Chapter 27 Section 26

That evening, she and Jean-Marc went to a restaurant.A couple at the next table fell into endless silence.It is not easy to remain silent in front of other people.Where can they set their sights?It would be weird if they looked at each other without saying a word.Staring at the ceiling?That would seem to make their silence more apparent.Or, observe the next table?Then they might meet glances interested in their silence, and that would be worse. Jean-Marc said to Chantal: "Look, they don't hate each other, or that indifference has replaced love. You can't measure the influence they have on each other by the few words they exchanged. Because they their minds are empty. If they have nothing to say, it would be unwise for them to refuse to speak. I have an aunt who lives in Paligold. Whenever I visit her, she always goes on and on. Said. I tried to find out why she was so talkative. She talked about almost everything, including anything she saw and what she did, she talked about getting up in the morning, about her only drinking plain coffee for breakfast, about her husband when he went for a walk Always likes to go backwards. Jean-Marc, it's unbelievable to watch TV as soon as he comes back! After a while, he gets tired of it, so he starts reading again.—that's what she said. —that's how he kills the time... You know, Chantal, I just like to find that kind of defining, simple central sentence. The line "That's how he kills the time" is the core of these words. Their The center is time—how time passes, let it pass without affecting them, without them experiencing the passage of time themselves, like exhausted runners. This is the root of her talk, and she can talk about it at length. She let time pass imperceptibly in her speech, and when she closed her mouth, time seemed to stop. This big and heavy stop appeared from a shadow, and it frightened my poor aunt. , the panicked, desperate mother who could tell her daughter was bothered by her son's diarrhea, yes, Jean-Marc, it was diarrhea, diarrhea. She went to the doctor. You don't know him. He lived It's not far from us. We've known him for a while. Yes, Jean-Marc, for a while. He saw me too, and it was this doctor. I had influenza that winter, and you Remember? Jean-Marc, that time, I had a terrible fever..."

Chantal smiled, and Jean-Marc began another memory: "When I was fourteen years old, my grandfather - not the carpenter, but another - died. He was in the hospital, I went to see him. He was lying on the hospital bed, making a sound that didn't look like anything. It wasn't moaning, because he couldn't feel the pain anymore; it wasn't that he couldn't say what he wanted to say, no, he still No loss of voice, simply because he had nothing to say. There was nothing to communicate, no actual message, he didn't even have anyone to talk to. He wasn't interested in anyone anymore, only the sound he made kept him company. It was That sound, that ah... sound that only stops when he has to gasp. I watched him like I was hypnotized. I won't forget it because, even though I was just a kid, There's something I've come to understand. That's the way you're alive to face time. There's only one word to describe this face. I know it's boredom. My grandfather expressed his boredom in that voice, With this endless ah... sound."

"You mean he's bored when he's dying?" "That's exactly what I mean." They talked of death, of boredom.They drank their wine and laughed.They feel very happy. Jean-Marc returned to his subject: "What I'm talking about is the amount of boredom. If boredom is measurable, it is now much more than it used to be. Because of the past profession, lack of enthusiasm is fundamental. Unthinkable. Farmers loved their land; my grandfather, a magician who conjured beautiful tables; shoemakers who could memorize every villager's foot size by heart; and lumberjacks; gardeners; and even soldiers, possibly Willing to give their lives for their passion. The way of life is not a problem, it is always there with them, very naturally, in their studios, in their fields. Every profession creates itself A doctor's way of thinking is different from a farmer's, a soldier's words and deeds are different from a teacher. Now, we are almost all the same, and the indifference to work limits us. That kind of Indifference became passion again, a great common passion of our time."

Says Chantal: "But tell me - what about yourself? When you were a ski instructor, when you wrote about upholstery or medicine for a magazine, or when you were a furniture studio designer." when……" "Yeah, I like that, but it doesn't do me any good..." "Or when you're unemployed and doing nothing, you'll be bored too!" "But when I met you, everything changed, not because my humble job became exciting, but because everything that happened around me became the stuff of conversation." "We can talk about other things!" "It is indeed a very romantic thing for two people who love each other to live alone in the world, but how can their topics be enriched? No matter how disgusting the world is, it is still the center of our topics. "

"They can keep silent." "Like those two, the two at the next table?" Jean-Marc laughed: "(Ou) No, no love can last in silence."