from the journals of Danielle Collobert, 1960-1961

1960

January

     "She was sitting by the bridge   on the bridge a lot of people were watching
the barges unload   suddenly the rock she was sitting on started to roll  - 
it was a big granite slab   block   She yelled  -  everyone turned to look at
her  - The rock picked up momentum   nothing could stop it  -  the people
couldn't understand  -  Little by little she leaned her upper body forward  - 
until she was laid out on the slab – Simultaneously she felt a great
emptiness inside   a hole   a descent  -  No one moved from the bridge   
captivated by the movement..."

     I don't ever want to learn anything again  - 
     just people  - 
     I really only get close to them in bed  -  their nakedness  -  essential –
     to understand  -  grasp by means of gestures  -  looks  -  more than with words
 -  already so many men ...

February

     I've been walking for a long time – it's 9:30  -  it's cold   I rarely see
streets or people at this hour   in this neighborhood the houses are mute –
people pass quickly  -  closed   walking tightly – don't know how I got to
this neighborhood  -  slept at J.'s and walked all the way here – like it
follows logically  -  strange   
     looking at a long and empty day – nervous –
     there's that exhibit at the Musee d'art moderne   to kill time, not out of
love  - 
     that cold strange room last night  -  seeing myself again in all the bedrooms
 -  dislocated – blurred – bodiless inside those walls – maybe a little heat
remaining –
     sudden silence – cold – and all of a sudden solitude returns – bad –

     watching the kids in the square just now – retrieving childhood sensations
– earth and water – fuzzy sensations – a smell –
     scattered images –
     the dining room door ajar and my grandfather in bed – face to the wall –
     women sitting around the kitchen table speaking quietly – and weeping –
reds and pinks –
     the boy in blue – on a hook hung from the balcony of the house at one corner
of the square – and the Germans all over – the hook – the garden – the
entry – the doorway with masses of red fuschias – garden masses of apples –
     one evening in the "house in back" eating pink rat poison and shrieking –
terror –
     flowers – frost on the window – feet warming at the stove – scorched
socks – after school–
     the storms and wind in the pines at Compostal – the fire in the living room
hearth –
     listing images when really the smells are what returns most vividly –
roasted coffee – detergent – overripe pears in the loft – smell of wood and
wet ground –

March

     Such a strange night – on the Quai des Fleurs – I've been living here for a
few days – very nice apartment – They're sleeping – the table faces the
window where I write – the Seine – the lights – water – calm came back –
like glancing crystal in the water – rising and falling – as real as my hand
– my face in the pane – the Seine's reflections disrupting the lamplight's
opacity – like crossing dream with reality – and then a car passes – from
light to opacity – disappearance –
     tranquility – very rare peacefulness – after days of emptiness – empty
enough to put off getting up – because of the emptiness itself – and after
– completely futile efforts to fill in –
     why despite appearances I go to such lengths to achieve this feeling
emptiness – of discomfort – as though every gesture –every movement were
bringing me nearer to death –
     the sensation of emptiness disappeared in that orgasmic moment –

     I have possibly never been so far into that solitude as these last months –
it still might not be enough – there is a vague form of stability left here
– of security – some doubt about what I can stand –
     more wandering – add leaving the country – breaking all bonds – or
whatever – being broke in a country I don't know – maybe –
     probably an illusion – equating being alone in a room for days – and going
off somewhere –

April

     Departure – tomorrow – real escape – I'm going to Tunisia – calm –

     Tunis 1
     here with no break – already the same life – I go to cafés – I make love
– I go to films – I talk to people – no distance – I've already been here
since forever –
     but still it's the East – the light – the colors – the beauty – at least
this: I have new eyes – senses beginning to function again as though after a
long illness – this morning very early – in the village – scarcely daybreak
– through the grillwork on the window – some noises in the covered streets
– after making love all night – body heavy and hot – impression of
tiredness – of well-being – H. motionless – head on my belly – almost cool
– a smell I couldn't place – almonds and oranges – old food – and then
suddenly in the silence – a very long sound – very low – the slow
modulation of the muezzin – extraordinary beauty –
    now here – in the café – seated on matting – they're playing cards –the
patron sitting on a chair by the stove closes his eyes – head thrown back a
little – he is tall and lean – looks high as a kite – they aren't paying
any attention to me – I'm fine here – it's raining out – sound of rain on
the steps –

     Wednesday
         ran into R.

     the building's terrace and the little hut below – just room for a bed –
when I came back at 4 – air cool – the whole town below – early movement in
the direction of the station – to the left – the quality of the air –
especially that – staying there a long time looking down at the town –

September

     Saturday – evening – a café – I'm far away – toward Aubervilliers – I
walked a long time – spent the last few nights walking – here the old
neighborhoods– the houses – hallways staircases – little courtyards – what
goes on in the daytime – warehouses – workshops – people – their night
deserted – a few lights farther off – near the trees – I'm cold – bitter
taste of cigarettes – voices – a woman singing – an accomplished liar's
voice – slightly hoarse – sad – a little raw –
     go back and sleep – get loaded – no – stay – stay up – nurture this –
thing that returned by chance – the silence inside –

November

     he just left – when he leaves I never know when I'll see him again – always
chance encounters – or nearly – today I asked myself what little errors
we've let come between us – I don't know yet – I can barely guess –
     why such tenderness in his gestures – after – where there is usually
distance –
     don't be taken in by tenderness – protect yourself from it – I'm sucked in
too easily – his presence I already live too much in these days – not enough
resistance now – or irony –

December

     I am calm – finally without anxiety – a certain balance –
    Y. – circle around his presence – no more severing – or waiting – calm –
a kind of delight – also – being with him – finally this is a story I like
– I feel good –
     but when I'm like this I don't do anything – unable to write a word – I
only write in an anxious state (oh sure)* – or in times like that – ideas
for novels arrive – the story of the port for example – stupid – the novel
is basically a pacific creation – that releases what's essential – sensation
of well-being allows time to stretch out – necessary to the novel – whereas
the anxiety produces something strong – complete – at once – no going
beyond – (?)* momentary fixity – in the anxious state –

     totally out of it – what am I doing here – with these kids – feels like
sweet and well-behaved girls – never been so isolated in the middle of a
group – almost peculiar –
     get out of here at the first possible moment – get away from it – before
the end of resistance – of rebellion – before boredom – exhaustion

1961

February

     Algeria 2 – as if this is really the beginning for me –
     Said

September

     Tonight I'm starting over – after these parenthetical months – for them –
go real slow – like the first time going out after being locked up for ages
–
     tonight calm at last – window open – a little wind – gentle – feeling my
bathrobe – music below – I just picked up K.'s journal – always the way to
get back to work when it's not happening – Kafka or Beckett – to start up
again –
     nothing is finished – the problem hasn't been resolved – but I'm at the end
of my rope – still struggling with it – because it would be easier to keep
going with them than pick up my life where it left off –
     these months speak years – many new things – to be completely current with
present events – living the news as it happens – with no time lag – now
it's difficult to become nothing but a spectator again –
     what counted was the immediate – objective justification was impossible –
for what I was doing – theoretical questions useless – when I make theory
for others – I end up not believing it – immediate action justified
immediately in its entirety – uncomfortable position but real –
     for months no writing – impossible to reconcile the two –
     walk paying attention – I've lost sensation – closeness of the outside
world around me – I'm not connecting with things any more – could be
irreparable loss – trying now to recover sensations – objects for instance
– the table's smoothness – its color – my hand on the paper –
     it's raining – that helps me – I feel better – more differentiated from
things – from the outside –
     blur already –

October

     continuing – I'm alone in the gallery space – no options – walls – I
touch the walls – I press myself against them – I'll lean from one to the
other – I stayed in the corner opposite for ten minutes – now I'm in the
middle of the room on a chair – writing on my lap – the empty space all
around – spinning –
     what to do – yell – call out – for someone to come – wait – slow death
–
     explosion inside my head – words – invent words – fast – absence – non-
sense of words –
     I can't –

December

     waiting – days – time passes filled with little things – cling to the
slightest incident – the most expected event – the most foreseeable with
hope for some hidden thing concealed inside the opacity of stillness – I
can't because I know what the end of waiting is – the possibility of radical
change – definitive – there are lots of examples of such possibilities but
they crumble before any obstacle – the real presence of people – of objects
– the world – the margin between the image of suicide and reality's
uncertainty is too great –

     story limited in time – will end on a specific date – with departure of a
train – wonderful impression of clean – retreat – irreparable – it's there
in a presence already dissolved – almost weightless – if he knew –

Footnotes:

1. Although placed in Tunis this passage actually describes the village of Sidi Bou Said and the café "des Nattes."
2. At this time D.C. became a part of a network supporting the F.L.N. [National Liberation Front].