(freefall, but totally safe) and, indeed, perfectly harmless.
Leaving this apparatus, very satisfied, I went to sit down on a bench. It was then that I noticed I had lost my shoes.
I call the employee responsible for the bottom and ask him to go check if my shoes haven’t wound up at the bottom of the apparatus. He tells me this is not possible. I insist, adding that these are lace-up boots, nearly new (someone just gave them to me), easily recognizable. But the employee continues to swear this never happens, could never happen. I have to insist for a long time before he decides to go look.
Several times he comes back carrying shoes that are obviously not mine. Finally he finds one, then the other.
A detail I had not yet spotted: at the tips of my soles there are two little metallic pegs that allow the boots to be instantly adapted to ice skates.
No. 111
March 1972 (Blevy)
Reconstruction of a choice
(whose very title indicates the degree to which everything is erased. It concerned a whole series of selections: which side to sleep on, which ear to choose, which lamp to light?)
After a confusing interval, this becomes:
the path of the father or the path of the mother?
No. 112
March 1972 (Blevy)
Books
In the coatroom of my laboratory there is a small window that looks out onto the back of a used bookstore. Leaning out this window, I see a whole pile of books presented such that they look like a single work encased in cardboard with a large black stain on the spine. The books form a set, which looks homogenous to me. The theme is a contemporary school with a medieval name—the Gay Sçavoir or the Saincte Sapience—which name is written in delicate calligraphy in black pencil. Scattered in this pile are some large Derrida books, an art book (maybe Claude Roy) and some thin pamphlets. I know the whole thing belongs to the collection of a friend of J.P., and it strikes me that these are exactly the books I’ve been searching for for a long time. The bookseller’s price is extremely modest, given the value and rarity of the titles, but I can’t quite make it out (29 francs? 37 francs?). I would obviously go see the bookseller to make a deal, but of course the store is closed.
The cigarette I was smoking falls into the store and I amquite anxious (not so much out of fear that the butt will set the box of books on fire, more for the disturbing feeling of leaving a sign of my indiscretion) until I realize the butt has fallen onto a marble plaque on the parquet floor, on which there is already one butt, even several butts.
Later. The morning. I get a phone call from J.P. He asks if I’m interested in a stack of books he doesn’t want, because a large black stain on the case is a blemish in his library. I tell him I saw them and am planning to buy them. Then he retracts his offer and tells me that, despite the stain, he’s keeping them for himself. I am furious. Why would he offer them to me if only to change his mind a moment later?
No. 113
April 1972
The report
I have an extremely important task to finish, and, to do it, I’ve set up at P.’s. I’ve used the big table to spread out all the papers I need to write a large report I have to hand in the next morning.
Actually, I’m not working. There are lots of other people at P.’s too and working would be difficult.
At one point, I take a walk with C.F., whom I haven’t seen in a long time. I kiss her behind the ear. She asks me whether she should interpret that gesture as meaning that we have “come together.” I deny the thought immediately and explain to her the changes that have taken place in my life.
We walk into a medieval courtyard. At the foot of a cathedral stands a Gothic construction, recognizable by its flying buttresses and lancet arch windows. I point out a window to her, saying I live there. She answers:
“But that’s at least the fifth floor!”
“No,” I say, “it’s the ground floor.”But, even as I say these
Leaving this apparatus, very satisfied, I went to sit down on a bench. It was then that I noticed I had lost my shoes.
I call the employee responsible for the bottom and ask him to go check if my shoes haven’t wound up at the bottom of the apparatus. He tells me this is not possible. I insist, adding that these are lace-up boots, nearly new (someone just gave them to me), easily recognizable. But the employee continues to swear this never happens, could never happen. I have to insist for a long time before he decides to go look.
Several times he comes back carrying shoes that are obviously not mine. Finally he finds one, then the other.
A detail I had not yet spotted: at the tips of my soles there are two little metallic pegs that allow the boots to be instantly adapted to ice skates.
No. 111
March 1972 (Blevy)
Reconstruction of a choice
(whose very title indicates the degree to which everything is erased. It concerned a whole series of selections: which side to sleep on, which ear to choose, which lamp to light?)
After a confusing interval, this becomes:
the path of the father or the path of the mother?
No. 112
March 1972 (Blevy)
Books
In the coatroom of my laboratory there is a small window that looks out onto the back of a used bookstore. Leaning out this window, I see a whole pile of books presented such that they look like a single work encased in cardboard with a large black stain on the spine. The books form a set, which looks homogenous to me. The theme is a contemporary school with a medieval name—the Gay Sçavoir or the Saincte Sapience—which name is written in delicate calligraphy in black pencil. Scattered in this pile are some large Derrida books, an art book (maybe Claude Roy) and some thin pamphlets. I know the whole thing belongs to the collection of a friend of J.P., and it strikes me that these are exactly the books I’ve been searching for for a long time. The bookseller’s price is extremely modest, given the value and rarity of the titles, but I can’t quite make it out (29 francs? 37 francs?). I would obviously go see the bookseller to make a deal, but of course the store is closed.
The cigarette I was smoking falls into the store and I amquite anxious (not so much out of fear that the butt will set the box of books on fire, more for the disturbing feeling of leaving a sign of my indiscretion) until I realize the butt has fallen onto a marble plaque on the parquet floor, on which there is already one butt, even several butts.
Later. The morning. I get a phone call from J.P. He asks if I’m interested in a stack of books he doesn’t want, because a large black stain on the case is a blemish in his library. I tell him I saw them and am planning to buy them. Then he retracts his offer and tells me that, despite the stain, he’s keeping them for himself. I am furious. Why would he offer them to me if only to change his mind a moment later?
No. 113
April 1972
The report
I have an extremely important task to finish, and, to do it, I’ve set up at P.’s. I’ve used the big table to spread out all the papers I need to write a large report I have to hand in the next morning.
Actually, I’m not working. There are lots of other people at P.’s too and working would be difficult.
At one point, I take a walk with C.F., whom I haven’t seen in a long time. I kiss her behind the ear. She asks me whether she should interpret that gesture as meaning that we have “come together.” I deny the thought immediately and explain to her the changes that have taken place in my life.
We walk into a medieval courtyard. At the foot of a cathedral stands a Gothic construction, recognizable by its flying buttresses and lancet arch windows. I point out a window to her, saying I live there. She answers:
“But that’s at least the fifth floor!”
“No,” I say, “it’s the ground floor.”But, even as I say these
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