the suburbs of Liège with my mother – I’ve already written about that – and sometimes she would leave us there alone in a boarding house, my brother and me. Not at a hotel. With a good woman who kept a tavern and where we were the only boarders.
Never, either with my mother or father, or with one of the two, did I sleep in a hotel, or take a meal in a real restaurant. If we took a trip we took along our ‘snack’.
The first year that I spent as secretary to the Marquis de Tracy, I accompanied him to Aix-Les-Bains in August. But I worked from morning to night. That wasn’t a vacation.
The following summer at Bénouville, near Etretat, where I lived three or four months on a farm, I was writing several stories a day.
Afterwards, at Porquerolles, I typed my forty pages of popular novel each morning.
I examine my memory in vain for traditional holidays.
On board the
Ginette
, then the
Ostrogoth
, I never stopped in the crowded places and I worked almost every day.
I spent one winter in a villa in Antibes. But I was working with Jean Tarride on the scenario of
Chien Jaune
, then with Jean Renoir on that of
Nuit du Carrefour
while writing several Maigrets, among them
L’Ombre Chinoise.
Again at Porquerolles, later, sometimes in summer, often in winter, and more novels.
At Les Sables-d’Olonne, at the end of the war, I was in bed. Still not a vacation.
At Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson in Canada in 1955 we went skiing, D. and I. But I was writing
Three Rooms in Manhatten
,
Maigret à New York
, etc.
Same thing six months later on a beach in New Brunswick, where we never spent so much as an hour on the sand.
Still the same in Florida, where I was writing
Lettre à mon Juge
among other things, then in Arizona, in California.
Finally in Cannes, we still weren’t vacationing.
It had to wait until we were living in Switzerland and the children wanted a change.
And here we are, like the caricatures, following the schedule decreed by … By nobody, probably. We follow the crowd. And, in Venice, among thousands of tourists, we buy stacks of useless things that we’ll throw away when we get back.
This creates a mild degradation. One loses all personality, all individuality.
I was forgetting that two years ago we spent a month on the canals and lakes of Holland, also with the children. But it was aboard a boat we rented and we followed no rule.
The preceding year, I believe, we spent two weeks at Villars-sur-Ollon. That was a holiday hotel. I only remember it because it rained without a let-up and because we spent the whole time playing bridge.
Actually this is my first vacation, and I scarcely glance at the newspaper for which I have such a passion and the daily reading of which seems to me as necessary as my coffee.
This won’t last more than ten days in all. But if it lasted a month? A year? Or more, as for the prisoners of war in the camps, or the regular prisoners in prison?
What would be left of me? What desires? What reactions?
Would I revolt after a certain length of time?
I wonder. It frightens me a bit. It seems to prove that by carefully organizing men’s use of time, what happens is that …
And I certainly have the same look of happy stupidity as the two or three hundred other people who are staying in this hotel.
In the end would we begin to look alike?
I wanted to write about something entirely different, about the sincerity or rather what I consider the impossibility of a total lack of sincerity even in those who pass for cynical. I’ve already talked about that here. But it
plagues me. Perhaps I’ll come back to it. I think of the Congolese, of the Russians, of the Americans, statesmen or journalists. Is it possible that they act out of a complete, an absolute, I was about to write, out of
pure
bad faith? I can’t believe it. But then, to what extent our interest or our passions can falsify our judgement!
To be compared, when I come back to it, with a simple argument between
Never, either with my mother or father, or with one of the two, did I sleep in a hotel, or take a meal in a real restaurant. If we took a trip we took along our ‘snack’.
The first year that I spent as secretary to the Marquis de Tracy, I accompanied him to Aix-Les-Bains in August. But I worked from morning to night. That wasn’t a vacation.
The following summer at Bénouville, near Etretat, where I lived three or four months on a farm, I was writing several stories a day.
Afterwards, at Porquerolles, I typed my forty pages of popular novel each morning.
I examine my memory in vain for traditional holidays.
On board the
Ginette
, then the
Ostrogoth
, I never stopped in the crowded places and I worked almost every day.
I spent one winter in a villa in Antibes. But I was working with Jean Tarride on the scenario of
Chien Jaune
, then with Jean Renoir on that of
Nuit du Carrefour
while writing several Maigrets, among them
L’Ombre Chinoise.
Again at Porquerolles, later, sometimes in summer, often in winter, and more novels.
At Les Sables-d’Olonne, at the end of the war, I was in bed. Still not a vacation.
At Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson in Canada in 1955 we went skiing, D. and I. But I was writing
Three Rooms in Manhatten
,
Maigret à New York
, etc.
Same thing six months later on a beach in New Brunswick, where we never spent so much as an hour on the sand.
Still the same in Florida, where I was writing
Lettre à mon Juge
among other things, then in Arizona, in California.
Finally in Cannes, we still weren’t vacationing.
It had to wait until we were living in Switzerland and the children wanted a change.
And here we are, like the caricatures, following the schedule decreed by … By nobody, probably. We follow the crowd. And, in Venice, among thousands of tourists, we buy stacks of useless things that we’ll throw away when we get back.
This creates a mild degradation. One loses all personality, all individuality.
I was forgetting that two years ago we spent a month on the canals and lakes of Holland, also with the children. But it was aboard a boat we rented and we followed no rule.
The preceding year, I believe, we spent two weeks at Villars-sur-Ollon. That was a holiday hotel. I only remember it because it rained without a let-up and because we spent the whole time playing bridge.
Actually this is my first vacation, and I scarcely glance at the newspaper for which I have such a passion and the daily reading of which seems to me as necessary as my coffee.
This won’t last more than ten days in all. But if it lasted a month? A year? Or more, as for the prisoners of war in the camps, or the regular prisoners in prison?
What would be left of me? What desires? What reactions?
Would I revolt after a certain length of time?
I wonder. It frightens me a bit. It seems to prove that by carefully organizing men’s use of time, what happens is that …
And I certainly have the same look of happy stupidity as the two or three hundred other people who are staying in this hotel.
In the end would we begin to look alike?
I wanted to write about something entirely different, about the sincerity or rather what I consider the impossibility of a total lack of sincerity even in those who pass for cynical. I’ve already talked about that here. But it
plagues me. Perhaps I’ll come back to it. I think of the Congolese, of the Russians, of the Americans, statesmen or journalists. Is it possible that they act out of a complete, an absolute, I was about to write, out of
pure
bad faith? I can’t believe it. But then, to what extent our interest or our passions can falsify our judgement!
To be compared, when I come back to it, with a simple argument between
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