by boys, no matter how beautiful. I was tolerant of the men who loved them, I associated with the first couples to declare themselves openly, in their lofts so attractively decorated where the most beautiful cats in the city lay about, majestic. Sex was first of all freedom and I saw nothing more wrong with their transgression than with my own, with Suzanne who was married and a liar, out of love and necessity. We were all brothers in a quest for pleasure, which is first of all hot and young. How was it that the pleasure I had taken the night before, so violent and so sweet that it still rose within me, was to me clearly a sin? I experienced the shame of children who touch themselves for the first time, who will start again.
And I did not know, Iâll never know, if Iâd had sex with that man because he was Bruno Farinacci-Lepore, undisputed master of the new criticism, who had singled me out. I, the Quebecker with his pallid words, who barely dared to speak and was only a little more ready to write for a magazine of which not a single copy could be found in Paris. The master didnât know me, I certainly had not shone, heâd only wanted ass and Iâd exchanged it for a crumb of his glory. I was a pitiful little prick of a parvenu.
And that was it, degradation of the worst kind. For if I was able to explain to myself why my desire had drifted in a glowing Provençal night, deep down I despised the image of the disciple who starts out as a sweetheart. I had not paid court to anyone to arrive where I am now, I knew how to sniff the wind, but I myself had never dreamed of blustering, I thought I was someone who wrote about art, who would chip away from across the Atlantic and from almost-America at certain veins rich enough to spill over as far as Montreal. I did not aspire to overshoot my own orbit, I didnât believe in that. And here I discovered, skulking in my head this time, an appetite. If Bruno Farinacci-Lepore hadnât completely forgotten me already, at this hour when he was probably having something to eat somewhere on the Riviera, if I could find a way to remind him of me over the next two months, if I followed precisely the itinerary heâd provided me, I would perhaps hold the key to the centre of my universe. Who would know that Iâd got there via sex or, rather, who would be offended by it? I was not calculating so precisely, my thoughts were far too murky, but Iâm quite certain Iâd detected a glimmer. A little file card left lying around that you imagine you could use to light up the darkness. I was experiencing the shame of an adult who is adapting himself to small betrayals, who will repeat them.
Late that afternoon I copied his address into my address book and boarded a bus to Monaco, where I dined on the terrace of a bistro for tourists, looking them over from head to toe. They were more conÂtemptible than I because theyâd been more duped. I drank a lot of wine, which reconciled me with the day before. I tried to return at midnight, the last bus had gone, I spent the night in Monte Carlo, on a park bench in the harbour where the lights never go out. There were few revellers and plenty of little couples with their silly little caresses. I dozed till very early the next morning when the iron gate of the public urinal, ruled over all day by an old lady, slammed open. It was cool inside her lair, I splashed icy water on my face, in the chipped mirror I looked like a thug. I went back to Nice, I shaved, I bought the groceries of a thesis-writing bachelor, and I changed the sheets. Then I wrote to my Susannah at Her Bath, I talked to her about Cézanne and Matisse and the alleys in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and the tourists in Monaco, I told her that the apartment wasnât sunny enough for her and that I would make love to her in the light of the arena which I had yet to see, and that the pebbles on the beach were too hard for her curves in which I buried myself
And I did not know, Iâll never know, if Iâd had sex with that man because he was Bruno Farinacci-Lepore, undisputed master of the new criticism, who had singled me out. I, the Quebecker with his pallid words, who barely dared to speak and was only a little more ready to write for a magazine of which not a single copy could be found in Paris. The master didnât know me, I certainly had not shone, heâd only wanted ass and Iâd exchanged it for a crumb of his glory. I was a pitiful little prick of a parvenu.
And that was it, degradation of the worst kind. For if I was able to explain to myself why my desire had drifted in a glowing Provençal night, deep down I despised the image of the disciple who starts out as a sweetheart. I had not paid court to anyone to arrive where I am now, I knew how to sniff the wind, but I myself had never dreamed of blustering, I thought I was someone who wrote about art, who would chip away from across the Atlantic and from almost-America at certain veins rich enough to spill over as far as Montreal. I did not aspire to overshoot my own orbit, I didnât believe in that. And here I discovered, skulking in my head this time, an appetite. If Bruno Farinacci-Lepore hadnât completely forgotten me already, at this hour when he was probably having something to eat somewhere on the Riviera, if I could find a way to remind him of me over the next two months, if I followed precisely the itinerary heâd provided me, I would perhaps hold the key to the centre of my universe. Who would know that Iâd got there via sex or, rather, who would be offended by it? I was not calculating so precisely, my thoughts were far too murky, but Iâm quite certain Iâd detected a glimmer. A little file card left lying around that you imagine you could use to light up the darkness. I was experiencing the shame of an adult who is adapting himself to small betrayals, who will repeat them.
Late that afternoon I copied his address into my address book and boarded a bus to Monaco, where I dined on the terrace of a bistro for tourists, looking them over from head to toe. They were more conÂtemptible than I because theyâd been more duped. I drank a lot of wine, which reconciled me with the day before. I tried to return at midnight, the last bus had gone, I spent the night in Monte Carlo, on a park bench in the harbour where the lights never go out. There were few revellers and plenty of little couples with their silly little caresses. I dozed till very early the next morning when the iron gate of the public urinal, ruled over all day by an old lady, slammed open. It was cool inside her lair, I splashed icy water on my face, in the chipped mirror I looked like a thug. I went back to Nice, I shaved, I bought the groceries of a thesis-writing bachelor, and I changed the sheets. Then I wrote to my Susannah at Her Bath, I talked to her about Cézanne and Matisse and the alleys in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and the tourists in Monaco, I told her that the apartment wasnât sunny enough for her and that I would make love to her in the light of the arena which I had yet to see, and that the pebbles on the beach were too hard for her curves in which I buried myself
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