BETWEEN YES AND NO
1097
that it's always better, the feeling that the whole absurd simplicity of
the world has taken refuge in this room.
"Will you be back?" she asks. "I know you've got work to do.
But, from time to time.... "
But right now, where am
I?
And how am I to separate this
empty cafe from that room of the past? I no longer know whether I
am living or whether I am remembering. The lighthouse beacons
are there before me. And the Arab getting up in front of me tells me
that he is going to close. I have to leave. I no longer want to go
down that dangerous slope. It is true that I take a last look at the
bay and its lights, that what rises up to me is not the hope of better
days, but a serene and primitive indifference to everything and to
myself. But that soft and easy curve must be broken. And I need my
lucidity. Yes, everything is simple. It's men who complicate things.
Don't let them tell us otherwise. Don't let them say to us about the
man condemned to death that "he's going to pay his debt to society,"
but rather that "they're going to cut his head off." This may not
seem like much, but it makes a bit of a difference. And then there are
people who prefer to look their fate
in
the eyes.
(Translated
by
Bernard Frechtman)
