26
PARTISAN REVIEW
one had asked me what existence was, I would have answered in all
good faith that it was hardly more than an empty form which things
acquired from the outside and which in no way altered their nature.
And then, there it was: all of a sudden, existence was there, as clear
as day; the veil had suddenly been drawn from it. Existence was no
longer a harmless abstraction; it wa<> the pith and pulp of things:
that root was made out of the very stuff of existence. Or rather, the
root, the iron fence, the bench, the spotty grass of the lawn, all these
had vanished; the diversity of things, their individuality was nothing
but appearance, a varnish. This varnish had melted away, and what
was left were soft, bare disorderly masses, monstrous and obscene in
their frightful nudity.
I was careful not to make the slightest move, but I did not need
to move to see the bandstand with its lamppost and blue columns, and
the
V
elleda, behind the trees, surrounded by thick laurel bushes.
All these objects-how shall I express it? They bothered me; I should
have liked them to exist less strongly, with less lushness, more ab–
stractly, with greater decorum. The chestnut tree pressed against my
eyes. It was covered halfway with green rust; the bark was black
and bloated and seemed to be made of boiled leather. The faint
sound of running water made by the Masqueret Fountain flowed into
my ears and nestled there, filling them with sighs; my nostrils were
brimming over with a green and putrid smell. All things were gently,
tenderly abandoning themselves to existence, like a weary woman who
settles down to a good laugh, saying in a liquid voice: "It's good to
laugh"; they exhibited themselves to one another, they abjectly con–
fided in each other the fact of their existence. It was plain to see
that there was no middle ground between non-existence and this
paroxysm of abundance.
If
you existed, you had to
exist to that point,
to the point of green mold, of bloating, of obscenity. In another order,
a circle, a melody, keeps its pure rigid lines. But existence is an acqui–
escence. The trees, the deep blue pillars, the gurgle of the fountain,
the living smells, the wisps of heat fog floating in the cool air, a red–
haired man digesting on a bench: all this sodden passivity, all these
digestive actions taken together were outwardly vaguely comical. No,
not . . . comical: it did not go that far, nothing that exists can be
comical. There was a faint, elusive sort of resemblance to certain situa–
tions in vaudeville. \Ve were a lot of existents that were
ill
at ease
and in our own way; we did not have the slightest reason for being
there, not one of us, and each existent, confused and vaguely troubled,
felt that it was superfluous in relation to the rest. Superfluity: that was
