Published in Stories and Remarks (University of Nebraska Press, 2000):
Green With Fright
An alternate translation by Barbara Wright (under the title "A Blue Funk") was published in French Writing Today, edited by Simon Watson Taylor (Grove Press, 1969):
As far as I can remember, I've always been afraid of anything that might give me any trouble; I thus was successively afraid of the bogeyman, wax figures in the Dupuytren museums, places overly frequented by vehicles, hoodlums, flowerpots that fall on heads, ladders, the clap, the pox, the Gestapo, V-2S. Peace did not, of course, in any way ease these alarms; thus, the other evening, I'm eating some chestnut puree, and I begin to dream that I'm in a djip and that the driver wasn't going to avoid a thick pillar, I see it coming, I tell myself that we're crashing into it, there it is, we crashed into it, everything goes black; in the blackness, I say to myself: I'm dead, I say to myself: so that's what it's like when you die, and then I wake up, my stomach distended and my heart beating. I turn the lights on, I look at my watch, it's two o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, still pretty early, and I get up to take a piss. As I don't use a chamberpot, I have to go to the toilet. There's a long corridor. I go down it saying: if this, if that. I manage to scare myself, and I go into the john quite happy to be able to close the door behind me, to make this long story short, and feel at home, and not only to close the door, but also to turn the lock.
I piss.
I pull the chain.
When the hygienic gurgling quieted down, I sensed the presence of nothingnesses in the corridor, without any atmosphere of existence, which made me warm in the teeth, cold under the fingernails, general horripilation. An abject fright grabbed hold of my soul, and, putting my head in my hands, I sat down on the toilet seat, bemoaning my vile fate. The presence of these nothingnesses without any atmosphere of existence was obviously the fruit (immaculately conceived) of my imagination taken to the brinks of shittery under the influence of the chestnut puree. This explanation, valid from the point of view of many an ism, could not help, of course, but fully satisfy my penchant for philosophical studies, but did nothing, alas! to prevent the existence of the nothingnessing atmospheres of presence from lurking about in the corridor, thirsting after cerumen and depravity, swollen with their labile pointlessness and their inappropriate onanism.
An hour passed.
I felt the ambiences full of the nothingness of their present existence flatten themselves against the door of the bog, dribble their loathsome purulence against it and twist around the doorknob, like a lemon upon the cone that will extract its acidic and citric liquid. They deeply disgusted me. And as for myself, I remained seated on the toilet seat, bemoaning my fate, and I could see, blurring through my tears, the parallelepipedic shape and the downy touch of my sack, where I had dreamily smashed in my face in a djip.
I would very much have liked to have gone back to it, to go to sleep, to try to, but there was the atmosphere of existences without presence and without nothingness that, lurking in the corridor, prevented me from giving the lock the 1800 rotation that would have been the first step toward hitting the hay in which I was longing t'snorze. I'm timorous, certainly, as I said, I realize it, but I've never sought to avoid bitter reality, I've always looked it inna face. Since I was stuck for more than two hours in this spot that is sometimes described, and childishly so, as "little," I had to resign myself and found a society there of which I would be at once Robinson and Friday, and, just as the hero of the British novel saw trunks full of workman's treasures brought by a sea both benevolent and subject to a Neptune named Defoe, I thus discovered in a little cabinet the first elements of my Robinsonism in the form of a toolbox very decently stocked with nails, hammers, pliers, screws, and hooks, not to mention a folding rule that measured twelve decimeters, an archaeological trace of a duodecimal-based civilization.
But the presences without nothingness of ambient existence continued to lurk in the corridor, leaving their trail of preternatural, abulic, and subperceptible snail-slobber.
Five hours trickled along the toilet chain, which communicated, through some architectural subtlety, with the Empire clock next door.
The discovery of the toolbox restored my courage. I got up, I took a second piss, I pulled the foresaid chain and began to hammer nails into the wall, this attitude having at that moment, for me, no precise goal. I simply demonstrated in this manner my ambient presence of existing nothingness. And as I overheard, at my bedroom doorstep, having gotten up in the middle of the night from having eaten too much chestnut puree and desirous of having a piss, the muffled sound of the hammer being wielded in the toilet by a nothingness present in an existing ambiance, I made an about-turn, scared shitless, and went back to bed.
Dream Accounts Aplenty
Alternate translation: "Accounts of Abundant Dreams," by Brigitte Lambert, in Atlas Anthology III, edited by Alastair Brotchie and Malcolm Green (Atlas Press, 1985):
I go to a mathematicians' luncheon. The first guest who arrives is carrying a cello. Although we are in one of the inner suburbs, we find ourselves before a brook with water lilies sprouting from it. One of the mathematicians present points out how Heraclitus was mistaken in saying that one never bathes in the same river twice: when one drinks a glass of water there are surely several molecules of H2O that have already passed through our body. The others agree.
I run into an Arab and tell him about the death of a Spanish worker with whom he was acquainted. He isn't surprised, for this worker was working on a building site where an iron ball had fallen on his head. I approach the neighboring building site: the Seine has overrun the foundations. They've had to cut off the water.
My sister-in-law brings back the books I had lent her. I was unable to remember their titles. She is driving a little car with automatic transmission and complains of rheumatism.
I am in the country at the home of a doctor. He is grilling some eggplants and cutlets, which catch fire, then he plays the lute.
One of my friends is dead. Another of my friends whom I haven't seen in a long time goes to kiss him on the forehead. A third asks me the identity of a lady who is present. I tell him: "She's the head of manufacturing." He: "The head of manufacturing's wife?"--"No," I say to him, "the head of manufacturing." He goes to shake her hand.
The butcher's wife writes me a letter, asking me to leave the shutters a L'italienne. I wonder why and what she means.
I am in a little town whose topography is unfamiliar to me. I try to follow the same route as the day before. I venture, however, down a narrow alley whose buildings seem abandoned. There is a barbershop there without barber or clients. I wonder what he could have been thinking to have set up shop in a spot with so little traffic. Leaving this alley I see a fat lady in pants who is walking a cat at the end of a long leash and who is accompanied by a Siberian spitz.
I enter a church that is still adorned with a traditional altar. On a sheet of commercial-sized paper posted on the confessional there is a list of the members of the brotherhood of Saint Rose. I read it carefully. Then I examine with equal care the foot of a Romanesque column decorated with a hare and a snail. As I am about to leave, a priest in a cassock enters. I ask him what the Saint Rose brotherhood is. He explains it to me, but I have only retained a confused recollection of his explanations concerning the brotherhood (it's a matter of consecrated bread ... of masses spoken . . .); as to the saint, he stresses that it is not the Saint Rose of Lima, but a local saint. A little later, I find myself in an isolated hamlet. There is a church there that is associated with the Hôtel de Sens in Paris. The neighboring farmer has lent the key so that it can be visited. He arrives bare-chested, accompanied by his wife, who is wearing shorts. Before us there is a pond; the ducks and drakes are going to sleep for it is very late. The moon is almost full.
I ask in a cafe where the Saint-Baudel chapel is located. No one knows except for the proprietress, who shows me the way. I find it without difficulty. Inside I see two nearly nude boys on mattresses; pennants of the Jeune Garde on the walls, but the sixteenth century paintings that I was expecting to find are still on the ceiling.
In an absolutely deserted village, a countryman in the main square is trying to make a parachute-shaped kite rise up into the air.
I have rented a house, which I leave in order to go into the garden. I am surprised to find a lady there in the midst of shelling peas. She is settled on a rocking chair: "Come over to our side, then." I apologize, stammering, and close the door behind me.
I see a poster kept under glass over a grave. It is the speech made by a miller in 1896; a speech that he had printed: a eulogy to his mother who died at the age of eighty-two. He is the third of eighteen children. The word "fatal" is in the text, and others of the same sort. I go into the neighboring church, which has been restored with shiny exposed beams and handrails with neon lighting. Two little gothic carved figures, however, remain. I go out and again find myself in the cemetery. They have grouped together the graves of those who died in the war. There are four of them. The crosses that surmount the graves and the chains that join them together are in wrought iron of a peculiar style. I go to reread the miller's speech.
Some parents visit Saint-Benoit with their little girl. I am looking attentively at the capitals when the father says to me (addressing me familiarly): "Explain to her what mass is." I look at the little girl. She must be six years old. I ask: "Has she received a Christian upbringing?" "No," he replies. I feel rather muddled and keep quiet while the father launches into explanations that the little girl listens to with round eyes. The mother smiles. She has purchased some cakes: they are good, it seems, at Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire.
Seated at a table on the terrace in a little provincial town, I am looking at the statue of a physicist and, in spite of the twilight that is transforming into night, am trying to make out the inscriptions on the pedestal. All of a sudden, sirens. People come to the windows. Some time passes. The shutters close again. There are no more onlookers when the fire engine passes by. Then an individual suddenly appears from the darkness, whose face reminds me of that of a mulish alcoholic of Depot 24 during the phony war. He comes up to me and holds his hand out, calling me master.
Of course none of these dreams are any more real than they are invented. They are simply minor incidents taken from wakened life. A minimal effort of rhetoric seemed sufficient to give them a dreamlike aspect.
That's all I wanted to say.
A Story of Your Own
Alternate translations: "Yours for the Telling", by John Crombie, and "A Story as You Like It," by Warren Motte, in Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature (Dalkey Archive Press, 1998).
1—Would you like to know the story of the three lively little peas?
if yes, go to 4
if no, go to 2.2—Would you prefer that of the three tall slender beanpoles?
if yes, go to 16
if no, go to 3.3—Would you prefer that of the three medium-sized mediocre bushes?
if yes, go to 17
if no, go to 21.4—Once upon a time there were three little peas dressed in green who were sleeping soundly in their pod. Their oh so chubby faces were breathing through the holes of their nostrils and one could hear their sweet, harmonious snoring.
if you prefer another description, go to 9
if this one suits you, go to 5.5—They were not dreaming. In fact, these little beings never dream.
if you prefer that they dream, go to 6
otherwise, go to 7.6—They were dreaming. In fact, these little beings always dream and their nights secrete charming visions.
if you want to know these dreams, go to 11
if you’re not particularly keen to, then go to 7.7—Their dainty feet were dipped in warm socks and they wore black velvet gloves to bed.
if you prefer gloves of a different color go to 8
if this color suits you, go to 10.8—They wore blue velvet gloves to bed.
if you prefer gloves of a different color, go to 7
if this color suits you, go to 10.9—Once upon a time there were three little peas knocking about on the highways. When evening came, they quickly fell asleep, tired and weary.
if you want to know the rest, go to 5
if not, go to 21.10—All three had the same dream, for they loved each other tenderly and, like good and proud thrins, always had similar dreams.
if you want to know their dream, go to 11
if not, go to 12.11—They dreamed that they were getting their soup at the soup kitchen and that on opening their billies they discovered that it was vetch soup. They woke up, horrified.
if you want to know why they woke up horrified,
look up the word “vetch” in Webster’s and let’s not mention it again
if you don’t think it’s worth going deeper into the matter, go to 12.12—Opopoï! they cried as they opened their eyes. Opopoï! what sort of dream did we give birth to! Bad omen, said the first. Yah, said the second, you said it, I’m all sad now. Don’t get in a tizzy, said the third, who was the craftiest of the three, this isn’t something to get upset over, but something to understand, to cut a long story short, I’m going to analyze it for you.
if you want to know the interpretation of this dream right away, go to 15
if, on the contrary, you wish to know the reactions of the other two, go to 13.13—That’s a lot of hooey, said the first. Since when do you know how to analyze dreams. Yeah, since when? added the second.
if you too would like to know since when, go to 14
if not, go to 14 anyway, because you still won’t know why.14—Since when? cried the third. How should I know! The fact is I analyze them. You’ll see!
if you too want to see, go to 15
if not, go to 15 anyway, because you’ll see nothing.15—Well, let’s see, then, said his brothers. I don’t like your irony, he replied, and you won’t know anything. Anyway, hasn’t your feeling of horror dimmed during this rather lively conversation? Vanished, even? So what’s the point of stirring up the quagmire of your papilionaceous unconscious? Let’s go wash up at the fountain instead and greet this happy morning with hygiene and sacred euphoria! No sooner said than done: there they are slipping out of their pod, letting themselves gently roll along the ground and then, jogging, they merrily reach the theater of their ablutions.
if you want to know what happens at the theater of their ablutions, go to 16
if you would rather not, you go to 21.16—Three big beanpoles were watching them.
if the three tall beanpoles displease you, go to 21
if they suit you, go to 18.17—Three medium-sized mediocre bushes were watching them.
if the three medium-sized mediocre bushes displease you, go to 21
if they suit you, go to 18.18—Finding themselves eyeballed in this way, the three nimble little peas who were very modest ran off.
if you want to know what they did next, go to 19
if you don’t want to know, you go to 21.19—They ran speedily to get back to their pod and, shutting it again behind them, went back to sleep.
if you would like to know the rest, go to 20
if you do not want to know, you go to 21.20—There is no rest the story is over.
21—In that case, the story is also over.
A Handful of Texticles
Tit and Tat
They were each speaking two different languages, agglutinative languages with bitter roots, and at first that didn't bother them. Moreover, the rolled words in their rocky inlets spread mauve reflections, but little information. They tried various categories, faux nemes, pure verbs, clicks, moos: every time some eggs of sumethin' else hatched under their words.
It was completely baffling.
They were each speaking two different languages, agglutinative languages with bitter roots.
The Haughties
If I were what I think I am, I would not be here making my bit of goose slave away in the ink, unsticking the ballpoint pen, cementing the scrapers, hardening the soft bits of bread. Where would I be, not here of course, I've already said so, letting my waterman rule my sergeant-major, capulating with some she-fur, training my park-curs, sojourning my elephants. You have to admit it, art has severe principles that go beyond the fame of the haughties. The haughties: those who believe they have a bit of it. They distinguish. They paradigm. They perpend. They sneakify. They gaudify. With my quill in the air, I say no and put three ens to my name and innumerable "o"s.
Description of a Certain foe Schmoe
A little thicker at the chin than at the corner of the spleen, that was the first thing that struck you when you didn't look at him too much from the side. Still old enough, though of a Venetian luster, he appeared to be bathed in more sweat than his boxing wanted. His eye fresh, but hung up, his look slightly stringy, ear at ease, nose green, mouth twitching, corners of the kennel decidedly too pronounced and Achilles tendon constantly at rest, his face thus made a shifty sound that the jolting curve of his shoulders was unable to glue up. A chestnut brown detail corroborated his ventricles. The nourishment of his striking feature also fed the corn on his cob from which he suffered every seasoning. Nothing had ever been able to heal it, not even the dreary pension of an old tuna-meat pedant. His salad fermented over a slow heat between the schnozz and the ballast, but without loud singing so as not to awaken the eagle of the dulcimer, tough and quick tempered.
He would light up through auto-kept rotation of the pyrophor. The ribs of his pen cap, made well enough to disgust a dandy, enveloped him from head to toe in a thin latticework of nags.
It was still no better.
Two fingers of fatigue, one of them too short and the other short enough, allowed him only the most sparing of waltz steps, but not always. To the right of the box of his biennial bone, there was nothing much to do, for him as well as for others, but to the left. He constantly heard himself talking, with a fillet of soil that sometimes descended to the hollow of the yew.
To every heart, he answered tails. That was the most caudal aspect of his behavior and the one that sometimes in his melancholy led him to screw down the asphalt of his first kernel. The passersby, disconcerted, hit the bull's-eye.
Heterogeneous Homophones
Few men keep abreast, all women have two.
He was smoking so much pot he was going to it.
Atop the Eiffel Tower, we got one of Paris.
While smoking a butt, he scratched his.
He drove away from the park because he couldn't.
Dressed in crepe, she flipped several.
He turned red after his report card was.
Removing her veil, she descended into it.
To ensure that the drunkard wouldn't whine, they gave him some.
Being well bred, the child ate his buttered.
He made a call to the delivery room and learned that the baby wasn't born with one.
Jesus told Paul not to expect to find him in one.
The duck didn't and hit its head.
My Heart
Sometimes my heart is to the right, or even completely under my arm, as if it were growing hair. At times I feel it in my elbow, near the funny bone, I'm afraid it might take root there, I'd no longer be able to put them (my elbows) on the table, I prefer that it drop a little further down. Then I see it beating under my wrist, in the spot where palmists locate the line of longevity. Sometimes, it's rare, it reaches the ends of the fingers, the pulp. But it never stays there for long. Then it comes back up, and, if I'm not careful, it travels unforeseen distances; I have to search for it and find it under a kidney, one of my nuts or the root of a hair.
That's why I'm going to the doctor.
O my heart, if only you'd be more quiet.
Paralogies
That it gets ready, far from, the what has to be said, then the echoes that to the cock-a-doodle-dos of an innate, but laughably long card the limits reply, reply. It's midnight. Some write, some dream. The ink flows through the fingers of the moon in its coaches of algebras. Next to, almost, thereabouts, the stopover point is announced by the blatant chimes of a five-franc piece. It's still noon. Time hasn't changed since the Silurian age. It's barely changed. Barely: just enough to no longer become a troglodyte.
Little For Nothing
I was in the midst of writing when I got tripped up in a litotes. It lay on the ground, feeding on the new goo of blue hue, to embue, too, the zoo's poo-poo with dew, to truly view the flue, to rue, moo, coo, and even mew.
The Hen with the Feline
This hen wanted a cat. She was a real hen, gallinaceous, a poultry hen, farmyard poultry, a farmyard of the Beauce, of the Beauce in France. This hen was named Amélie and her man, the rooster, his name was Clarion: a real schmuck. He scratched the mud while clucking, gesticulations meant to lead some fool under his feet so he could pork her. What Amélie wanted was a cat, a purring cat that she could pet and that would mew for its chow.
She would have had it fixed: no fuss.
But there it is: no cat consented. The melancholic Amélie wondered if she wouldn't choose her pet among some other species; she hesitated between the earthworm and homo sapiens.
Submitted July 30, 2018 at 06:11PM by MilkbottleF https://ift.tt/2K7mIRG
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