Chapter 4: Fall, or Être, ou ne pas être
Alfred René Raymond, son of a Breton wine‑merchant recently dead of heart attack, awoke from a nightmare. The King had lost his head. Blood, in the proverbial phrase, flowed in the streets of Lorient. A coarse little man pushed a gondola through the new canals. In the background cries of women were audible, as black and yellow mercenaries raped them in the name of Love. At the center of new Freedom Square blue‑clad workers fashioned a column in honor of Equality, building it from the bones of recalcitrant clergy. A large hexagonal map showed Paris like a heart, enlarging, as it pumped blood to the provinces. Finally it burst.
Alfred rubbed his eyes and looked at the white ceiling. It was Sunday morning; his room was full of light. Alfred had slept through Mass. Below, his mother puttered about in the kitchen. He could hear his sister consoling her. Alfred thought he might read a while before he went downstairs. On the bedside table, behind a lamp, stood The Holy Bible, A History of the City of Paris, and The Red and the Black. He struck a match, lit up a Gauloise, and opened the middle book. It was bound in red, the title in golden letters.
Lutece and its inhabitants appear in history when Caesar called the Gauls together. The chieftown occupied the largest of the three islands, which, ever since joined, have given the City. When Vercingetorix freed his country from the Roman yoke, the Parisians, presuming their town not safe enough, left off Lutece, burning their bridges and making their mind to fight.
Next the savage Normans appear, pushing their incursions under the walls of Paris, seeking the plunder too of Saint Germane. One of the most glorious events in the history of Paris takes place under Charles the Fat. This king, rusing with the Normans, succeeds in having several of their chiefs killed. Furious, the invaders, rushing toward Paris, fall on her pregnancy, defended by Count Eudes. For nine months they try to assault her without result. Yet the Parisians are decimated by combat. They go to the King to ask for help. He comes with his big army, but instead of fighting he tries to buy the departure of the Barbers and lets them plunder the Seine. When Paris gets tired of this she calls him down. Charles the Fat’s crown is given to Count Eudes. Afterwards the Normans give up hope of taking Paris.
The year 1000 shows the adorning of the capital and spreads no small terror in the hearts of the superstitious. 1129 once more sees the terrible erotomania, to which no cure was known and was instead contributed to disorder of morals. Abélard comes next. He teached his lessons, first in the city, then on Saint Genevieve’s Mount. Under Philip August, Paris is afflicted by terrible calamities; several famines, floods, and the drown of people. As one historian puts it, “It is not possible to move around in the streets but on a boat.”
The 13th century sees the Gothic rise, which dotes the whole of France with numberous and magnificent remainders.
Charles the 5th, to make his faults forget, gives his whole attention to embellishing the capital. Loving literary, he also assembles a luxurious bibliothek, has the Bastille built, and establishes the first drains of Paris.
After the murdering of Burgundy, Henry the 5th of England takes possession of Paris, which for sixteen years is under English authority. She suffers the most horrid famine of all. Still, with such manners Paris accepts the English domination that, when Charles the 7th comes, accompanied by Joan of Arch, she makes such a defense the King of France has to give up siege. At last, tired of the foreign yoke and exhausted with the dearth, the burgers of Paris surrender. The French come in and compel the English to leave.
In the history of Paris the wicked reign of Charles the 9th is maculated with blood. After her underhand war, Catherine of Medici complots the slaughter of the Protestants, who, attracted by promises, are mistaken in deceitful quietness. Their sleep is about to end in a dreadful way. On August 24, during Saint Barthelme’s night, the alarm‑bell, signal of the devastation, is sounded. The murders rush to Protestant homes, bearing slaughter everywhere.
Henry the 4th, judging that “Paris is worth a Mass,” revokes the Protestants and then buys the city from its governor. Later, by surprise, he enters the city, cleaning it of criminals. He favors industry and commerce. Then he who escaped so many times assassination is stabbed by Ravaillac, the fanatic.
Under Louis the 13th Paris is not mixed by any important event.
On his death civil war again plunders Paris. The intended Louis the 14th reenters the capital, driving out Condé. This great king gives his full attention to adoring Paris. The monuments of his reign are truly many: The French Comedy, the Opera, the Gobelin Tapestry, and the Hotel of Invalids. To be named among the foundations of Louis the 15th are the Pantheon, the Hotel of Moneys, the Large Stone, and the Ambiguous Comedy. Then, with the reign of Louis the 16th begins that uneasiness, that latent rage, consequence of precedent, which one day brings the King’s head on a scaffold, erected by the people, eager to conquer its true rights and freedom.
“History’s crazy,” said Alfred to himself. He put down the book, got out of bed, and dressed for breakfast.
The kitchen was a mess, crêpes all over the place. Alfred was fed up with Brittany. The death of his father had brought him enough money to get him to Paris. His mother couldn’t stand the thought of his leaving. She had used every technique in the book to keep him home. He sat down at the table.
“Fred,” she said, “you slept through Mass.”
“Yes, Mother, I know. I told you to wake me up if you wanted me to go.”
“You might have gone, you know, to honor your father.” Fred slammed his fist on the table. He was about to hit the ceiling.
“I love you, dear,” said his mother.
“Yes, I know,” said Fred. “But love isn’t everything.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know,” said Fred. “I don’t know what I mean by that.” He glanced at his watch.
“At least,” said his mother, appearing to change the subject, “you won’t sleep late tomorrow. The delivery comes at 6:00.”
“I know,” said Fred.
“You’ll be in the store for sure?” She sounded anxious.
“No,” said Fred.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m leaving for Paris.” She pretended she hadn’t heard.
“Titine’ll be up to help you,” she said.
“Titine’ll have to do it alone,” said Fred. His mother broke into tears.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said. “I’ve had enough of this.”
“‘For God’s sake,’” she said. “You take the Lord’s name in vain?”
“No I don’t,” said Fred. Again his mother burst into tears.
“Look, Mother, I love you,” he said. Slamming the door, she left the room.
Fred went back upstairs. What would he need in Paris? Nothing. Nothing but himself. Should he take something to read on the train? He looked at his bedside table. The Holy Bible?The Red and the Black? He put the matches and the cigarettes in his pocket. He wouldn’t read anything. He’d look out the window. He’d think about Montana. Anything. No, on second thought, he’d look at some pictures of Paris, some picture postcards. He took them out of the drawer and put them in his pocket. He wanted to look at Paris, before he saw her.
“All aboard. All aboard for Paris,” yelled the conductor. “Rennes, Laval, Chartres.” The names at least hadn’t lost their magic. The train pulled away from the ocean. There was no one else in Fred’s compartment. He took out a bottle of Bourbon and spread his postcards on the little table before him. “Paris and her Marvels” they were called. The Bridge and the Square of Concord! The Opera! Our Lady and the Parvis! The Eiffel Tower seen from Tokyo Avenue! Where should he begin? He took a sip of whiskey, glancing at the station in Hennebont. He tried to remember everything he knew about Paris – all at once! The images of history filled his brain.
At last he settled on the Invalids and started to think about the dome. He thought of the Petty Palace, of the City Hall, of the Board of Exchange (“Liberty Equality Brotherhood,” the inscription read). The columns of the Invalids have an air which would not do in Republic Square, he thought. He was feeling poetic. He took another drink of whiskey. Looking closer, he saw human figures in the foreground. A mother and her child! A group of children, a man in a black fedora. The carriages were facing toward the Champs Elysées. He looked out the window: they’d left some more of Brittany behind. He thought of the winged horses on the pillars of the Bridge Alexander 3. They burned with envy high above the glories of Paris. He took another sip of whiskey, experiencing kindly feelings toward the Breton landscape, as he watched it slip away. A haywain near the Invalids’ Hotel made its way to a standstill. He wondered where he’d sleep tonight. He looked again at the Invalids. A woman in a black dress was pulling a small cannonade behind her, a gentleman walking beside her. He looked out the window again. It was Sunday afternoon. The Feast of the Harvest was almost over. He thought of the Pont Alexandre III and the pictures he’d seen of it, a young boy without any clothes on dragging a lion by its mane. He came across a postcard that represented the bridge. Three men followed one another as they walked across the bridge, serenely unaware of any civilization about them. Two men emerged from one, riding a bicycle, its front wheel made of gold, its back of silver. Fred had himself another sip. In front of the bridge a professor was talking to a lawyer; the former carried a brief case, the latter a brief. The graceful trumpeters appeared, hailing the sun. In the background an obelisk was visible.
Fred thumbed his pack until he’d found the Pantheon. “The motherland is grateful,” it said. A woman paused thoughtfully, her hands behind her back. Rodin’s thinker expressed his pain. Alfred’s headache had completely disappeared. A gypsy seemed to be doing a dance. So quickly did she pass through Soufflot Street she barely left a blur. “It all depends on how well you’ve done your homework,” Alfred remembered his teacher as having said, “and also on how smart you were to begin with.” It must be September in Paris too, he thought, leaves beginning to fall, darkening the pool in front of the palace. He looked at the circular pool in front of the Grand Palais, its navel a stone bouquet. A man in a top hat bowed his head to look at a rivulet, which made its way to the curb. Someone somewhere else, thought Fred, is reading a book. He thumbed through the cards until he came to a picture of Our Lady Church.
Violet the Duke, he thought to himself, must have had this pile of enormous stones deposited alongside the quay. He flipped the cards again and took another sip. Vendôme Square, in all its immense dignity, looked as though it might be at the point of dissolution, one facade turning into another, the stones themselves turning into wood, the wood into putty or charcoal. Everything suffered from erasure marks, though the pillar seemed all right. Alfred lit up a Gauloise and breathed its raucous smoke. He sipped again, studying the details in the place de Vendôme. There was Henry Ford, tobacco in his cheek, casting a stone at the scene. “History,” he was about to say, “is bunk.” He himself had never taken a drink in his life. He was looking down at Paris from a seat in a Packard touring car, his shirt or something arranged as though a hand were at his throat, while Priscilla Welty, a character in one of Edith Wharton’s unread novels, seemed on the verge of starting up a conversation with the famous American man. Henry Ford responded with a vengeance. Fred felt a little morbid. There was only an inch of Bourbon left.
He flipped again. Napoleon’s Tomb came up. It was all a question of form, form and detail, detail and discipline. He looked at the exterior of the Invalids. For a minute he thought he was conducting a tour. “We begin,” he began, “with a bell (believe it or not) and approach the whole thing from the ground up.” His cigarette had burned down to his finger. He flung it on the floor. The gravel lies grey, he said to himself, before that big hotel. It has a pink, lichen‑like moss. No, he corrected himself, that’s just the photo. A dim rounded fence disappeared underground momentarily (the railing around the garden). Alfred wondered if anyone were listening. Luckily, he was still alone in the compartment. Stakes held the tourists and the other celebrants back. But that was the church. “It is the barracks for seven thousand men which,” he began, looking into a sea of faces, “is generally considered the finest non‑ecclesiastical composition in Paris.” They set it up that way. A young girl passed with her little brothers, all three of them on their bikes. She smiled at Fred but kept one hand on her skirt, the other holding on to the handlebar. “For more than a century,” Fred began again, “millions of visitors have passed by Napoleon’s tomb.” A dour man on a tractor smiled at the American tourists. “Louis XIV” – he called it quatorze – “had construction begun in 1671. The building,” Fred added, “was completed in 1676, exactly one hundred years before that morning in July when a mob looted the building looking for arms. No” – Fred went back to correct himself – “that was 1789.” But the voice went on. “They used them of course to attack the Bastille. But that’s ancient history.” Some of the remains are still brought back, thought Fred. “The church” – the voice was waxing eloquent – “is often referred to as Soldier’s Church, though Raymond Roussel” – an author that Fred had not yet encountered – “never used the phrase, preferring instead to think of it simply as ‘The Church.’ Or, as he was fond of telling relatives newly arrived from the provinces, ‘Do not miss Napoleon's Chapel (bottom of the right‑hand aisle). It contains the mask that was cast on his death‑bed. Also be sure to see the slab that covered his tomb at St. Helena. If the thing is covered with ashes, simply dust it off. At the back on the left’” – it seemed that Roussel had taken over – “is a drawing of his vault, alongside the copper coffin and velvet pall that were used to bring his body back. It was in this church that Berlioz and his Requiem were first heard (1837). Leaving the church, step back, please, up the avenue de Breteuil.” Fred finished the last of the bottle and looked out the window. They were passing through Rennes, where Jarry had gone to high school. The tour seemed to keep going of its own accord, though Roussel too had departed, having retired no doubt to his house at Neuilly. “The whole facade, you see, is nearly perfect in each detail. As you leave the church, please step back up the avenue de Breteuil for a final look. J. Hardouin‑Mansart, having brought the Jesuit style to its pinnacle . . .” The voice faded away. Fred’s head thumped against the thick glass of the railway window. The bottle had slipped from his hand onto the seat. He bumped his head again, this time harder, and opened his druggy eyes in time to see the rest of the cards slip from his hand to the floor of the carriage. Only the Invalids remained. The church’s forty columns continued to merge, allowing the golden form of the dome to crown the whole. In turn the dome was completed by a lantern and a spire, topped with a golden orb, surmounted by a crucifix. “The roof of the edifice” – the voice had returned –”is made of lead strips fixed on a wooden frame. In the beginning,” it said, “ordinary iron nails were used, but these,” it said, “were found unsatisfactory.” Imagine they rusted, interjected Fred. He was drunk, but he hadn’t lost his common sense. “Affected by the weight and steepness of the dome, the lead strips also gave way, exposing the frame, which in turn soon began to decay. This was first observed in the 1860s, a dozen years before my mother bore me.” It was considered unusual for Raymond Roussel to make autobiographical asides. The voice corrected itself. “Make that during the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln, their 16th president, had given his Gettysburg Address shortly after the work had begun. Only two years thereafter a bullet” – like the bullet that killed John Kennedy, Fred interjected – “entered his heart.” His head, thought Fred, thinking of J. F. K. and recalling Parisian reaction to the event of ’63: crowds of people discussing the news with agitated policemen. “In 1865,” Roussel continued, "slavery was abolished, the slavery, that is, which makes men slavs” – he corrected himself – “that makes men slaves, the slaves of sin, etcetera.” He’d begun to sound like a radio. Where was he? Yes, “that makes men slaves. The nails of the dome were replaced by copper bands, joined to the framework by these tiny screws. And yet” – several of the tourists had begun to look away – “and yet, despite these precautions, further signs of deterioration in the whole system began to develop in the post‑World War I period. (See the Salle des Alliés for souvenirs of the British, Belgians and Yugoslavs, who fought in the 1914‑1918 War).” Fred had fallen asleep. That, however, did not deter Roussel. He was determined to see this thing through to the end. “Instead, they concerned themselves” – he was looking at a crowd in a postcard view of the Invalides – “with merrymaking, twirling their mustaches and so on” – Roussel put his hand to his upper lip. “They were conversing with one another in a pleasant, if somewhat anxious, way. (No doubt” – Roussel parenthesized – “the day had rolled around again to the fourteenth of July. This, you may recall, was a period, a period, a period, of prosperity.)” It was unusual to hear Raymond Roussel at a loss for words. “. . . and a general sense of security.),” he added. “The men here, as you can see – he picked up a pencil and indicated the figures – wear boaters and walk around with cigarettes in their hands.” The train jolted as it approached Chartres, dumping Fred’s Gauloises onto the floor. “Well,” said Roussel, “it all eventually reached crisis proportions in 1934; that, you may recall, was the year immediately following my death. In America, Franklin Roosevelt was their president, and he had begun to rebuild, after the collapse of the economy. In Paris, at any rate, we decided the roof should be rebuilt. Lead strips of reduced size were used, held together with copper hooks. The twelve large lead trophies” – only one tourist now remained – “which weigh nearly four tons, were fixed onto the framework itself by copper armatures. The gilding, which you see” – he paused to catch the young girl’s attention – “completes the dome. So there you have it. Except for Napoleon’s tomb, which is another story.” His mind flashed with the images of six coffins, each inside another. But the girl wasn’t listening anymore. She was sitting on the wall not far away, removing a stone from her shoe, the top of her head at the bottom edge of the card.
Someone was scratching his foot, his foot, Fred’s foot. He opened his eyes. Where was he? He was in Paris! A jolly conductor had given him over to a friendly cab driver. Together they’d gone through his wallet (nothing they did would awaken him), and, with a tip in hand, the cabby had placed him in the care of a kindly hotel clerk, who had now returned to wake him up.
“Who is this?” wondered Fred, as he opened his eyes for the first time in Paris. “Where am I?” (It was the Hôtel Bourgogne et Montana on the place du Palais‑Bourbon.) “What’s going on?” The clerk had uncovered Fred and sat now on the edge of the bed, holding Fred’s foot in his hand and gazing into his deep blue eyes. “Listen,” said Fred, “thank you for waking me up, but I want to be alone.” The clerk didn’t seem to understand. Then Fred realized that he’d been speaking English. Other measures were needed. He sat up in bed and withdrew the foot. The clerk looked desolate. He moved toward the head of the bed. Fred got out and stood up. The clerk moved closer.
“Look,” said Fred, “I haven’t been to the bathroom since yesterday.”
“That,” said the clerk, “is why I’m here.” He took out a key to the W.C. and held it up for Fred. “We normally give it to the guest on his arrival,” said the clerk, “but you weren’t able to receive it.” As Fred put out his hand, the clerk withdrew the key. Fred was in genuine pain.
“Stop!” he said to the clerk. “I have to go.”
“Why,” said the clerk, “shouldn’t we go together?” Fred could barely contain himself. The clerk took off a shoe and loosened his tie.
“Because,” Fred explained, “I’ve always gone alone.”
“It’s much better together,” said the clerk. “It’s so much more civilized that way.”
“Listen,” said Fred, “I like civilization as much as the next man, but there’re some things you have to do for yourself.” The clerk didn’t seem to understand. Fred was about to burst. He started for the hallway.
“Monsieur,” said the clerk, “You can’t go out without the key. And besides, you’re naked.” Fred looked down at himself. He had awakened with an erection.
“Look,” he said to the clerk, “this isn’t what you think.”
“Oh no?” the clerk replied.
“No, it’s simpler than that,” said Fred. He stepped out into the hall. Someone had just left the door to the toilet open. But the clerk got there first and locked it. “Stop!” said Fred. “Why are you doing that?”
“I’m doing it,” he said, “for your own good. What seems to be the trouble?” It was clear now. The clerk didn’t understand.
“Number 1,” said Fred, pointing to himself. But he was speaking English again. The clerk shook his head. Holding a finger up, Fred said it once more in French.
“You must be crazy,” said the clerk, repeating the word in French. “It’s all so negative.”
“Nonsense,” Fred replied. “It’s the most natural thing in the world.”
“But is it civilized?” the clerk asked.
“Look,” said Fred, “I simply can’t wait any longer. I have no time for an argument.” He looked at the key. “Please open the door,” he said. The clerk shook his head. “Listen,” said Fred, “I’m desperate. I have to have the key.” He reached for the clerk’s hand. The clerk put the key back in his pocket. That was the end of that.
What could Fred do? He wasn't about to frisk the clerk, and he wasn’t about to break the door down. He only wanted in. A woman, appearing in the hallway, saw Fred standing there naked. There was nothing for him to do but go back into his room. When the clerk tried to follow him, he locked the door. He had to relieve himself. There was only one place to do it. He picked up the clerk’s shoe and filled it to the brim with beautiful golden Bourbon.
Immediately Fred felt much better. “Essence,” he said to himself, “precedes existence.” He dressed himself. He had wanted in. Now he wanted out.
Feeling like a new man, he walked through the place du Palais‑Bourbon to the rue de l’Université. At the boulevard Saint‑Germain he got on bus number 63. “Place Maubert,” he said to the driver. (“‘Place Maub,’” he said to himself, mimicking a French student). At the next stop, the rue du Bac, a pretty girl got on and sat down next to him, taking out her knitting. As she knit, her arm rubbed against his. “Paris is so exciting,” he said to himself. At the Odéon, an American girl got on and sat down across from him. Two young French girls sat in the aisle across from him and tittered. They passed Saint‑Germain des‑Prés and the Musée de Cluny. At place Maub’ he descended. A girl crossed the street, a bag of cherries in her hand, red socks in her platform shoes. The place was full of women. A black girl and a yellow girl passed him on the street.
He entered the rue la Grange. Two dangerous‑looking types approached him. He considered turning aside but changed his mind. He looked up and saw Notre Dame. Tourists were climbing on her towers. He entered a park nearby, where a woman in stockings was taking pictures of her children. An old bearded man walked up to the fountain and took a drink, as a young girl washed some blood off her knee. Fred sat down on a bench. The black and oriental girls appeared and sat down next to him. They looked at ads in the paper for an apartment. A mother in an orange jumper and black shirt carried her baby past them. A pigeon approached, its dirty yellow beak fringed with magenta.
Fred left the park and walked up the rue du Galande. He stood in the rue Dante and looked at a Saigonese restaurant. A mother in purple stopped a concierge, as she was stepping out the door, to ask about an apartment. Her children were dressed in yellow and red. The sun came out from behind a cloud. A black man gripping a brown briefcase passed him on the sidewalk. A French student wearing a University of Wisconsin tee shirt passed him too. In front of the Hotel Diana, Fred saw a woman with blond hair drop her Cricket lighter as she put a cigarette in her mouth. A man with a cigarette in his mouth passed by, looking at Fred with suspicion.
Fred climbed higher up the hill. At the monument to French poetry he sat down next to a woman in a light blue frock who was finishing a banana. She picked a crumb or two off her lap, put her lunch bag in her purse and got up and left. Fred read the names of all the poets on the pillar. Ronsard’s face looked as though someone had smeared it with chimney soot. Fred rose and started to climb to the Pantheon. At the first corner workmen were troweling out cement. A mocha‑colored Volkswagen with double yellow lights turned the corner and descended the hill. Fred decided to skip the Pantheon, looking for a café instead.
He found a big one in the boulevard Saint‑Michel. “Boul Mich,” he said to himself and sat down next to a man reading Le Monde. A girl in brown slacks sat down next to him. Across the street a photographer set up a yellow tripod and aimed a camera toward the café. A waiter came over. The man next to him asked for cigarettes, Fred ordered a cup of coffee, the girl wanted a Coke. Fred put one lump of sugar in his coffee and left the other on the saucer. Smoke began to rise from the table on his right. The girl on his left poured half her Coke in the glass and left the other half in the bottle. A German tour bus stopped at the corner. A guide, putting a silver microphone to her lips, identified the café for the tourists. Meanwhile, two lovers had taken the table in front of Fred. The girl’s oily head rested on her lover’s shoulder. Both wore blue shirts and red pants. Across the street was a neon sign. “Ciné Actua” the letters said.
People streamed past on the sidewalk: a boy with a Harvard University tee shirt, a girl with a red button on her sleeve, “Chicago Bulls” in script on each of her back pockets. An older woman looked at Fred, her reading glasses hanging halfway down her breast on a chain. A dour, bibulous man in a mustache looked the other way. A girl on a bike smiled; Fred smiled back. A huge Italian truck carried sand past the corner. The girl next to him lit up a cigarette. Fred looked at her; she looked back with a stylized scowl. The man next to him shifted in his chair.
People kept on passing. A girl with her front teeth missing talked to a boy in an animated way. They were walking behind another couple whom they might have known. A number 86 bus stopped. A sad-looking blond girl got off. A boy went by on a bike, a tennis racquet handle sticking out of his knapsack. A girl with a question mark on her notebook stepped across the curb. A darkly beautiful girl walked by, her eyes on the ground. Fred finished his coffee. A sheepishly brazen girl went by with her boyfriend. “Property of New York Jets,” her tee shirt read. A girl went by in a white tee shirt, brown nipples visible through it. A man wearing dark glasses with wire rims went by.
The sun was bright and pleasant. Fred ordered a glass of Burgundy and a sandwich and watched the people pass. A girl in a Sherlock Holmes cape with a red sweater on underneath. A fancy 38-year-old woman in an avocado skirt, pearls hanging down inside her blouse, which had two buttons open. A man with a Scotch-plaid duffel bag. A man in brown with black shoes. A woman in grey shirt, black coat, white blouse, black hat, with a bright purple scarf around her neck. A man who looked American except for his shoes. A man in a dull suit with a funny tie: red diamonds and white lines on a blue background. A woman in bright chartreuse, pale blue and coral. An older heavy-set woman wearing a dark blue sweater, a small gold cross bouncing on her bosom.
Fred noticed different expressions on the people’s faces. For example, the bulldog look. The quick, semi-attractive glance of disapproval. The curious, then deadened, glance. A beautiful dark-skinned face engaged in talk with a male friend. A pregnant woman, her fat tongue in between her teeth. A pained look, disbelieving the interest of anyone. A young girl happy walking her poodle.
The sun lingered pleasantly between two clouds. A man walked past in terrifically thick glasses. The fancy woman passed again. She met her lover in front of Fred. They kissed and embraced and walked off together. The man beside him finished reading the paper and ordered a drink, a strange magenta concoction. To assist him in drinking it the waiter provided a small fire extinguisher. A woman walked by close to the curb; she put her hand briefly on the hood of a car in order to keep her balance. The man next to him leaned back in his chair and held his knee with both hands, his fingers interlocked. The girl on the other side of Fred took the last drink of her Coke, put down some money, and left. A woman with a turquoise ring on her right hand went by, holding a baguette in the same hand. The man next to him finished his drink and left. The sun had almost set behind the buildings.
A man who looked as though he were nearly blind came by, accompanied by a woman, whom he addressed as Castor. They sat down at the table next to Fred. The man began to speak. “Existence,” he said, “precedes essence. If God does not exist, there is at least one being who exists before we can define him by any concept, and that being is man. What do we mean? That man appears on the scene and only afterward defines himself.” The waiter appeared. He set the table for dinner. “What will you have?” he asked the man and the woman.
“Wine and bread,” the woman said.
“Nothing,” said the man. He picked up a table knife and began to play with it, continuing to speak. Apparently they’d been talking about something. “In the end,” he said, “I’m faithful to one thing.” He paused. “What’s that?” he asked himself. “Nausea,” he answered.
Fred got up and left. He wanted to walk a little farther. Before long, however, he found he was passing through the court of a university. “The world,” it said on the floor, “is my provocation.” Fred walked over it and kept on going. An enormous caged space appeared, holding the computer center. Tiles in the colors of the rainbow surrounded it in two semicircles. They were almost completely obscured by dirt. When Fred reached what he thought would be the end of the university, it looked as though there were no way out. He had to turn around and retrace his steps. It was getting quite dark. As he passed the entrance-exit he looked up. The structure on either side was covered with unintelligible hieroglyphics.