ROLAND BARTHES
539
impulse to try M's bicycle, to
go
to the baker's. I haven't ridden a bike
since I was a kid. My body found this operation very odd, difficult, and
I was afraid (of getting on, of getting off). I told all this to the baker–
and as I left the shop, trying to get back on my bike, of course, I fell off.
Now by instinct I let myself fall
excessively,
legs in the air, in the
silliest posture imaginable. And then I understood that it was this
silliness which saved me (from hurting myself too much): I
accompa–
nied
my fall and thereby turned myself into a spectacle, I made myself
ridiculous; but thereby, too, I diminished its effect.
A II of a sudden, it has become a matter of indifference to me
whether
or
not I am
modern.
(...
And like a blind man whose finger gropes along the text of
life and here and there recognizes "w hat has already been said".)
II
Paris, April
25,
1979
Futile Evening:
Yesterday, around seven in the evening, under a cold rain in a bad
spring, I ran to catch the No.
58
bus. Oddly, there were only old people
on the bus. One couple was talking very loudly about some History of
the War (which? you can't tell any more): "No distance, no perspec–
tive," the man was saying admiringly, "only details." I got off at the
Pont Neuf. Since I was ear ly, I lingered a little along the Quai de la
Megisserie. Workmen in blue smocks (I could smell how badly paid
they were) were brutally stacking big cages on dollies where ducks and
pigeons (all fowls are so stupid) were fluttering in hysterics, sliding in
heaps from one side to the other. The shops were closing. Through the
door, I saw two puppies: one was teasing the other, who kept rebuffing
him in a very human manner. Once again, I had a longing to have a
dog: I might have bought this one (a sort of fox-terrier) who was
irritated and showed it in a way that was indifferent and yet not
haughty. There were also plants and pots of kitchen-herbs for sale. I
envisioned myself (both longingly and with horror) stocking up on the
lot before going back to
V.,
where I would be living for good, coming
to Paris only for" business" and shopping. Then I walked down the
deserted and sinister Rue des Boudonnais. A driver asked me where the
BHV was: oddly enough, he seemed to know only the abbreviation, and
had no idea where
or
even what the Hotel de Ville was. At the
(crumb ling) Galerie de l'Impasse, I was disappointed: not by D.B .'s
photographs (of windows and blue curtains, taken with a Polaroid
