But of course, in one sense, Dean never died -- his existence is superior to such accidents. One must have heroes, which is to say, one must create them. And they become real through our envy, our devotion. It is we who give them their majesty, their power, which we ourselves could never possess. And in turn, they give some back. But they are mortal, these heroes, just as we are. They do not laast forever. They fade. They vanish. They are surpassed, forgotten -- one hears of them no more.
As for Anne-Marie, she lives in Troyes now, or did. She is married. I suppose there are children. They walk together on Sundays, the sunlight falling upon them. They visit friends, talk, go home in the evening, deep in the life we all agree is so greatly to be desired.
Friday, January 30, 2009
A Sport And A Pastime - Closing
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 187
Before he boarded, the sun was already low at Orly. Almost no wind. A vast, malicious calm. In the distance, blue as winter, the dim roofs of the city. Smoke. The east growing dark. Aboard the plane all is brilliance. Dean sits at the window as they move, in the stillness of evening, towards the runway, the great tires bumping over the concrete joints. The seat-belts signs are lighted. The NO SMOKING is on. All of a sudden my imagination begins to panic, to rush from one thing to another. I have followed him so long I am sensitive to dangers. They turn smoothly into the direction for takeoff. All the perfect machinery of flight is beginning its motion. The huge, graceful wings are quivering. The engines roar. And now, at the last moment, it begins to move, slowly, with a majesty I cannot bear, for a long time seeming to go no faster until suddenly it is racing past, raising, clearing the ground. It climbs steeply. The soft darkness of the summer sky receives it. The lights grow fainter,, the sound, and finally all of France, invisible now, silent, the France of all seasons deep in the silence of night, is left behind.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 183
After they lie a long time in silence. There is nothing. Their poem is scattered about them. The days have fallen everywhere, the have collapsed like cards. The air has a chill in it. He pulls the covers up. She is so perfectly still she seems asleep. He touches her face. It is wet with tears.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 175
He pulls his shirt out to show me the line. He grins. He is invincible. It's like a game of chess in which his pieces continually overpower me, but we have long ceased to contest.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 164
The sight of her fresh nakedness frightens him even more. Suddenly it is quite clear how acrobatic, how dangerous everything is. It seems not to be his own life he is living, but another, the life of some victim. It will all collapse. He wil have to find work, pay rent, walk home every day for lunch. He is weak suddenly, he doesn't believe in himself. She slips into the bed. A virtual panic comes over him. He lies motionless, his eyes closed.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 119
A feast of love is beginning. Everything that has gone before is only a sort of introduction. Now they are lovers. The first, wild courses are ended. They have founded their domain. A satanic happiness follows.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 101
I have not gone deep enough, that's the thing. In solitude one must penetrate, one must endure. The icy beginning is where it is worst. One must pass all that. One must go forward all the way, through bitterness, through righteous feelings, adavncing upon it like a holy city, sensing the true joy. I try to summon it to me, to make it appear. I am certain it is there, but it does not come easily. Of course not. One must waver. One must struggle. Beliefs are meant to cleave us to the bone.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 80
She has her moments. Still, it's dangerous to believe in what she seems to be. One often has the impression there is another, desperate woman underneath, but this is the extent of her power, this imtimation of sexual wealth. Billy always talks about how beautiful she is. It's almost as if he's protesting: but she is beautiful. And she is. Their life is arranged to exhibit this beauty. They treat it like the possession of a fine house.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 58
I am the pursuer. The essence of that is I am the one who knows while Dean does not, but still it is far from even. To begin with, no matter what I do, I can never uncover everything. That alone is enough to make him triumph. I can never anticipate; it is he who moves first. I am only the servant of life. He is an inhabitant. And above all, I cannot confront him, I cannot even imagine such a thing. The reason is simple: I am afraid of him, of all men who are successful in love. That is the sourse of his power.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 30
"Let's go somewhere for a drink," Cristina says.He is silent."Billy?""Do you really want to?""Where can we go?""The Calvados," he says."Yes," she says, "let's go there."
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 22
She has been a famous actress, I recognize her. The debris of a great star. Narrow lips. The face of a dedicated drinker. She constantly piles up her hair with her hands and then lets it fall. She laughs, but there is no sound. It's all in silence -- she is made out of yesterdays. He is pointing out Evan Smith, whose wife is a Whitney. There are girls who work in the fashion houses, publishing. One meets a certain kind of people here, people with money and taste.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 17
None of this is true. I've said Autun, but it could easily have been Auxerre. I'm sure you'll come to realize that. I am only putting details which entered me, fragments that were able to part my flesh. It's a story of things that never existed although even the faintest doubt of that, the smallest possibility, plunges everything into darkness. I only want whoever reads this to be as resigned as I am. There's enough passion in the world already. Everything trembles with it. Not that I believe it shouldn't exist, no, no, but this is only a thin, reflecting sliver which somehow keeps catching the light.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 15
This blue, indolent town. Its cats. Its pale sky. The empty sky of morning, drained and pure. Its deep, cloven streets. Its narrow courts, the faint, rotten odor within, orange peels lying in the corners. The uneven curbstones, their edges worn away. A town of doctors, all with large houses. Cousson, Proby, Gilot. Even the streets are named for them. Passageways through the Roman wall. The Porte de Breuil, its iron railings sunk into the stone like climber's spikes. The women come up the steep grade out of breath, their lungs creaking. A town still rich with bicycles. In the mornings they flow softly past. In the streets there's the smell of bread.
A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 10
Soon we are rushing along an alley of departure, the houses of the suburbs flashing by, ordinary streets, apartments, gardens, walls. The secret life of France, into which one cannot penetrate, the life of photograph albums, uncles, names of dogs that have died. And in ten minutes, Paris is gone. The horizon, dense with buildings, vanishes. Already I feel free.
A Sport And A Pastime - Opening
September. It seems these luminous days will never end. The city, which was almost empty during August, now is filling up again. It is being replenished. The restaurants are all reopening, the shops. People are coming back from the country, the sea, from trips on roads all jammed with cars. The station is very crowded."Remember that the life of this world is but a sport and a pastime ..."
Monday, June 18, 2007
Light Years - Last Sentence
Yes, he thought, I am ready, I have always been ready, I am ready at last.
Light Years - pg. 296
These women with their needs and assurance, their dazzling selfishness, their smiles - he would never conquer them, he was too timid, too consenting. He was helpless with them; he was close to them, yes, enormously close, even kindred, but at the same time completely different and alone, like a lame recruit in barracks.
Alone, he lay in the sheets of the still-warm bed. He had drawn the covers to his waist, he could feel a wetness, dense and chill beneath one leg; alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life - it was not worth much - not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage, he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one - we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.
Light Years - pg. 261
She formed her life day by day, taking as its materials the emptiness and panic as well as the rushes, like fever, of contentment. I am beyond fear of solitude, she thought, I am past it. The idea thrilled her. I am beyond it and I will not sink.
This submission, this triumph made her stronger. It was as if finally, after having passed though inferior stages, her life had found a form worthy of it. Artificiality was gone, together with foolish hopes and expectations. There were times when she was happier than she had ever been, annd it seemed that this happiness was not bestowed on her but was something she had herself achieved, had searched for, not knowing its form, had given up everything lesser - even things that were irreplaceable - to gain.
Light Years - pg. 249
He liked brandy, crystal glasses, vermouth cassis at the Century. His life was solid, well-made, perhaps not happy but comfortable; there were feasts of comfort like nights in sleeping-trains with their clean sheets and cities floating in the dark. The first anachronisms were appearing in his clothes, the first blotches of age on the back of his hands. There was seldom music in his house. Books and conversation, reminiscences. He wore blue-checked shirts faded from many launderings. English shoes a little out of style. In his face a marvelous alertness, in the iris of one eye a small dark key like a holy stain. He had traveled, he had dined, he discussed hotels with the affection one usually reserves for women or beasts. He knew exactly in which a museum a painting was hung. His French was rickety structure based on a vocabulary of food and drink. He spoke it grandly.
Light Years - pg. 187
Her life was her own, but it was deeply entwined with these other lives: her gnomelike father’s, with her mother’s brilliant smile. She was like a young tree demure in the sunlight, in a clearing, graceful and alone, but the moss on the earth around, the stones, buried roots, the distant groves, the forest – all of these had their influence and spoke to her still.
