This afternoon Monsieur Arthens is wearing a large polka-dot lavaliere that is too loose on his patrician neck and does not suit him at all: the abundance of his leonine mane and the floppiness of the silk cloth conspire to create a sort of vaporous tutu, causing the gentleman to forfeit his customary virility. Confound it, that lavaliere reminds me of something. I almost smile as it comes back to me. It’s Legrandin, and his lavaliere. In In Search of Lost Time, the work of a certain Marcel, another notorious concierge, Legrandin is a snob who is torn between two worlds, his own and the one he would like to enter: he is a most pathetic snob whose lavaliere expresses his most secret vacillations between hope and bitterness, servility and disdain. Thus, when he has no wish to greet the narrator’s parents on the square in Combray, but is nevertheless obliged to walk by them, he assigns to his scarf the task of floating in the wind, thereby signifying a melancholy mood that will exempt him from any conventional greeting.
Pierre Arthens may know his Proust, but, for all that, he has developed no particular indulgence towards concierges; he clears his throat impatiently.
To recall his question: ‘Would you bring it to me immediately?’ (The package sent by courier – rich people’s parcels do not travel by the usual postal routes.)
‘Yes,’ I reply, beating all records of concision, encouraged by his own brevity and by the absence of any ‘please’, which the use of the interrogative conditional did not, in my opinion, entirely redeem.
‘It’s very fragile,’ he adds, ‘do be careful, I beg you.’
The use of the imperative and the ‘I beg you’ does not have the good fortune to find favour with me, particularly as he believes I am incapable of such syntactical subtleties, and merely uses them out of inclination, without having the least courtesy to suppose that I might feel insulted. You know you have reached the very bottom of the social food chain when you detect in a rich person’s voice that he is merely addressing himself and that, although the words he is uttering may be, technically, destined for you, he does not even begin to imagine that you might be capable of understanding them.
‘Fragile how?’ I ask therefore, somewhat listlessly.
He sighs conspicuously and on his breath I detect a faint hint of ginger.
‘It is an incunabulum,’ he says and towards my eyes, which I try to render as glassy as possible, he directs the smug gaze of the propertied classes.
‘Well, much good may it do you,’ I retort with disgust. ‘I’ll bring it to you just as soon as the courier arrives.’
And I slam the door in his face.
The prospect that this evening Pierre Arthens will sit at his dinner table and entertain his family with a witty remark about his concierge’s indignation over the mention of an incunabulum (no doubt she imagined that this was something improper) delights me no end.
God knows which one of us looks more of a fool.
Journal of the Movement of the World No. 1
Stay centred on yourself without losing your shorts
It’s all well and good to have profound thoughts on a regular basis, but I think it’s not enough. Well, I mean: I’m going to commit suicide and set the house on fire in a few months; obviously I can’t assume I have much time at my disposal, therefore I have to do something substantial with the little I do have. And above all, I’ve set myself a little challenge: if you commit suicide, you have to be sure of what you’re doing and not burn the house down for nothing. So if there is something on the planet that is worth living for, I’d better not miss it, because once you’re dead, it’s too late for regrets, and if you die by mistake, well, that is really, really stupid.
So, obviously, I have my profound thoughts. But in my profound thoughts, I am playing at who I am – hey, no way around it, I am an intellectual (who makes fun of other intellectuals). It’s not always brilliant, but it’s very entertaining. So I thought I ought to make up for this ‘glory of the mind’ side with a second journal that would talk about the body or about things. Not the profound thoughts of the mind, but the masterpieces of matter. Something incarnate, tangible. But beautiful and aesthetic at the same time. With the exception of love, friendship and the beauty of Art, I don’t see much else that can nurture human life. I’m still too young to claim to know much about love and friendship. But Art…if I had more time to live, Art would be my whole life. Well, when I say Art, don’t get me wrong: I’m not just talking about great works of art by great masters. Even Vermeer can’t convince me to hold life dear. He’s sublime, but he’s dead. No, I’m referring to the beauty that is there in the world, things that, being part of the movement of life, elevate us. The Journal of the Movement of the World will be devoted therefore to the movement of people, bodies, or even – if really there’s nothing to say – things, and to finding whatever is beautiful enough to give life meaning. Grace, beauty, harmony, intensity. If I find something, then I may rethink my options: if I find a body with beautiful movement or, failing that, a beautiful idea for the mind, well then maybe I’ll think that life is worth living after all.
In fact, I got this idea for a double journal (one for the mind, one for the body) yesterday. Papa was watching a rugby match on television. Up until now, at times like this I’ve looked mostly at Papa. I like to watch him roll up his shirtsleeves, take his shoes off and settle on the sofa with a beer and some saucisson, to watch the game as if declaring, ‘Behold the man I also know how to be.’ Apparently it doesn’t occur to him that one stereotype (very serious Minister of the Republic) plus one more stereotype (Mr-Nice-Guy-all-the-same who likes his cold beer) makes a stereotype raised to the power of two. In short, on Saturday, Papa came home earlier than usual, threw his briefcase down any old place, took off his shoes, rolled up his sleeves, grabbed a beer in the kitchen and flopped in front of the television, and said, ‘Sweetie, bring me some saucisson, please, I don’t want to miss the haka.’ As far as missing the haka went, I had plenty of time to slice the saucisson and bring it to him, the adverts were still on. Maman was sitting precariously on the arm of the sofa, to show how she was against the whole business (in her holier-than-thou-left-wing-intellectual pose), and she was badgering Papa with some complicated story about a dinner party where the idea was to invite two couples who’d fallen out, in order to reconcile them. Given Maman’s psychological subtlety, this could be a very amusing undertaking. Anyway, I gave Papa his saucisson and, since I knew that Colombe was up in her room listening to music that was supposed to be enlightened avant-garde fifth arrondissement sort of stuff, I thought: after all, why not, let’s watch a little haka. What I knew was that the haka is a sort of grotesque dance that the New Zealand team performs before the match. Sort of intimidation in the manner of the great apes. And I also knew that rugby is a heavy sort of game, with men falling all over each other on the grass all the time only to stand up and fall down and get all tangled up a few feet further along.
The adverts finally came to an end and, after credits showing a lot of beefcake sprawled on the grass, we had a view of the entire stadium with the commentators’ voice-over and then a close-up of the commentators (all slavish cassoulet addicts) then back to the stadium. The players came onto the field and that’s when I got hooked. I didn’t really understand what was going on at first: there they were, all the usual images, but they had a new effect on me; they caused a kind of tingling, a sense of heady anticipation, sort of an ‘I’m holding my breath’ feeling. Next to me Papa had already knocked back his first barley beer, and was preparing to carry on in good Gallic fashion by asking Maman, who had just got up from her sofa arm, to bring him another. As for me, I was holding my breath. ‘What’s going on?’ I wondered, watching the screen, and I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing and what was giving me that tingling feeling.
Then when the New Zealand players began their haka, I got it. In their midst was this very tall Maori player, really young. I’d had my eye on him right from the start, probably because of his height to begin with but then because of the way he was