an enigma. Words that fill its pages present a shifty, relative universe. Through a reader, they create constructs where the past attempts to meet the future, the present arranging the meeting. In this present, as the reader receives and breaks apart the text – revives the past, contemplates the future – he, unknowingly, merges the two and makes the present fluid, expansive, eternal: he defeats time.
But the author waits for the reader in the heart of his labyrinth. Should one go in search of the other? And how? Here, at last, music comes to his help. Through its notes, variations and cadences, through its silences held tightly between its rhythm, the reader at last can glance into that inferno which is the centre of the maze, which is the long dead and yet still palpable soul of the author, for they are one and the same. Never believe the profane talk that goes around in certain places.
I had read Flaubert till late the night before, and awoke unmindful to the murkiness outside. In my sleep, I had had a dream where I happened to meet the Master. He was sitting in the garden of his stone house, contemplating the river as dusk fell over Rouen. I went strolling by, humming softly to myself. Then Flaubert called my name, and bade me to come inside. He looked handsome even in his corpulence and his eyes burned with creative passion. Offering me coffee, which tasted like the ink he must have used to write, he turned away once more to watch the river. Now in his solitude, it seemed, he often remembered EmmaBovary. I had a suspicion that his days were like each other, filled with writing and masturbating, masturbating and writing. Life was one never-ending onanism between the bed and the desk. All of a sudden he looked at me. His eyes had turned on themselves, and his face resembled a sage in his moment of ecstasy. Had he been smoking something? I felt a distinct chill climb down my spine. I was shivering to tell the truth. Then, beneath the heavy moustache, his mouth twitched. Did I write? Somehow I took control of myself and said that I had felt the desire to write once or twice, but hadn’t yet attempted it. Hearing this, he became excited: Don’t let this streak die in you, my boy. It can help a writer in more ways than you may imagine. Look how I labour here, away from the joys of everyday life, away from love, to produce a work dear to me. Each day I wait for
this desire
to fill me, but alas it avoids me. I’ve to make up by endless hard work. By God, I find it hell to write. So the next time it strikes you, seize it with both hands.
The dream lingered in my thoughts while I prepared and ate a late breakfast, listening to Ellington and Coltrane by turn. I went over to the window. The clouds appeared so low and heavy that a finger would have punctured them. Soon someone had touched them, for a drizzle had erupted. I don’t recall how long I’d stood there when I saw a girl walking in the street below, holding up a blue parasol to the heavens. She had a light step and swayed tenderly to some inner melody. I was overwhelmed by the image. Seize it with both hands, Flaubert’s voice emerged over the strains of the saxophone. I hurried to the desk and, switching on the lamp, turned the cover of my red notebook. For a moment, the infinity of the blank sheet nauseated me. Then it came out thick and fast, like bodies in a bad crime novel. Once I couldn’t go on anymore, I bent over my notebook and tried to touch the words fastened on the sheet. But they did not respond to my caress. All I felt was the smoothness of paper. My eyes grew moist. That night I slept well. A book had been born.
XI
Rest a moment dear storyteller, move with caution, else the thread may slip past your fingers and defile that which you have persevered to present with a restrained elegance. So take my advice and inhale deeply. Allow yourself for once to think of that night in Paris when the moonshine entered the two fastened bodies and cast its
But the author waits for the reader in the heart of his labyrinth. Should one go in search of the other? And how? Here, at last, music comes to his help. Through its notes, variations and cadences, through its silences held tightly between its rhythm, the reader at last can glance into that inferno which is the centre of the maze, which is the long dead and yet still palpable soul of the author, for they are one and the same. Never believe the profane talk that goes around in certain places.
I had read Flaubert till late the night before, and awoke unmindful to the murkiness outside. In my sleep, I had had a dream where I happened to meet the Master. He was sitting in the garden of his stone house, contemplating the river as dusk fell over Rouen. I went strolling by, humming softly to myself. Then Flaubert called my name, and bade me to come inside. He looked handsome even in his corpulence and his eyes burned with creative passion. Offering me coffee, which tasted like the ink he must have used to write, he turned away once more to watch the river. Now in his solitude, it seemed, he often remembered EmmaBovary. I had a suspicion that his days were like each other, filled with writing and masturbating, masturbating and writing. Life was one never-ending onanism between the bed and the desk. All of a sudden he looked at me. His eyes had turned on themselves, and his face resembled a sage in his moment of ecstasy. Had he been smoking something? I felt a distinct chill climb down my spine. I was shivering to tell the truth. Then, beneath the heavy moustache, his mouth twitched. Did I write? Somehow I took control of myself and said that I had felt the desire to write once or twice, but hadn’t yet attempted it. Hearing this, he became excited: Don’t let this streak die in you, my boy. It can help a writer in more ways than you may imagine. Look how I labour here, away from the joys of everyday life, away from love, to produce a work dear to me. Each day I wait for
this desire
to fill me, but alas it avoids me. I’ve to make up by endless hard work. By God, I find it hell to write. So the next time it strikes you, seize it with both hands.
The dream lingered in my thoughts while I prepared and ate a late breakfast, listening to Ellington and Coltrane by turn. I went over to the window. The clouds appeared so low and heavy that a finger would have punctured them. Soon someone had touched them, for a drizzle had erupted. I don’t recall how long I’d stood there when I saw a girl walking in the street below, holding up a blue parasol to the heavens. She had a light step and swayed tenderly to some inner melody. I was overwhelmed by the image. Seize it with both hands, Flaubert’s voice emerged over the strains of the saxophone. I hurried to the desk and, switching on the lamp, turned the cover of my red notebook. For a moment, the infinity of the blank sheet nauseated me. Then it came out thick and fast, like bodies in a bad crime novel. Once I couldn’t go on anymore, I bent over my notebook and tried to touch the words fastened on the sheet. But they did not respond to my caress. All I felt was the smoothness of paper. My eyes grew moist. That night I slept well. A book had been born.
XI
Rest a moment dear storyteller, move with caution, else the thread may slip past your fingers and defile that which you have persevered to present with a restrained elegance. So take my advice and inhale deeply. Allow yourself for once to think of that night in Paris when the moonshine entered the two fastened bodies and cast its
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