3
A OHAPTER
FROM A BOOK “MY BODY
AND ME”
T HEY EAT early and fast in the little mountain inns.
I was alone at the table.
Here I am alone in my room?
Alone.
I craved this adventure so long and so much that I
often doubted it could ever be. So to-night, my wish at last
fulfilled, I am alone with myself. No bridge is linking me to
others. I have, as the only memories from the best and most
beloved, a flower a picture.
The flower—a rose fast fading in the toothbrush glass.
Yesterday at the same hour, it was flourishing on my coat.
The button-hole was high enough for the rose to caress my face
if I stooped in the least. But each time I was surprised at the
flowery softness. My skin by late afternoon was reminiscent of
carnations. A whole winter, a whole spring had I not persisted
in confusing—happiness with ragged-edge petals, on the noc
turnal wisdom of a silk congealed into revers?
A whole winter, a whole spring. Yesterday.
In a railroad station, with closed eyes, the flower in a button
hole condemns one still to believe in rugs, in bare shoulders, in
pearls.
Then I dare not hope that solitude is possible.
Though solitude was all I desired in that theatre where for
months, the red of the velvet on the seats, had become to me the
very colour of boredom. Then I went again, in search of it,
through the streets, at the end of day when the houses were illu
minating, for new temptations, their shirts of stone, a garment
as complicated as the unreal.
I entered places where they dance, drink—I entered, satu
rated with alcohol, with jazz, with all that drugs one, and
drugged myself indifferently with what I heard, danced, drank,
but happy to hear, dance and drink, so I could forget that which
had limited but not helped me.
Yes, I remember. Two o’clock in the morning. The bar is
a tiny one. It is quite hot. The door opens. Long live the cool.
Someone says “Hello” to me. A hand pats my shoulder. I am
happy. Not for the voice, not for the hand, but the air that has