that I play further than she-which demands my infinite madness, my infinite gaiety, my infinite alertness.

Relaxation withdraws one from the game-as does an excess of attention. Enthusiasm, the heedless plunge, and calm lucidity are required of the player, until the day when chance releases him-or life does.

I approach poetry: but only to miss it.


In nature's excessive game it makes no difference whether I exceed her or she exceeds herse�f in me (she is perhaps entirely excess of herself), but, in time, the excess will .finally take its place in the order of things (I will die at that moment).

It was necessary, in order to grasp a possible within an evident impossibility, for me to imagine the opposite situation first.

Supposing I wish to reduce myself to the lawful order, I have little chance of succeeding completely: I will err through inconsequence-through defective rigor . . .

In extreme rigor, the exigency of order holds such a great power that it cannot turn back against itse�( In the experience of it which devout worshipers (mystics) have, the person of God is placed at the apex of an immoral absurdity: the devout worshiper's love realizes in God-with whom he ident�fies himself-an excess which if he were to assume it personally would bring him to his knees, demoralized.

ORESTEIA - 1 6 1

The reduction to order Jails in any case: formal devotion (devotion without excess) leads to inconsequence. The opposite endeavor has chances, then. It has to use bypaths (laughs, incessant nauseas). There where things are ventured, each element ceaselessly changes into its contrary. God suddenly takes on a "horrible grandeur. " Or poetry slips into embellishment. With each effort that I make to grasp it, the object of my anticipation changes into a contrary.

Poetry's luster reveals itself outside the moments which it reaches in a deathlike disorder.

.

(A common agreement makes an exception of the two authors who added the luster of a failure to that of poetry. Misunderstanding is linked to their names, but both exhausted the sense of poetry that culminates in its opposite, in a feeling of hatred for poetry. Poetry that does not rise to the non-sense of poetry is only the hollowness of poetry, is only beautiful poetry.)


For whom are these serpents . . . ?

The unknown and death . . . without bovine silence, the only kind strong enough on such paths. In that unknown, blind, I succumb (I renounce the reasoned exhaustion of possibles).

Poetry is not a knowledge of oneself, and even less the experience of a remote possible (of that which, before, was not) but rather the simple evocation through words of inaccessible possibilities.

Evocation has the advantage over experience of richness and an endless facility but it distances one from experience (which is essentially paralyzed).

Without the exuberance of evocation, experience would be rational. It begins to emanate from my madness, if the impotence of evocation disgusts me.

Poetry opens the night to desire's excess. In me the night abandoned by the ravages of poetry is the measure of a refusal-of my mad will to exceed the world.-Poetry also exceeded this world, but it could not change me.

ORESTEIA - 1 63

My fictitious freedom tightened the constraints of the natural given more than it weakened them. If! had been content with it, in the end I would have yielded to the limit of that given.

I continued to question the world's limit, seeing the wretchedness of anyone who is content with it, and I couldn 't bear the facility of fiction for long: I demanded its reality, I became mad.

If I was untruthful I remained in the domain of poetry, of a verbal transcendence of the world. If I persevered in a blind disparagement of the world, my disparagement was false (like the transcendence). In a sense, my accord with the world deepened. But being unable to lie knowingly, I became mad (capable of ignoring the truth). Or no longer knowing how,for myself alone, to act out the farce of a delirium, I became mad again, but inwardly: I experienced the night.

Poetry was simply a detour: through it I escaped the world of discourse, which had become the natural world for me; with poetry I entered a kind of grave where the infinity of the possible was born from the death of the logical world.

Logic on its death bed gave birth to mad riches. But the possible that's evoked is only unreal, the death of the logical world is unreal, everything is shady and fleeting in that relative darkness. I can make light of myself and of others in that darkness: all the real is valueless, every value unreal! Whence that facility and that fatality of equivocations, where I don 't know if I am lying or if I am mad. Night's necessity springs from that unhappy situation.

The night could only proceed by way of a detour. The questioning of all things resulted from the exasperation of a desire, which could not come to bear on the void!


The object of my desire was illusion first of all and could be the void of disil lusion only in the second instance.

Questioning without desire is formal, immaterial. About it we cannot say, "It's the same thing as man. "

Poetry reveals a power of the unknown. But the unknown is only an insign�ficant void if it is not the object of a desire. Poetry is a middle term, it conceals the known within the unknown: it is the unknown painted in blinding colors, in the image of a sun.

Dazzled by a thousand figures composed of worry, impatience, and love. Now my desire has just one object: the beyond of those thousand figures, and the night.

But in the night, desire tells lies and in this way night ceases to be its object. This existence led by me "in the night" resembles that of the lover at the death of his beloved, of Orestes learning of Hermione's suicide. In the form that night takes, existence cannot recognize "what it anticipated. "

CITY LIGHTS PUBLICATIONS

Acosta, Juvenal, ed. LIGHT FROM A NEARBY WINDOW: Contempomry Mexican Poetry Alberti, Rafael. CONCERNING THE ANGELS Alcalay, Ammiel, ed. KEYS TO THE GARDEN: New Israeli Writing Allen, Roberta AMAZON DREAM Angulo de, G. & J. JAIME IN TAOS Artaud, Antonio. ARTAUD ANTHOLOGY Bataille, Georges. EROTISM: Death and Sensuality Bataille, Georges. THE IMPOSSIBLE Bataille, Georges. STORY OF THE EYE Bataille, Georges. THE TEARS OF EROS Baudelaire, Charles. TWENTY PROSE POEMS Blake, N .• Rinder, L., & A. Scholder, eds. IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT:

Visual Culture, Sexual Culture, Queer Practice Blanco, Alberto. DAWN OF THE SENSES: Selected Poems Bowles, Paul. A HUNDRED CAMELS IN THE COURTYARD Bramly, Serge. MACUMBA: The Teachings of Maria-Jose, M01her of the Gods Brook, J. & lain A. Boa!. RESISTING THE VIRTUAL LIFE: Culture and Politics of Information Broughton, James. COMING UNBUTTONED Broughton, James. MAKING LIGHT OF IT Brown, Rebecca. ANNIE OAKLEY'S GIRL Brown, Rebecca. THE TERRIBLE GIRLS Bukowski, Charles. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN TOWN Bukowski, Charles. NOTES OF A DIRTY OLD MAN Bukowski, Charles. TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS Burroughs, William S. THE BURROUGHS FILE Burroughs, William S. THE Y AGE LETTERS Cassady, Neal. THE FIRST THIRD CITY LIGHTS REVIEW #2: AIDS & the Arts CITY LIGHTS REVIEW #3: Media and Propaganda QTY LIGHTS REVIEW #4: Litemture I Politics I Ecology Cocteau, Jean. THE WHITE BOOK (LE LIVRE BLANC) Comford, Adam. ANIMATIONS Corso, Gregory. GASOLINE Cuadros, Gil. CITY OF GOD Daumal, Rent!. THE POWERS OF THE WORD David-Nee!, Alexandra. SECRET ORAL TEACHINGS IN TIBETAN BUDDHIST SECTS Deleuze, Gilles. SPINOZA: Pmctical Philosophy Dick, Leslie. KICKING Dick, Leslie. WITHOUT FALLING di Prima, Diane. PIECES OF A SONG: Selected Poems Doolittle, Hilda (H.D.). NOTES ON THOUGHT & VISION Ducomet, Rikki. ENTERING FIRE Duras, Marguerite. DURAS BY DURAS Eberhardt, Isabelle. DEPARTURES: Selected Writings Eberhardt, Isabelle. THE OBLIVION SEEKERS Eidus, Janice. VITO LOVES GERALDINE Fenollosa, Ernest. CHINESE WRITTEN CHARACTER AS A MEDIUM FOR POETRY Ferlinghetti, L. ed. CITY LIGHTS POCKET POETS ANTHOLOGY Ferlinghetti, L. ed. ENDS & BEGINNINGS (City Lights Review #6) Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. PICTURES OF THE GONE WORLD (Enlarged 1995 edition) Finley, Karen. SHOCK TREATMENT Ford, Charles Henri. OUT OF THE LABYRINTH: Selected Poems Franzen, Cola, tmnsl. POEMS OF ARAB ANDALUSIA Garcia Lorca, Federico. BARBAROUS NIGHTS: Legends & Plays Garcia Lorca, Federico. ODE TO WALT WHITMAN & OTHER POEMS Garcfa Lorca, Federico. POEM OF THE DEEP SONG Gil de Biedma, Jaime. LONGING: SELECTED POEMS Ginsberg. Allen. THE FALL OF AMERICA Ginsberg, Allen. HOWL & OTHER POEMS Ginsberg, Allen. KADDISH & OTHER POEMS Ginsberg, Allen. MIND BREATHS Ginsberg, Allen. PLANET NEWS Ginsberg, Allen. PLUTONIAN ODE Ginsberg, Allen. REALITY SANDWICHES Goethe, J. W. von. TALES FOR TRANSFORMATION Harryman, Carla. THERE NEVER WAS A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN Hayton-Keeva, Sally, ed. VALIANT WOMEN IN WAR AND EXILE

Heider, Ulrike. ANARCHISM: Left Right & Green Herron, Don. THE DASHIELL HAMMETT TOUR: A Guidebook Herron, Don. THE LITERARY WORLD OF SAN FRANCISCO Higman, Perry. tr. LOVE POEMS FROM SPAIN AND SPANISH AMERICA Jaffe, Harold. EROS: ANTI-EROS Jenkins, Edith. AGAINST A FIELD SINISTER Katzenberger, Elaine, ed. FIRST WORLD, HA HA HA 1 : The Zapatista Challenge Kerouac, Jack. BOOK OF DREAMS Kerouac, Jack. POMES ALL SIZES Kerouac, Jack. SCATTERED POEMS Kerouac, Jack. SCRIPTURE OF THE GOLDEN ETERNITY Lacarriere, Jacques. THE GNOSTICS La Duke, Betty. COMPANERAS La Loca. ADVENTURES ON THE ISLE OF ADOLESCENCE Lamantia, Philip. MEADOWLARK WEST Laughlin, James. SELECTED POEMS: 1935-1985 Laure. THE COLLECTED WRITC'<GS L..e Brun, Annie. SADE: On the Brink of the Abyss Mackey, Nathaniel. SCHOOL OF UDHRA Masereel, Frans. PASSIONATE JOURNEY Mayakovsky. Vladimir. LISTEN! EARLY POEMS Mrabet, Mohammed. THE BOY WHO SET THE FIRE Mrabet, Mohammed. THE LEMON Mrabet, Mohammed. LOVE WITH A FEW HAIRS Mrabet, Mohammed. M'HASHISH Murguia, A. & B. Paschke, eds. VOLCAN: Poems from Central America Murillo, Rosario. ANGEL IN THE DELUGE Parenti, Michael. AGAINST EMPIRE Pasolini, Pier Paolo. ROMAN POEMS Pessoa, Fernando. ALWAYS ASTONISHED Peters, Nancy J., ed. WAR AFTER WAR (City Lights Review #5) Poe, Edgar Allan. THE UNKNOWN POE Porta, Antonio. KISSES FROM ANOTHER DREAM Prevert, Jacques. PAROLES Purdy, James. THE CANDLES OF YOUR EYES Purdy, James. GARMENTS THE LIVING WEAR Purdy, James. IN A SHALLOW GRAVE Purdy, James. OUT WITH THE STARS Rachlin, Nahid. THE HEART'S DESIRE Rachlin, Nahid. MARRIED TO A STRANGER Rachlin, Nahid. VEILS: SHORT STORIES Reed, Jeremy. DELIRIUM: An Interpretation of Arthur Rimbaud Reed, Jeremy. RED-HAIRED ANDROID Rey Rosa, Rodrigo. THE BEGGAR'S KNIFE Rey Rosa, Rodrigo. DUST ON HER TONGUE Rigaud, Milo. SECRETS OF VOODOO Ross, Darien. RETURNING TO A Ruy Sanchez, Alberto. MOGADOR Saadawi, Nawal El. MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN DOCTOR Sawyer-Lau�anno, Christopher, trans!. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JAGUAR Scholder, Amy, ed. CRITICAL CONDITION: Women on the Edge of Violence Sclauzero, Mariarosa. MARLENE Serge, Victor. RESISTANCE Shepard, Sam. MOTEL CHRONICLES Shepard, Sam. FOOL FOR LOVE & THE SAD LAMENT OF PECOS BILL Smith, Michael. IT A COME Snyder, Gary. THE OLD WAYS Solnit, Rebecca. SECRET EXHIBITION: Six California Artists Sussler, Betsy, ed. BOMB: INTERVIEWS Takahashi, Mutsuo. SLEEPING SINNING FALLING Turyn, Anne, ed. TOP TOP STORIES Tutuola, Amos. FEATHER WOMAN OF THE JUNGLE Tutuola, Amos. SIMBI & THE SATYR OF THE DARK JUNGLE Valaoritis, Nanos. MY AFTERLIFE GUARANTEED Veltri, George. NICE BOY Wilson, Colin. POETRY AND MYSTICISM Wilson, Peter Lamborn. SACRED DRIFr Wynne, John. THE OTHER WORLD Zamora, Daisy. RIVERBED OF MEMORY

Documents

Georges Bataille - The Impossible