Read Online Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jean-Paul Sartre
Ads: Link
of the mirror. I avoid it only to fall into that of the window: indolent, arms dangling, I go to the window. The Building Yard, the Fence, the Old Stationùthe Old Station, the Fence, the Building Yard. I give such a big yawn that tears come into my eyes. I hold my pipe in my right hand and my tobacco in my left. I 30
should fill this pipe. But I don't have the heart to do it. My arms hang loosely, I lean my forehead against the windowpane. That old woman annoys me. She trots along obstinately, with unseeing eyes. Sometimes she stops, frightened, as if an invisible fear had brushed against her. There she is under my window, the wind blows her skirts against her knees. She stops, straightens her kerchief. Her hands tremble. She is off again: now I can see her from the back. Old wood louse! I suppose she's going to turn right, into the Boulevard Victor-Noir. That gives her a hundred yards to go: it will take her ten minutes at the rate she's going, ten minutes during which time I shall stay like this, watching her, my forehead glued against the window. She is going to stop twenty times, start again, stop again . . .
I see the future. It is there, poised over the street, hardly more dim than the present. What advantage will accrue from its realisation:1 The old woman stumps further and further away, she stops, pulls at a grey lock of hair which escapes from her kerchief. She walks, she was there, now she is here ... I don't know where I am any more: do I see her motions, or do I foresee them? I can no longer distinguish present from future and yet it lasts, it happens little by little; the old woman advances in the deserted street, shuffling her heavy, mannish brogues. This is time, time laid bare, coming slowly into existence, keeping us waiting, and when it does come making us sick because we realise it's been there for a long time. The old woman reaches the corner of the street, no more than a bundle of black clothes. All right then, it's new, she wasn't there a little while ago. But it's a tarnished deflowered newness, which can never surprise. She is going to turn the corner, she turnsùduring an eternity.
I tear myself from the window and stumble across the room; I glue myself against the looking glass. I stare at myself, I disgust myself: one more eternity. Finally I flee from my image and fall on the bed. I watch the ceiling, I'd like to sleep.
Calm. Calm. In can no longer feel the slipping, the rustling of time. I see pictures on the ceiling. First rings of light, then crosses. They flutter. And now another picture is forming, at the bottom of my eyes this time. It is a great, kneeling animal. I see its front paws and pack saddle. The rest is in fog. But I recognize it: it is a camel I saw at Marrakesh, tethered to a stone. He knelt and stood up six times running; the urchins laughed and shouted at him.
It was wonderful two years ago: all I had to do was close to
31my eyes and my head would start buzzing like a bee-hive: I could conjure faces, trees, houses, a Japanese girl in Kamaishiki washing herself naked in a wooden tub, a dead Russian, emptied of blood by a great, gaping wound, all his blood in a pool beside him. I could recapture the taste of kouskouss, the smell of olive oil which fills the streets of Burgos at noon, the scent of fennel floating through the Tetuan streets, the piping of Greek shepherds; I was touched. This joy was used up a long time ago. Will it be reborn today?
A torrid sun moves stiffly in my head like a magic lantern slide. A fragment of blue sky follows; after a few jolts it becomes motionless. I am all golden within. From what Moroccan (or Algerian or Syrian) day did this flash suddenly detach itself? I let myself Row into the past.
Meknes. What was that man from the hills likeùthe one who frightened us in the narrow street between the Berdaine mosque and that charming square shaded by a mulberry tree? He came towards us, Anny was on my right. Or on my left?
This sun and blue sky
should fill this pipe. But I don't have the heart to do it. My arms hang loosely, I lean my forehead against the windowpane. That old woman annoys me. She trots along obstinately, with unseeing eyes. Sometimes she stops, frightened, as if an invisible fear had brushed against her. There she is under my window, the wind blows her skirts against her knees. She stops, straightens her kerchief. Her hands tremble. She is off again: now I can see her from the back. Old wood louse! I suppose she's going to turn right, into the Boulevard Victor-Noir. That gives her a hundred yards to go: it will take her ten minutes at the rate she's going, ten minutes during which time I shall stay like this, watching her, my forehead glued against the window. She is going to stop twenty times, start again, stop again . . .
I see the future. It is there, poised over the street, hardly more dim than the present. What advantage will accrue from its realisation:1 The old woman stumps further and further away, she stops, pulls at a grey lock of hair which escapes from her kerchief. She walks, she was there, now she is here ... I don't know where I am any more: do I see her motions, or do I foresee them? I can no longer distinguish present from future and yet it lasts, it happens little by little; the old woman advances in the deserted street, shuffling her heavy, mannish brogues. This is time, time laid bare, coming slowly into existence, keeping us waiting, and when it does come making us sick because we realise it's been there for a long time. The old woman reaches the corner of the street, no more than a bundle of black clothes. All right then, it's new, she wasn't there a little while ago. But it's a tarnished deflowered newness, which can never surprise. She is going to turn the corner, she turnsùduring an eternity.
I tear myself from the window and stumble across the room; I glue myself against the looking glass. I stare at myself, I disgust myself: one more eternity. Finally I flee from my image and fall on the bed. I watch the ceiling, I'd like to sleep.
Calm. Calm. In can no longer feel the slipping, the rustling of time. I see pictures on the ceiling. First rings of light, then crosses. They flutter. And now another picture is forming, at the bottom of my eyes this time. It is a great, kneeling animal. I see its front paws and pack saddle. The rest is in fog. But I recognize it: it is a camel I saw at Marrakesh, tethered to a stone. He knelt and stood up six times running; the urchins laughed and shouted at him.
It was wonderful two years ago: all I had to do was close to
31my eyes and my head would start buzzing like a bee-hive: I could conjure faces, trees, houses, a Japanese girl in Kamaishiki washing herself naked in a wooden tub, a dead Russian, emptied of blood by a great, gaping wound, all his blood in a pool beside him. I could recapture the taste of kouskouss, the smell of olive oil which fills the streets of Burgos at noon, the scent of fennel floating through the Tetuan streets, the piping of Greek shepherds; I was touched. This joy was used up a long time ago. Will it be reborn today?
A torrid sun moves stiffly in my head like a magic lantern slide. A fragment of blue sky follows; after a few jolts it becomes motionless. I am all golden within. From what Moroccan (or Algerian or Syrian) day did this flash suddenly detach itself? I let myself Row into the past.
Meknes. What was that man from the hills likeùthe one who frightened us in the narrow street between the Berdaine mosque and that charming square shaded by a mulberry tree? He came towards us, Anny was on my right. Or on my left?
This sun and blue sky
Similar Books
