Read Online Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Louis-Ferdinand Céline
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the Bois, it gives real city dwellers an eerie, anxious feeling. And that puts them in a confiding mood. The Bois de Boulogne may be damp, fenced in, greasy, and trampled, but there's nothing like it for sending memories rushing irresistibly to the minds of city dwellers strolling under the trees. Lola was not immune to that melancholy, confidential anxiety. As we walked along she told me, more or less truthfully, a thousand things about her life in New York and her little girlfriends over there.
I couldn't quite make out how much of the potpourri of dollars, engagements, divorces, dresses, and jewelry that seemed to have made up her existence was worth trying to believe.
That day we headed for the race track. In those days and that neck of the woods you still saw lots of horse-drawn carriages, children on donkeys, other children kicking up dust, and cars full of soldiers on furlough, always in desperate haste, between two trains, to track down the women strolling on the side paths, raising more dust in their hurry to go to dinner and make love, jumpy, oily, peering this way and that, tormented by the implacable clock and the lust for life. They sweated with passion, but also with the heat. The Bois wasn't as well cared for as usual, it was neglected, in a state of administrative suspense.
"It must have been pretty here before the war," Lola observed ... "So chic! ... Oh, tell me about it, Ferdinand! ... Your races here ... Were they like ours in New York?" To tell the truth, I'd never been to the races before the war, but to amuse her I instantly made up dozens of colorful details, drawing on stories various people had told me. The toilettes ... the ladies of fashion ... The gleaming carriages ... The start! ... The joyous, imperious horns ... The water jump ... The President of the Republic ... The undulant betting fever, etc.
My idealized account was so much to her liking that it brought us together. At that moment Lola seemed to discover that we had at least one taste in comon, well concealed in my case, namely, a taste for social functions. She went so far as to kiss me in a burst of spontaneous emotion, something, I have to admit, that she seldom did. And then she was touched by the sadness of bygone fashions. Everyone has his own way of mourning the passage of time. It was through dead fashions that Lola perceived the flight of the years.
"Ferdinand," she asked, "do you think there will be races here again?"
"When the war is over, Lola, I should think ..."
"We can't be sure, can we?"
"No, we can't be sure."
The possibility that there would never again be races at Long-champ overwhelmed her. The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.
"Suppose, Ferdinand, suppose the war goes on a long time, maybe for years ... Then it'll be too late for me ... to come back here ... Do you understand, Ferdinand? ... You know how I love beautiful places like this ... so grand, so chic ... It'll be too late ... Forever too late ... Maybe ... Maybe I'll be old, Ferdinand ... When the races start up again ... I'll be old ... You'll see, Ferdinand, it will be too late ... I can feel it will be too late , , ." She was as desolate as if she'd put on two more pounds. I said everything I could think of to comfort her and give her hope ... She was only twenty-three after all ... The war would be over soon, oh very soon ... Good times would come again ... as good as before, even better ... For her at least ... being so adorable ... the lost years ... she'd catch up with no harm done ... She wouldn't run short of admirers ... so soon ... To please me she pretended she wasn't sad anymore.
"Do we have to keep walking?" she asked.
"Your weight! ..."
"Oh, that's right, I'd forgotten ..."
We left Longchamp, the children had gone. Nothing left but dust. The furlough boys were still chasing Happiness, but no longer in the copses, the pursuit of Happiness had moved to the cafe
I couldn't quite make out how much of the potpourri of dollars, engagements, divorces, dresses, and jewelry that seemed to have made up her existence was worth trying to believe.
That day we headed for the race track. In those days and that neck of the woods you still saw lots of horse-drawn carriages, children on donkeys, other children kicking up dust, and cars full of soldiers on furlough, always in desperate haste, between two trains, to track down the women strolling on the side paths, raising more dust in their hurry to go to dinner and make love, jumpy, oily, peering this way and that, tormented by the implacable clock and the lust for life. They sweated with passion, but also with the heat. The Bois wasn't as well cared for as usual, it was neglected, in a state of administrative suspense.
"It must have been pretty here before the war," Lola observed ... "So chic! ... Oh, tell me about it, Ferdinand! ... Your races here ... Were they like ours in New York?" To tell the truth, I'd never been to the races before the war, but to amuse her I instantly made up dozens of colorful details, drawing on stories various people had told me. The toilettes ... the ladies of fashion ... The gleaming carriages ... The start! ... The joyous, imperious horns ... The water jump ... The President of the Republic ... The undulant betting fever, etc.
My idealized account was so much to her liking that it brought us together. At that moment Lola seemed to discover that we had at least one taste in comon, well concealed in my case, namely, a taste for social functions. She went so far as to kiss me in a burst of spontaneous emotion, something, I have to admit, that she seldom did. And then she was touched by the sadness of bygone fashions. Everyone has his own way of mourning the passage of time. It was through dead fashions that Lola perceived the flight of the years.
"Ferdinand," she asked, "do you think there will be races here again?"
"When the war is over, Lola, I should think ..."
"We can't be sure, can we?"
"No, we can't be sure."
The possibility that there would never again be races at Long-champ overwhelmed her. The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.
"Suppose, Ferdinand, suppose the war goes on a long time, maybe for years ... Then it'll be too late for me ... to come back here ... Do you understand, Ferdinand? ... You know how I love beautiful places like this ... so grand, so chic ... It'll be too late ... Forever too late ... Maybe ... Maybe I'll be old, Ferdinand ... When the races start up again ... I'll be old ... You'll see, Ferdinand, it will be too late ... I can feel it will be too late , , ." She was as desolate as if she'd put on two more pounds. I said everything I could think of to comfort her and give her hope ... She was only twenty-three after all ... The war would be over soon, oh very soon ... Good times would come again ... as good as before, even better ... For her at least ... being so adorable ... the lost years ... she'd catch up with no harm done ... She wouldn't run short of admirers ... so soon ... To please me she pretended she wasn't sad anymore.
"Do we have to keep walking?" she asked.
"Your weight! ..."
"Oh, that's right, I'd forgotten ..."
We left Longchamp, the children had gone. Nothing left but dust. The furlough boys were still chasing Happiness, but no longer in the copses, the pursuit of Happiness had moved to the cafe
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