Read Online La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams by Georges Perec - Free Book Online
Authors: Georges Perec
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the base and basin have been moved.
A whole section of the wall has been reduced to rubble: a newly installed metal ceiling beam runs across it (like in the old “Taride” building at Mabillon).
No. 77
July 1971
The vendor
I have killed my wife and cut her rather crudely into small pieces, which I have wrapped hastily in paper bundles. The whole of her fits in a cardboard box, which is still relatively easy to handle.
My only hope is for someone to make her into wine or alcohol. I go to the distillery. I walk without knocking into a room where there are three women in overalls. Two are sitting down, the third is standing near a waist-high double door (like a saloon door).
Either I address them with a wink, like we know one another, or I call out, flatly, something like:
“I have 50 kilos of quality meat!”
The young woman who was standing brings me into a tiny room, where she begins to examine my merchandise. My package has all the necessary labels, but the young woman claims that the firm I represent is not an approved client of her Company and that I’m going to have a hard time closing the deal.
As a sample, I take a series of small bottles from thepackage. This should be no more than a simple formality, but, to my great confusion, there are more and more bottles: red wine, white wine, rosé, all sorts of liquor, even a pitcher of water—tiny, but full and above all uncorked: you could dip a finger in without making it overflow, which strikes me as an indubitable experimental demonstration of osmosis or of capillarity.
All the demonstration proves useless: a man comes out from the office next door and tells me this will end badly for me if they don’t find my name in their files.
No. 78
July 1971
The trip
I had learned long ago to jump from a certain height (for example from the top of a high beam). This time, I seem to be much higher, almost at the first story of the Eiffel Tower. Below I can clearly see the grass and sand grooves of a garden, and I’m convinced I’ll die if I jump. But finally I learn that I don’t have to jump from this height, just from a much lower beam, and for that matter not even jump from it, just cross it.
H.M. and I are on a boat from New York to Paris. This obviously takes much longer than flying, but it’s much more pleasant.
We’re going to show a film at a festival whose first half was in New York and whose second half is to be in Paris.
A fire breaks out in a cabin on the level below. H.M. and I rush down and save the passengers. We are the heroes of the day and the passengers honor us.
I return to my cabin. A steward is there. He makes me realize how pleasant it all is. He changes my towels and, seeingthat I’m a little sweaty, dabs my face with a towel (one of the ones he’s collected to change).
I go to H.M.’s cabin. I learn that we are on the festival jury. The jury is called “the helical complex” and consists of 4 jurors: H.M. and myself, and two farmers who are just this moment coming into the cabin; they are from Villard-de-Lans, which H.M. knows well; one of them is “Lulu,” whom I know also (no doubt I was in school with him during the war), but the second is unknown to me even though his face looks familiar.
No. 79
July 1971 (Lans)
The actress, I
1
I am in New York at a gigantic coffee shop.
2
In Paris, a café terrace, enormous. There are lots of people, especially Algerians, with a vaguely menacing air.
3
I forget my satchel on the terrace; there are 2,500 francs in it. I go back to get it; obviously, nothing. I am genuinely devastated. My only hope is that I am dreaming (I wake up, relieved).
4
I’m visiting a female friend (nothing between us, just friends). The actress M.D. arrives. She is a tall woman, pretty and cheerful, with long blond hair; she is naked under a light dress.
I begin touching her, caressing her “absent-mindedly.”
I wind up on top of her, fondling her bare breasts.
I
A whole section of the wall has been reduced to rubble: a newly installed metal ceiling beam runs across it (like in the old “Taride” building at Mabillon).
No. 77
July 1971
The vendor
I have killed my wife and cut her rather crudely into small pieces, which I have wrapped hastily in paper bundles. The whole of her fits in a cardboard box, which is still relatively easy to handle.
My only hope is for someone to make her into wine or alcohol. I go to the distillery. I walk without knocking into a room where there are three women in overalls. Two are sitting down, the third is standing near a waist-high double door (like a saloon door).
Either I address them with a wink, like we know one another, or I call out, flatly, something like:
“I have 50 kilos of quality meat!”
The young woman who was standing brings me into a tiny room, where she begins to examine my merchandise. My package has all the necessary labels, but the young woman claims that the firm I represent is not an approved client of her Company and that I’m going to have a hard time closing the deal.
As a sample, I take a series of small bottles from thepackage. This should be no more than a simple formality, but, to my great confusion, there are more and more bottles: red wine, white wine, rosé, all sorts of liquor, even a pitcher of water—tiny, but full and above all uncorked: you could dip a finger in without making it overflow, which strikes me as an indubitable experimental demonstration of osmosis or of capillarity.
All the demonstration proves useless: a man comes out from the office next door and tells me this will end badly for me if they don’t find my name in their files.
No. 78
July 1971
The trip
I had learned long ago to jump from a certain height (for example from the top of a high beam). This time, I seem to be much higher, almost at the first story of the Eiffel Tower. Below I can clearly see the grass and sand grooves of a garden, and I’m convinced I’ll die if I jump. But finally I learn that I don’t have to jump from this height, just from a much lower beam, and for that matter not even jump from it, just cross it.
H.M. and I are on a boat from New York to Paris. This obviously takes much longer than flying, but it’s much more pleasant.
We’re going to show a film at a festival whose first half was in New York and whose second half is to be in Paris.
A fire breaks out in a cabin on the level below. H.M. and I rush down and save the passengers. We are the heroes of the day and the passengers honor us.
I return to my cabin. A steward is there. He makes me realize how pleasant it all is. He changes my towels and, seeingthat I’m a little sweaty, dabs my face with a towel (one of the ones he’s collected to change).
I go to H.M.’s cabin. I learn that we are on the festival jury. The jury is called “the helical complex” and consists of 4 jurors: H.M. and myself, and two farmers who are just this moment coming into the cabin; they are from Villard-de-Lans, which H.M. knows well; one of them is “Lulu,” whom I know also (no doubt I was in school with him during the war), but the second is unknown to me even though his face looks familiar.
No. 79
July 1971 (Lans)
The actress, I
1
I am in New York at a gigantic coffee shop.
2
In Paris, a café terrace, enormous. There are lots of people, especially Algerians, with a vaguely menacing air.
3
I forget my satchel on the terrace; there are 2,500 francs in it. I go back to get it; obviously, nothing. I am genuinely devastated. My only hope is that I am dreaming (I wake up, relieved).
4
I’m visiting a female friend (nothing between us, just friends). The actress M.D. arrives. She is a tall woman, pretty and cheerful, with long blond hair; she is naked under a light dress.
I begin touching her, caressing her “absent-mindedly.”
I wind up on top of her, fondling her bare breasts.
I
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