In this solitude, in this dismal waiting without purpose, as she staggered in bitterness through the dark, dirty rooms within, did she manage to cry? Is it possible to imagine this woman sobbing? Did she sometimes surrender to the disaster of her face in tears?īesides that, she exhibited fragments of her body during what were called ‘living statue’ sessions, an arm, an ankle, a thigh, a breast. There, you have to know, you have to know that I loved a woman before you, I couldn’t wed her because she is married, but I will never forget her, never, you understand. He takes her hand and plays with it in a rough, awkward way. He is leaning toward her but he doesn’t look at her. You can die a hundred deaths from not being loved. They have to show themselves in the radiance of all of their qualities. At a distance, the peaceable murmur made by a horde of very polite guests. The two of them, shut up in a bedroom for the first time. The guests throng the ground-floor sitting rooms. The day of their engagement, he gave her a ring. But like any great actress, she is pretending to be pretending. Theatrical killing? Yes, no one would doubt it, she is definitely on a stage, pretending to ensure that everything has the semblance of truth. It is not her body that she wants to conceal, certainly not, but rather the faux backdrop, overfilled with a tin-plate pedestal table whose foot might invade the image.
As if the fullness of her garments weren’t enough, she grasps the faille silk curtain, pulling it toward her in a strangely chaste gesture. But its tip agitates the exact center of the image, piercing its focal point. The knife, whose handle disappears into her balled fist, vibrates at the very center, nearly absent from it, so white is its blade that it disappears in the luminous satins of her dress. Her face is cold, her mouth thin, lips tight, eyebrows knit, her gaze is clear and hard, her hair is slicked into two little severely parted plaits. One hand clutches a knife against her waist, which gleams obliquely across her belly. She bursts onto the right of the image as if it were a backdrop masked with curtains. The following select passages are excerpted from Exposition by Nathalie Léger, translated from the French by Amanda DeMarco, published by Les Fugitives in 2019 and P.O.L.
0 kommentar(er)
