And I said it was kind of her. And told her I was happy.
She smiled.
“The pleasure was all mine, Germain, I assure you. Books should not be loved selfishly. Neither books nor anything else, in fact. We are here on this earth merely to pass things on… To learn to share our toys, that is perhaps the most important lesson to remember in this life… In fact, I was intending to introduce you to a number of other books I love, from time to time. Unless of course you are tired of listening to me… Would you like that?”
There are people you can’t say no to. She was looking at me with her soft eyes, her gentle little wrinkly face, smiling at her own joke, as though she had just rung a doorbell andwas about to leg it. I thought to myself that she must have driven quite a few men crazy in her day, just by asking what she’d asked me: “Would you like that?”
I just nodded. I felt happy but dumb; with me, the two often go together.
I watched her walk off down the path. I stood frozen, holding my book. It was my first book. I mean, the first book anyone had ever given me.
Since I didn’t know what to do with it, I put it on top of the television when I got home. But that night, as I was about to turn off the TV and hit the sack, I looked at it. It was like it was waiting for me.
I heard that voice in my head again.
It was saying: Oh for God’s sake, Germain, at least make an effort! It’s only a book.
I picked it up, opened it, flicked past the first pages and looked for an underlined passage, and I found the sentence: On the morning of 16th April, Doctor Bernard Rieux came out of his consulting room and stumbled on a dead rat in the middle of the landing. And when I found it, it was easy enough to read, because I knew it already. To make it stand out better, I went over it with the highlighter pen I use for labelling the vegetables I sell down the market.
Then, I looked for: Come in, I’ve hanged myself. It took a while, but it was like a game. A treasure hunt. So I highlighted all the passages I really liked. Even today, The Plague is a book where I only read bits of pages. With other books—notcounting the dictionary, which I don’t read from cover to cover either—even if it’s hard, even if I find it difficult, I keep going. Or at least I try.
But this one book… how can I explain it? I’ll never read it all.
Because the version— see also: interpretation —that I like best is Margueritte’s.
O NE DAY , not long after I was given The Plague as a present, I was at Chez Francine with Marco and Landremont. We were playing cards and watching the news. At some point, there was a report on some country, I don’t really remember which one. Anyway, someplace where life pretty much sucked, what with wars and suchlike. This time, there had been an earthquake, a proper natural disaster with loads of people dead—according to early estimates by the foreign correspondent.
Landremont said:
“Jesus! Some people really have it rough, don’t they? Those poor bastards have enough to deal with already. If it’s not bombs raining from the sky, it’s their roof caving in!”
Marco joined in:
“All they need now is a dose of cholera…”
“Or the plague, like in Oran in the book by Camus!” I said.
Landremont gave me a funny look. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, he turned to Marco and Julien, then back to me. And then he said, straight out:
“You’re telling me you’ve read Camus?”
“Well… The Plague , that’s all…”
“Really?… You’ve read The Plague , and ‘that’s all’? When did you start reading books?”
It got on my tits, the way he talked to me. I chugged my beer and, as I got up to leave, I said:
“I suppose you read a lot, do you?”
When I got outside, I thought, Next time you pull a stunt like that, you prick, I’ll give you a slap.
Just to sort out his ideas, as my mother would say. And, seeing as how I was thinking about her, it occurred
She smiled.
“The pleasure was all mine, Germain, I assure you. Books should not be loved selfishly. Neither books nor anything else, in fact. We are here on this earth merely to pass things on… To learn to share our toys, that is perhaps the most important lesson to remember in this life… In fact, I was intending to introduce you to a number of other books I love, from time to time. Unless of course you are tired of listening to me… Would you like that?”
There are people you can’t say no to. She was looking at me with her soft eyes, her gentle little wrinkly face, smiling at her own joke, as though she had just rung a doorbell andwas about to leg it. I thought to myself that she must have driven quite a few men crazy in her day, just by asking what she’d asked me: “Would you like that?”
I just nodded. I felt happy but dumb; with me, the two often go together.
I watched her walk off down the path. I stood frozen, holding my book. It was my first book. I mean, the first book anyone had ever given me.
Since I didn’t know what to do with it, I put it on top of the television when I got home. But that night, as I was about to turn off the TV and hit the sack, I looked at it. It was like it was waiting for me.
I heard that voice in my head again.
It was saying: Oh for God’s sake, Germain, at least make an effort! It’s only a book.
I picked it up, opened it, flicked past the first pages and looked for an underlined passage, and I found the sentence: On the morning of 16th April, Doctor Bernard Rieux came out of his consulting room and stumbled on a dead rat in the middle of the landing. And when I found it, it was easy enough to read, because I knew it already. To make it stand out better, I went over it with the highlighter pen I use for labelling the vegetables I sell down the market.
Then, I looked for: Come in, I’ve hanged myself. It took a while, but it was like a game. A treasure hunt. So I highlighted all the passages I really liked. Even today, The Plague is a book where I only read bits of pages. With other books—notcounting the dictionary, which I don’t read from cover to cover either—even if it’s hard, even if I find it difficult, I keep going. Or at least I try.
But this one book… how can I explain it? I’ll never read it all.
Because the version— see also: interpretation —that I like best is Margueritte’s.
O NE DAY , not long after I was given The Plague as a present, I was at Chez Francine with Marco and Landremont. We were playing cards and watching the news. At some point, there was a report on some country, I don’t really remember which one. Anyway, someplace where life pretty much sucked, what with wars and suchlike. This time, there had been an earthquake, a proper natural disaster with loads of people dead—according to early estimates by the foreign correspondent.
Landremont said:
“Jesus! Some people really have it rough, don’t they? Those poor bastards have enough to deal with already. If it’s not bombs raining from the sky, it’s their roof caving in!”
Marco joined in:
“All they need now is a dose of cholera…”
“Or the plague, like in Oran in the book by Camus!” I said.
Landremont gave me a funny look. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, he turned to Marco and Julien, then back to me. And then he said, straight out:
“You’re telling me you’ve read Camus?”
“Well… The Plague , that’s all…”
“Really?… You’ve read The Plague , and ‘that’s all’? When did you start reading books?”
It got on my tits, the way he talked to me. I chugged my beer and, as I got up to leave, I said:
“I suppose you read a lot, do you?”
When I got outside, I thought, Next time you pull a stunt like that, you prick, I’ll give you a slap.
Just to sort out his ideas, as my mother would say. And, seeing as how I was thinking about her, it occurred
Similar Books
