Anathemas and Admirations (52 page)

At the Luxembourg, a woman of about forty, almost elegant but with a certain bizarre look about her, was speaking in an affectionate, even impassioned tone to someone who was not to be seen. As I caught up with her, I noticed that she was clutching a marmoset to her bosom. She then sat down on a bench, where she continued her monologue with the same intensity. The first words I heard as I passed her were: “You know, I’ve had about enough.” I walked on, not knowing whom to pity more: her or her confidant.

That man
is going to
disappear has been, heretofore, my firm conviction. But now I’ve changed my mind: he
must
disappear.

Aversion to all that is human is compatible with pity; I should even say that these reactions are interdependent but not simultaneous. Only someone who knows the former is capable of intensely experiencing the latter.

Just now, the sensation of being the last version of the Universe: worlds revolved around me, yet I felt not the slightest trace of disequilibrium, only something far
above
what it is licit to experience.

Waking with a start, wondering if the word
sense
has any meaning, then astounded not to be able to fall asleep again!

It is characteristic of pain not to be ashamed of repeating itself.

To that very old friend who informs me of his decision to put an end to his days, I reply that he mustn’t be in any hurry, that the game’s ending is not without a charm of its own, and that one can even come to terms with the Intolerable, provided one never forgets that everything is a bluff, a bluff that generates torments. . . .

He worked and produced, he flung himself into massive generalizations, astonished by his own fecundity. He was quite ignorant, fortunately for him, of the nightmare of nuance.

To exist is a deviation so patent that it acquires thereby the prestige of a longed-for infirmity.

To recognize in oneself all the vile instincts of which one is ashamed. . . . If they are so energetic in someone who strives to be rid of them, how much more virulent must they be in those who, lacking a minimum of lucidity, will never manage to be on their guard, and still less to loathe themselves!

In the heat of success or of failure, remember how we were conceived. Incomparable recipe for triumphing over euphoria or discontent.

Only the plant approaches “wisdom”; the animal is un-suited to it. As for man . . . Nature should have stopped with the vegetable kingdom, instead of disqualifying herself by a craving for the extraordinary.