Read Online Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jean-Paul Sartre
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"Excuse me, Monsieur, I didn't mean to disturb you. I saw your lips moving. You were undoubtedly repeating passages from your book." He laughs. "You were hunting Alexandrines."
I look at the Self-Taught Man with stupor. But he seems surprised at my surprise:
"Should we not, Monsieur, carefully avoid Alexandrines in prose?"
I have been slightly lowered in his estimation. I ask him what he's doing here at this hour. He explains that his boss has given him the day off and he came straight to the library; that he is not going to eat lunch, that he is going to read till closing time. I am not listening to him any more, but he must have strayed from his original subject because I suddenly hear:
". . . to have, as you, the good fortune of writing a book." I have to say something. "Good fortune," I say, dubiously.
He mistakes the sense of my answer and rapidly corrects himself:
"Monsieur, I should have said: 'merit.'" We go up the steps. I don't feel like working. Someone has left Eugenie Grandet on the table, the book is open at page 27. I pick it up, mechanically, and begin to read page 27, then page 28: I haven't the courage to begin at the beginning. The Self-Taught Man has gone quickly to the shelves along the wall; he brings back two books which he places on the table, looking like a dog who has found a bone. "What are you reading?"
He seems reluctant to tell me: he hesitates, rolls his great, roving eyes, then stiffly holds out the books. Peat-Mosses and Where to Find Them by Larbaletrier, and HiUrpadesa, or, Useful Instruction by Lastex. So? I don't know what's bothering him: the books are definitely decent. Out of conscience I thumb through Hitofadesa and see nothing but the highest types of sentiment.
3.00 V.m.
I have given up Eugenie Grandet and begun work without any heart in it. The Self-Taught Man, seeing that I am writing,
29observes me with respectful lust. From time to time I raise my head a little and see the immense, stiff collar and the chicken-like neck coming out of it. His clothes are shabby but his shirt is dazzling white. He has just taken another book from the same shelf, I can make out the title upside-down: The Arrow of Caudebec, A Norman Chronicle by Mile Julie Lavergne. The Self-Taught Man's choice of reading always disconcerts me.
Suddenly the names of the authors he last read come back to my mind: Lambert, Langlois, Larbaletrier, Lastex, Lavergne. It is a revelation; I have understood the Self-Taught Man's method; he teaches himself alphabetically.
I study him with a sort of admiration. What will-power he must have to carry through, slowly, obstinately, a plan on such a vast scale. One day, seven years ago (he told me he had been a student for seven years) he came pompously into this reading-room. He scanned the innumerable books which lined the walls and he must have said, something like Rastignac, "Science! It is up to us." Then he went and took the first book from the first shelf on the far right; he opened to the first page, with a feeling of respect and fear mixed with an unshakable decision. Today he has reached "L"-"K" after "J," "L" after "K." He has passed brutally from the study of coleopterae to the quantum theory, from a work on Tamerlaine to a Catholic pamphlet against Darwinism, he has never been disconcerted for an instant. He has read everything; he has stored up in his head most of what anyone knows about parthenogenesis, and half the arguments against vivisection. There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left: he will say to himself, "Now what?"
This is his lunch time; innocently he eats a slice of bread and a bar of Gala Peter. His eyes are lowered and I can study at leisure his fine, curved lashes, like a woman's. When he breathes he gives off an aroma of old tobacco mixed with the sweet scent of chocolate.
Friday, 3.00 -p.m.
A little more and I would have fallen into the lure
"Excuse me, Monsieur, I didn't mean to disturb you. I saw your lips moving. You were undoubtedly repeating passages from your book." He laughs. "You were hunting Alexandrines."
I look at the Self-Taught Man with stupor. But he seems surprised at my surprise:
"Should we not, Monsieur, carefully avoid Alexandrines in prose?"
I have been slightly lowered in his estimation. I ask him what he's doing here at this hour. He explains that his boss has given him the day off and he came straight to the library; that he is not going to eat lunch, that he is going to read till closing time. I am not listening to him any more, but he must have strayed from his original subject because I suddenly hear:
". . . to have, as you, the good fortune of writing a book." I have to say something. "Good fortune," I say, dubiously.
He mistakes the sense of my answer and rapidly corrects himself:
"Monsieur, I should have said: 'merit.'" We go up the steps. I don't feel like working. Someone has left Eugenie Grandet on the table, the book is open at page 27. I pick it up, mechanically, and begin to read page 27, then page 28: I haven't the courage to begin at the beginning. The Self-Taught Man has gone quickly to the shelves along the wall; he brings back two books which he places on the table, looking like a dog who has found a bone. "What are you reading?"
He seems reluctant to tell me: he hesitates, rolls his great, roving eyes, then stiffly holds out the books. Peat-Mosses and Where to Find Them by Larbaletrier, and HiUrpadesa, or, Useful Instruction by Lastex. So? I don't know what's bothering him: the books are definitely decent. Out of conscience I thumb through Hitofadesa and see nothing but the highest types of sentiment.
3.00 V.m.
I have given up Eugenie Grandet and begun work without any heart in it. The Self-Taught Man, seeing that I am writing,
29observes me with respectful lust. From time to time I raise my head a little and see the immense, stiff collar and the chicken-like neck coming out of it. His clothes are shabby but his shirt is dazzling white. He has just taken another book from the same shelf, I can make out the title upside-down: The Arrow of Caudebec, A Norman Chronicle by Mile Julie Lavergne. The Self-Taught Man's choice of reading always disconcerts me.
Suddenly the names of the authors he last read come back to my mind: Lambert, Langlois, Larbaletrier, Lastex, Lavergne. It is a revelation; I have understood the Self-Taught Man's method; he teaches himself alphabetically.
I study him with a sort of admiration. What will-power he must have to carry through, slowly, obstinately, a plan on such a vast scale. One day, seven years ago (he told me he had been a student for seven years) he came pompously into this reading-room. He scanned the innumerable books which lined the walls and he must have said, something like Rastignac, "Science! It is up to us." Then he went and took the first book from the first shelf on the far right; he opened to the first page, with a feeling of respect and fear mixed with an unshakable decision. Today he has reached "L"-"K" after "J," "L" after "K." He has passed brutally from the study of coleopterae to the quantum theory, from a work on Tamerlaine to a Catholic pamphlet against Darwinism, he has never been disconcerted for an instant. He has read everything; he has stored up in his head most of what anyone knows about parthenogenesis, and half the arguments against vivisection. There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left: he will say to himself, "Now what?"
This is his lunch time; innocently he eats a slice of bread and a bar of Gala Peter. His eyes are lowered and I can study at leisure his fine, curved lashes, like a woman's. When he breathes he gives off an aroma of old tobacco mixed with the sweet scent of chocolate.
Friday, 3.00 -p.m.
A little more and I would have fallen into the lure
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