Hygiene and the Assassin (7 page)

“Have you met him?”

“No, I've done better than that: I've read him.”

“And has he read you?”

“Certainly. I could often sense as much when I was reading him.”

“You think you have influenced Céline?”

“Less than he influenced me, but still.”

“And who else might you have influenced?”

“No one, obviously, because no one else has read me. Although, thanks to Céline, I have been read—truly read—at least once.”

“So you see that you do want to be read.”

“By him, only by him. I don't give a damn about other people.”

“Have you met other writers?”

“No, I have met no one and no one has come to meet me. I know very few people: Gravelin, of course, and apart from him, the butcher, the milkman, the grocer, and the tobacconist. That's all, I think. Oh yes, there's also that bitch of a nurse, and the journalists. I don't like to see people. If I live alone, it's not so much because I love solitude but that I hate humankind. You can write in your rag that I'm a filthy misanthropist.”

“Why are you a misanthropist?”

“You haven't read
Filthy People
, I suppose?”

“No.”

“Naturally. If you had read it, you would know why. There are a thousand reasons to despise people. The most important one, for me, is their bad faith, which is incorrigible. What's more, nowadays, this bad faith is more widespread than ever. You can well imagine that I have lived through a number of eras: nevertheless, I can assure you that never have I so despised an era the way I do this one. An era of full-blown bad faith. Bad faith is worse than disloyalty, duplicity, perfidy. If you are in bad faith, first of all you are lying to yourself, not because you are struggling with your conscience, but for your own syrupy self-satisfaction, using pretty names like ‘modesty' or ‘dignity.' And then you're lying to other people, but not with honest, nasty lies, not to stir up shit, no: your lies are those of a hypocrite, a
lite
liar, ranting and raving with a smile, as if this would make everyone happy.”

“For example?”

“Well, the condition of women in this day and age.”

“In what way? Are you a feminist?”

“Me, a feminist? I hate women even more than I hate men.”

“Why?”

“For a thousand reasons. First of all, because they are ugly: have you ever seen anything uglier than a woman? What a senseless idea to have breasts, and hips—I'll spare you the rest. And then, I hate women the way I hate all victims. A filthy race, victims. If we were to exterminate them altogether, perhaps we'd have peace at last, and perhaps at last the victims would get what they want, which is martyrdom. Women are particularly pernicious victims because they are, above all else, the victims of other women. If you want to penetrate the dregs of human emotions, take a good look at the feelings that women cultivate toward other women: you will tremble with horror at the sight of so much hypocrisy, jealousy, nastiness, and iniquity. You will never see two women having a good healthy fistfight or even flinging a good volley of insults at each other: with women, it's the nasty tricks that triumph, the vile little phrases that hurt far more than a good punch in the jaw. You'll tell me there's nothing new about all that, that the world of women has been like this since Adam and Eve. But I will tell you that the lot of women has never been worse, and it's their own fault, we agree on that, but what does that change? The condition of women has become the arena for truly disgusting manifestations of bad faith.”

“You still haven't explained anything.”

“Let's look at the way things used to be. Women are inferior to men, that goes without saying: all you have to do is see how ugly they are. In the past, there was no bad faith. No one tried to hide women's inferiority, and they were treated in consequence. But what we have nowadays is revolting: women are still inferior to men—for they are still just as ugly—but they are being told that they are man's equal. And because they are stupid, naturally they believe it. Yet women are still being treated as inferior: salaries are merely one minor sign of this. There are others that are far more serious: women are still far behind in every domain—charm, to begin with—there's nothing surprising about that, given how ugly they are, and how little intelligence they have, and given above all their disgusting spitefulness, which crops up at the first opportunity. You have to admire the bad faith of the system: take an ugly, stupid, nasty, charmless slave and make her believe that she is starting off with the same opportunities as her master—when in fact she has only a quarter as many. Personally I find it appalling. If I were a woman, I would be sick.”

“But you do conceive, I hope, that other people might not agree with you?”

“‘Conceive' is not the appropriate verb. I do not conceive it, I am offended by it. What perfidy will you invoke to contradict me?”

“My own taste, to begin with. I don't think women are ugly.”

“My poor friend, you have potty taste.”

“A woman's breasts are a beautiful thing.”

“You don't know what you're saying. Already on the glossy paper of a magazine those female protuberances are at the limit of what is acceptable. What about the ones belonging to real women, the ones they dare not show and which make up the vast majority of tits? Yuck.”

“That's just your taste. We're not obliged to share it.”

“Oh, of course, you might even think a lump of fat sold at the butcher's is a thing of beauty: nothing is forbidden.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Women are filthy slabs of meat. Sometimes it is said of a particularly ugly woman that she is a lump of fat: the truth of the matter is that all women are lumps of fat.”

“Allow me to ask you then what you think you are!”

“A lump of lard. Can you not tell?”

“So do you think that men are beautiful?”

“I didn't say that. Men's bodies are less horrible than women's. But that does not make them beautiful.”

“So no one is beautiful?”

“No, some children are very beautiful. Unfortunately, it does not last.”

“Do you consider childhood to be a blessed time?”

“Did you hear what you've just said? ‘Childhood is a blessed time.'”

“It's a cliché, but it's true, no?”

“Of course it's true, animal! But is it necessary to say so? Everybody knows it.”

“Monsieur Tach, you are a wretched person.”

“And you only just figured that out? You need some rest, young man, so much genius is going to wear you out.”

“What is the source of your despair?”

“Everything. It's not just the world that is badly made, but life. Another feature of contemporary bad faith is the way we go around claiming the opposite. Haven't you ever heard them all bleating unanimously, ‘Life is beaueau-ti-ful! We love life!' It makes me climb the walls to hear such drivel.”

“Such drivel may be sincere.”

“I believe that too, which makes it even worse: it proves that treachery is working, that people will swallow any lie. So they have their shitty lives with their shitty jobs, they live in horrible places with dreadful people, and they embrace their abject condition and then call it happiness.”

“Good for them, if they're happy that way!”

“Good for them, as you say.”

“And you, Monsieur Tach, what makes you happy?”

“Nothing at all. I have peace and quiet, that's already something—well, I did have peace and quiet.”

“Have you never been happy?”

Silence.

“Am I to understand that you have been happy? . . . Or am I to understand that you have never been happy?”

“Be quiet, I'm thinking. No, I have never been happy.”

“That's terrible.”

“Would you like a handkerchief?”

“Even during your childhood?”

“I was never a child.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“Well you must have been little!”

“I was little, yes, but I was not a child. I was already Prétextat Tach.”

“It's true that we know nothing about your childhood. Your biographers always start with your adult life.”

“That's normal, because I had no childhood.”

“But you had parents, after all.”

“You do pile on your brilliant conclusions, young man.”

“What did your parents do?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“They lived off their income. A very old family fortune.”

“Are there any other family members besides yourself?”

“Was it the tax man who sent you?”

“No, I just wanted to know if—”

“Mind your own business.”

“One's duty as a journalist, Monsieur Tach, is to mind other people's business.”

“Change your profession.”

“That's out of the question. I like my profession.”

“My poor boy.”

“Let me put it to you in another way: tell me about the time in your life when you were happiest.”

Silence.

“Should I phrase my question in another way?”

“Do you take me for a fool or what? What sort of game are you playing at? Is this some sort of
Belle marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour
? Is that it?”

“Calm down, I'm just trying to do my job.”

“And I'm trying to do mine.”

“So in your opinion, a writer is someone whose job consists in not answering questions?”

“Exactly.”

“And Sartre?”

“What about Sartre?”

“Well, he answered questions, didn't he?”

“So what?”

“That contradicts your definition.”

“Not in the least: it confirms it, on the contrary.”

“You mean that Sartre is not a writer?”

“You didn't know?”

“What do you mean, he wrote remarkably well.”

“There are journalists who write remarkably well. But it is not enough to have a way with words to be a writer.”

“No? What else is required, then?”

“A great many things. First of all, you need balls. And the balls I am referring to have nothing to do with one's sex. The proof of it is that there are some women who have balls. Oh, not very many, but they do exist: Patricia Highsmith, for example.”

“That's astonishing, that a great writer like yourself would like the work of Patricia Highsmith.”

“Why? There's nothing astonishing about it at all. You might not think so, but she's someone who must hate people as much as I do, and women in particular. You can tell she doesn't write in order to be invited to people's drawing rooms.”

“And what about Sartre, did he write in order to be invited to drawing rooms?”

“Did he ever! I never met the gentleman, but just reading him I could tell how much he loved drawing rooms.”

“That's a bit hard to swallow. He was a leftist, after all.”

“So? Do you think leftists don't like drawing rooms? I think that, on the contrary, they like them more than anyone. It stands to reason: if I'd been a worker all my life, it seems to me I would like nothing better than to spend my time in drawing rooms.”

“You're oversimplifying: not all leftists are workers. Some leftists come from very good families.”

“Really? Then they have no excuse.”

“You wouldn't happen to be a rabid anti-Communist, would you, Monsieur Tach?”

“And you wouldn't you happen to be a premature ejaculator, now would you, Mr. Journalist?”

“Oh, really, that has nothing to do with it.”

“I do agree. So, to get back to our balls. They are the most vital organ a writer has. If he has no balls, a writer uses his words in the service of bad faith. To give you an example, let's take a gifted writer, and give him something to write about. With solid balls, you get
Death on Credit.
Without balls, you get
La nausée.
”

“Don't you think you're simplifying somewhat?”

“Are you, a journalist, serious? And here I've been trying, out of the goodness of my heart, to bring myself down to your level!”

“I never asked you to. What I want is a precise and methodical definition of what you mean by ‘balls.'”

“Why? Don't tell me you are trying to write some sort of Tach Made Easy for the general public?”

“Not at all! I just wanted to have some sort of clear communication with you.”

“Uh-huh, that's what I was afraid of.”

“Come now, Monsieur Tach, please try and make things simple for me, just for once.”

“You must understand that I detest any form of simplification, young man; so if you start asking me to simplify myself, don't expect me to be very enthusiastic.”

“But I'm not asking you to simplify yourself, not at all! I'm just asking you for a brief definition of what you mean by ‘balls.'”

“All right, all right, don't whine. What is it with you journalists? You are all so hypersensitive.”

“I'm listening.”

“Well, balls are an individual's ability to resist the prevailing bad faith. Sounds scientific, right?”

“Go on.”

“I might as well tell you that almost no one has the balls for it. And the number of people who have both a way with words and the right kind of balls is infinitesimal. That is why there are so few writers on the planet. Particularly as other qualities are also required.”

“Such as?”

“A prick.”

“After balls, a prick: that's logical. Definition of prick?”

“The prick is an ability to create. People who are truly capable of creating are rare indeed. Most of them are content with merely copying their predecessors with greater or lesser degrees of talent—and those same predecessors are, most often, copiers themselves. Sometimes you get a writer who has a way with words and a prick but no balls: Victor Hugo, for example.”