Something Random and Antithetical.
It is half past one. I am at the Café Mably, eating a sandwich, and everything is more or less normal. In any case, everything is always normal in caféd and especially Café Mably, because the manager, Monsieur Fasquelle, who has a vulgar expression in his eyes which is very straightforward and reassuring. It will soon be time for his afternoon nap and his eyes are already pink, but his manner is still lively and decisive. He is walking around among the tables and speaking confidently to the customers:
'Is everything all right, Monsieur?'
I smile at seeing him so lively when his establishment empties, his head empties too. Between two and four the café is deserted, and then Monsieur Fasquelle takes a few dazed steps, the waiters turn out the lights and he slips into unconsiousness: when this man is alone, he falls asleep.
There are still about a score of customers left, bachelors, small time engineers and office workers. They lunch hurriedly in boarding houses whcih they call their 'messes', and, since they need a little luxury, they come here after their meal, to drink a cup of coffee and play poker dice; they make a little noise, but a vague noise whcih doesn't bother me. In order to exist, they too have to join with tohers.
I for my part live alone, entirely alone. i never speak to anybody, i recieve nothing, i give nothing. The Autodiadact doesn't count. Admittedly there is Françoise, the woman who runs the Rendez-vous des Cheminots. But i do speak to her? Sometimes, after a dinner, when seh brings me a beer, I ask her:
'Have you ot time this evening?'
She never says no and i follow her into one of the big bedrooms on the first floor, which she rents by the hour or by the day. I don't pay her: we make love on an au pair basis. She enjoys it (she has to have a man a day and has many more besides me) and i purge myself in this way of certain melancholy whose cause i know only too well. But we barely exchange a few words. What would be the use? Every man for himself; besides, as far as she's concerned, I remain first and foremost a customer in her café. Taking off her dress, she says to me:
'I say, have you ever heard of an apéritif called Bricot? because there are two customers who've asked for it this week. The girl didn't know it and she came to ask me. They were commercial travellers, and they must have drunk it in Paris. But i don't like to buy anything withou knowing it. If you don't mind, I'll keep my stockings on.'
In the past - even long after she had left me- I used o think about Army. Now, i don't think about anybody anymore; i don't even bother to look for words. It flows through me, more or less quickly, and i dont fix anything, i just let it go. Most of the time, because of their failure to fasten onto words, my thoughts remain misty and nebuous. They assume vague, amusing shapes and are then swallowed up: I promptly forget the,.
These young people amaze me; drinking coffee, they tell clear, plausible stories. If you ask them what they did yesterday, they don't get flustered; they tell you all about it in a few words. If i were in their place, i'd start stammering. It's true that for a long time nobody has bothered how i spend my time. when you live alone, you even forget what it is to tell a story: plausibility dissapears at the same time as friends. You let events flow by too: you suddenly see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of whch you can't make head or tail: you'd make a terrible witness.
'Is everything all right, Monsieur?'
I smile at seeing him so lively when his establishment empties, his head empties too. Between two and four the café is deserted, and then Monsieur Fasquelle takes a few dazed steps, the waiters turn out the lights and he slips into unconsiousness: when this man is alone, he falls asleep.
There are still about a score of customers left, bachelors, small time engineers and office workers. They lunch hurriedly in boarding houses whcih they call their 'messes', and, since they need a little luxury, they come here after their meal, to drink a cup of coffee and play poker dice; they make a little noise, but a vague noise whcih doesn't bother me. In order to exist, they too have to join with tohers.
I for my part live alone, entirely alone. i never speak to anybody, i recieve nothing, i give nothing. The Autodiadact doesn't count. Admittedly there is Françoise, the woman who runs the Rendez-vous des Cheminots. But i do speak to her? Sometimes, after a dinner, when seh brings me a beer, I ask her:
'Have you ot time this evening?'
She never says no and i follow her into one of the big bedrooms on the first floor, which she rents by the hour or by the day. I don't pay her: we make love on an au pair basis. She enjoys it (she has to have a man a day and has many more besides me) and i purge myself in this way of certain melancholy whose cause i know only too well. But we barely exchange a few words. What would be the use? Every man for himself; besides, as far as she's concerned, I remain first and foremost a customer in her café. Taking off her dress, she says to me:
'I say, have you ever heard of an apéritif called Bricot? because there are two customers who've asked for it this week. The girl didn't know it and she came to ask me. They were commercial travellers, and they must have drunk it in Paris. But i don't like to buy anything withou knowing it. If you don't mind, I'll keep my stockings on.'
In the past - even long after she had left me- I used o think about Army. Now, i don't think about anybody anymore; i don't even bother to look for words. It flows through me, more or less quickly, and i dont fix anything, i just let it go. Most of the time, because of their failure to fasten onto words, my thoughts remain misty and nebuous. They assume vague, amusing shapes and are then swallowed up: I promptly forget the,.
These young people amaze me; drinking coffee, they tell clear, plausible stories. If you ask them what they did yesterday, they don't get flustered; they tell you all about it in a few words. If i were in their place, i'd start stammering. It's true that for a long time nobody has bothered how i spend my time. when you live alone, you even forget what it is to tell a story: plausibility dissapears at the same time as friends. You let events flow by too: you suddenly see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of whch you can't make head or tail: you'd make a terrible witness.
Nausea, Jean-paul Sarte