I went back to change into civilian clothes and then went to the Louvre: there, at least, surrounded by these immobile, serene figures, I felt calmer. I sat for a long time in front of Philippe de Champaigne’s dead Christ; but it was especially a little painting by Watteau that held my attention, L’indifférent: a character dressed for a party stepping forward in a dance, almost with an entrechat, his arms poised as if waiting for the first note of an overture, feminine, but with an obvious erection under his pistachio-green silk breeches, and with an indefinably sad, almost lost face, having already forgotten everything and perhaps not even trying to remember why or for whom he was posing this way. It struck me as a rather pertinent commentary on my situation, and even the title brought its counterpoint: indifferent? no, I wasn’t indifferent, I had only to pass in front of a painting of a woman with heavy black hair to feel an axe blow of the imagination; and even when the faces didn’t look at all like hers, under the rich Renaissance or Regency trappings, under those dazzling fabrics, loaded with colors and gemstones, as thick as the dripping oil of the painters, it was her body I could make out, her breasts, her belly, her hips, pure, flowing smoothly over the bones or slightly curved, enclosing the only source of life I knew where to find. Angry, I left the museum, but that wasn’t enough, for every woman I met or saw laughing behind a window had the same effect on me. I downed drink after drink whenever I passed a café, but the more I drank, the more lucid I seemed to become, my eyes opened and the world rushed into them, roaring, bleeding, voracious, spattering the inside of my head with fluids and excrement. My pineal eye, gaping vagina in the middle of my forehead, projected a crude, gloomy, implacable light on this world, and allowed me to read each drop of sweat, each pimple, each poorly shaven hair on the garish faces that assailed me as an emotion, the infinite cry of anguish of the child forever prisoner in the atrocious body of a clumsy adult incapable, even by killing, of avenging himself for the fact of living. Finally, it was already late in the night, a boy accosted me in a bistro to ask me for a cigarette: there, maybe, I could drown myself for a few instants. He agreed to come up to my room. Another one, I said to myself as I climbed the stairs, another one, but it will never be enough. We each got undressed on opposite sides of the bed; ridiculously, he kept on his shoes and watch. I asked him to have me standing up, leaning on the chest of drawers, facing the narrow mirror that dominated the room. When the pleasure seized me, I kept my eyes open, I scrutinized my crimson, hideously swollen face, trying to see in it, my true face filling my features from behind, the features of my sister’s face. But then this surprising thing happened: between these two faces and their perfect fusion there slid, smooth, transparent as a glass leaf, another face, the bitter, placid face of our mother, infinitely fine but more opaque, denser than the thickest of walls. Seized with an enormous rage, I roared and smashed the mirror with my fist; the boy, frightened, jumped and fell back onto the bed as he came in long spurts. I came too, but reflexively, without feeling it, already going limp. Blood dripped from my fingers onto the floor. I went into the bathroom, washed my hand, pulled a piece of glass out of it, wrapped it in a towel. When I came out, the boy was getting dressed, obviously worried. I searched through my pants pocket and threw a few bills on the bed: “Get out.” He seized the money and fled without a word. I wanted to go to bed but first I carefully collected the pieces of broken glass, throwing them into the waste-paper basket and examining the floor to be sure I hadn’t overlooked any, then I wiped up the drops of blood and went to wash. Finally I could lie down; but the bed was a crucifix to me, a torture rack. What was she doing here, the odious bitch? Hadn’t I suffered enough because of her? Did she have to persecute me again this way? I sat cross-legged on the sheets and smoked cigarette after cigarette as I thought. The wan gleam of a streetlight filtered through the closed shutters. My thinking—carried away, panic-stricken—had turned into a sly old assassin; a new Macbeth, it murdered my sleep. I kept feeling as if I were on the point of understanding something, but this comprehension remained at the tip of my lacerated fingers, mocking me, imperceptibly withdrawing as I approached it. Finally a thought allowed itself to be grasped: I contemplated it with disgust, but since none other wanted to come take its place, I had to grant it its due. I placed it on the night table like a heavy old coin: if I tapped it with my fingernail, it sounded true, no matter how often I flipped it, it always presented me with the same impassive face.
