This dark body which grows lighter little by little makes an extraordinary impression on me: when it becomes entirely clear, entirely white, I shall stop just beside it and the adventure will begin.
It must be such an upheaval. If I were ever to go on a trip, I think I should make written notes of the slightest traits of my character before leaving, so that when I returned I would be able to compare what I was and what I had become. I’ve read that there are travelers who have changed physically and morally to such an extent that even their closest relatives did not recognize them when they came back...To speak frankly, I would also like something unexpected to happen to me, something new, adventures. 35
I have never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn’t a question of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something to which I clung more than all the rest—without completely realizing it. It wasn’t love…It was…I had imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little precision…And naturally, everything they tell about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It is to this way of happening that I clung so tightly. The beginning would have had to be real beginnings. Alas! Now I see so clearly what I wanted…Suddenly you see that it is the beginning of a great shape whose outlines are lost in mist and you tell yourself, “Something is beginning.” Something is beginning in order to end: adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead. I am drawn, irrevocably, towards this death which is perhaps mine as well. Each instant appears only as part of a sequence. I cling to each instant with all my heart: I know that it is unique, irreplaceable—and yet I would not raise a finger to stop it from being annihilated…All is going to end, I know it. Soon I shall leave for another country. I shall never rediscover this woman or this night. I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn of early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass.
I have reconsidered my thoughts of yesterday. I was completely dry: it made no difference to me whether there had been no adventures. I was only curious to know whether there could never be any. This is what I thought: for the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell. I led a funny sort of life. But I was in the middle of it, I didn’t think about it. 37-39
I have never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn’t a question of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something to which I clung more than all the rest—without completely realizing it. It wasn’t love…It was…I had imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little precision…And naturally, everything they tell about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It is to this way of happening that I clung so tightly. The beginning would have had to be real beginnings. Alas! Now I see so clearly what I wanted…Suddenly you see that it is the beginning of a great shape whose outlines are lost in mist and you tell yourself, “Something is beginning.” Something is beginning in order to end: adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead. I am drawn, irrevocably, towards this death which is perhaps mine as well. Each instant appears only as part of a sequence. I cling to each instant with all my heart: I know that it is unique, irreplaceable—and yet I would not raise a finger to stop it from being annihilated…All is going to end, I know it. Soon I shall leave for another country. I shall never rediscover this woman or this night. I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn of early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass.
I have reconsidered my thoughts of yesterday. I was completely dry: it made no difference to me whether there had been no adventures. I was only curious to know whether there could never be any. This is what I thought: for the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell. I led a funny sort of life. But I was in the middle of it, I didn’t think about it. 37-39
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