"THE PASSENGERS" "It was just another day." "No better, no worse." "With its fun and surprises, and its monotony, since the fun and surprises were virtually the same from day to day." "The tram brings commuters in from the north suburbs..." "Tickets!" "Your ticket, please." " l don't have one." "I'll have to fine you." "Do your job." " Don't be insolent." "Either the ticket machine's broken or it says nonsense like :" ""Round-trip tickets only."" "Who are they kidding!" "Technology can't understand that one day we go off and never come back." "Then use a ticket window." "One window out of 10 is open for 100 people in a line 25 yards long." "Tag me. I won't be coerced." "And I won't incite society to organised theft." "Sir..." " Whose interests are you defending?" "If a robot did your job, would they have any qualms about firing you?" "We live in a world of self-interest." "We have to resist :" "no distributors, no windows no tickets!" "You're wasting my time." "If all our users..." " I'm not a user." "I'm just a commuter and I mean to stay one." "He's right to make a fuss." "The company should provide enough machines to meet the demand even a last-minute one." "Otherwise we face an impossible choice :" "stay home or pay a fine." "Where's he going with that bouquet?" "To a hospital?" "To church for a ceremony?" "A wedding, maybe." "No." "The wedding is for later." "Does he bite?" "." " No, he's safe." "Next stop;" "Main Street," "I could trip over your bag!" "There's a seat there, lady." "This is my seat." "She doesn't let up." "You wouldn't know it, but I'm 77." "I can see that. I can hear it, too." "Some people are anti-everything :" "Young, old, dogs, the weather..." "She'll get home bitter, grumbling about her day, and so disappointed in life." "I finally did it..." "I handed in the keys, basta!" "It wasn't easy." "They invaded the place." "They turned everything inside out." "There's not even a ghost left." "Lucky you weren't there to see it." "I just remembered :" "I should have gone first." "Life is strange, isn't it?" "." "Remember my fear of being buried alive?" "It does happen." "To reassure me you said," ""I'll prick your foot with a needle." "Infallible!"" "Who will prick me now?" "We'll see." "Right now, I'm talking to you." "You hear me." "Sometimes I have regrets." "You made us better people." "I brought you this." "Loving's so hard." "Don't be angry." "What made you do it?" "Were you tired of the soft life?" "But you're beyond all that now." "You crossed the threshold." "You look up at the stars now." "When you talk to someone, it means he's alive." "Alive or dead what's the difference?" "You lost someone recently." "That much is obvious." "It's been a week." "The new treatments were too late to save him." "You come here every day?" "As often as possible." "The last time I saw him was in the hospital." "Bruno worries me." "The new treatment didn't help." "I know." "It doesn't always work." "Speak to his friend." "I won't hide the truth." "But the anti-protease seemed to agree with him." "His body didn't have time to adapt to the therapy." "What will you do now?" "Don't worry." "I've seen to everything." "When I'm gone, open the box on the record rack." "Just follow the instructions." "Stop it!" " I'm not afraid." "I've accepted the idea." "It's only an idea, anyway." "Death doesn't exist for the departed." "Once it's over, it's unthinkable." "It's different for the living." "You sure about cremation?" "." " Positive!" "Fire is good." "When I go, I want to be buried." "I like the idea of the skeleton as a final form." "Too bad about my skeleton, my last reality, but I can't bear the idea of decomposition." "Imagine a bluebottle landing on your remains..." "You're done for." "The coffin queen goes to work and you're the promised land for vermin." "No, give me fire and ashes." "I brought your Walkman." "Thanks for thinking of it." "But you can keep it." "I'll never use it again." "What a waste of time isolating me for my protection." "From what?" "People?" "Noise of the outside world?" "For the little time I have left." "Kiss me." "Of either end of life's path, the pain of being born is the most agonising." ", It lasts and combats" "our fear of dying." "We never stop being born, but the dead die once and for all." "The next night, he asked the night nurse to read to him." "His sight was gone." "He wanted to hear that passage, from Jean-Henri Fabre's book which his friend had found." "Shall I read to you?" "Let me arrange your pillows." "That better?" ""It's mid-July." "The hot season is setting in." "In fact, it has come early." "It's been sizzling for weeks now." "Tonight we celebrate the national holiday." "As the youngsters frolic around a bonfire whose reflections play on the village belfry, and as the drums give the fireworks a ceremonial air" ", I sit alone in the shadows in the heat of the evening, listening to the music of the harvest feast more majestic than the music of the village fête, the gunpowder, the firewood, the paper lanterns, and especially the liquor." "As simple as beauty, calm as a strong man." "It's late." "The crickets fall silent." "Sated with light and heat, they sang their music all day." "When night falls, they rest." "But it is often a troubled rest." "From the boughs of the plane trees a noise is heard like a shrill cry of pain :" "it is the desperate lament of the cicada ambushed by the grasshopper," ", that ardent nocturnal hunter which leaps at its side," "and tears open its belly." "After the musical orgy... the carnage."" "Sexual activity is millions of years old, so nothing's new under the sun." "AIDS is not the result of the Sexual Revolution." "It's the face of mankind on a planet incapable of regeneration." "The ravages of over industrialisation are like Kaposi's sarcoma." "The planet's lungs are sick." "It's defences were destroyed before those of man." "He wasn't cremated." "At his death his folks came running." "His mother wept and wept." "Learning their son's friend had his flat keys, they quickly changed the lock." "So his friend couldn't fulfil his last wishes" "Next stop;" "Midtown," "See the snow yesterday?" " Weird, with the trees in bloom." "Ladies and gentlemen," "I'm going to brighten your trip with a song." "It may be the same old tune that you heart me and again" "But it still makes lovers swoon and consoles the loner's pain" "No poem can match it for warmth and simplicity" "Remember how you courted me by composing a ditty" "There's so much love going around" "Put your hand in mine" "But love will someday run aground" "Why wait to taste the wine?" "In the tiny room, Johnny and June" "Are in a cocoon lost in their bliss" "There's so much love going around" "It's something not to miss" "There's so much love going around..." "Remember the young man who stared at women's shoes?" "." "He was after the perfect female foot." "In time his penchant became a mania." "When I find the perfect foot," "I'll marry its owner." "Don't wear yourself out." "Keep your feet white and pretty." "I don't know where to turn." "I examined hundreds of feet I even worked in a shoe store'." "I met princesses with dream faces and superb bodies." "I tried everything humanly possible." "I loved a dancer with a voluptuous figure." "My pet dancer..." "Why do women's feet repel me so?" "Where is the foot of my dreams?" "All you'll find here are feet with deformities, calluses corns and so on." "Still, you've raised a thorny problem :" "No one, especially a woman, has normal feet these days." "Let me show you..." "Flat feet due to a sagging fifth lumbar vertebra, the result of wearing high heels." "Alux valgus from birth, never corrected." "Effects on the toe of a spinal curvature." "I'll spare you the details." "I also treat smelly feet often belonging, my dear sir, to very pretty women." "Enough, enough!" "Don't flaunt your vile profession." "I come to you seeking, advice, an orientation and I met a perverse technocrat cynically reeling off horrors." "Civilisation has killed the foot." "But you can find the perfect foot." "Search among girls of more modest backgrounds." "Girls who walk barefoot, for example." "But I'm afraid you may not be simple enough to see where things are hidden." "If it exists, I'll find the foot that you will never paw." "Then I'll devote my life to that foot." "And I don't only love princesses." "And so he found the girl of his dreams." "He married her a victim of loving one part, while ignoring the whole." "You're nervous this morning." "An old lady from my building is being buried." "Funny, when I saw the death notice, I thought :" "I was really fond of her." "Mass is at 8." "Getting out of bed was a struggle." "Burials are always early, but 8 o'clock!" "You can't be earlier than that!" " And at Saint Joseph's!" "Oh, well..." "Something pulled me out of bed almost against my will." "Was she a relative?" "No, just an old lady I hadn't seen in years." "She was disabled and never went out." "I never saw anything like it." "And I almost stayed in bed." "Same for me." " Even tramps have friends." "But didn't someone make arrangements?" "." "No." "The firemen found a box with money and instructions for the funeral." "No problem." " She was lucky to have you." "Mozart only had a dog at his burial." "Down, boy..." "Sorry." " It's nothing." "It's more crowded than usual." "He's being very cautious, like people unwittingly looking for each other." "He might have asked the time." "Know what time it is?" "Or referred to the inside temperature." "It's hot in here!" "Poor devil." "So is he..." " A challenge!" "It's high risk right now!" "We play up the group's results, bolstering our leadership image." "I haven't seen you on this new line before." "I usually use the old line." "But I always see you on this tram." "Really?" "You're kidding me." "I mean it." "But you never notice me." "We eventually form an idea of others." "All these strangers we see every day suggest stories to us." "You make them up?" " Sure." "Sometimes there are hints..." "They tell us more than we can imagine." "You mentioned hints..." "That's right." "Take you, for instance..." "You look at very young girls." "Well!" "This is getting interesting." "Keep going." "You really want me to?" "All right, then... I also noticed how" "your interest goes unrewarded." "These girls are drawn to machos in caps." "Maybe my uniform turns them off." "I should be in civvies." " Who knows?" "There's an idea..." "A cap." "Look like everyone else!" " The joys of conformity!" "You don't like caps?" " Not really." "Especially worn at an angle." " Tell me your name?" "Christine." "I'm Pierre." "I work for a security firm." "Pretty poor trade, but there's no work in the South." "So I moved up here." "Don't you miss your family?" "Not really." "I'm used to it." "I like being on my own." "Daily chores take more doing..." "I have to see to everything." "But it takes getting used to." "At least you're free. I like that." "Falone takes up a lot of space." ", She works with me we're never apart." "Right, boy?" "Behave, Falone..." "Behave, Falone." "We're going soon." "Need any help?" "You often follow strangers in the street?" "You never get off at the same tram stop." "Not answering my question?" "I like to follow nice people like you." "Funny hobby!" "us it money you're after?" "." "Let me explain..." "Something strange is happening." "What?" "You afraid?" "Relax, it happens." "You're attracted, but you don't dare." "I always have girlfriends." "You all have girlfriends." "I'm David." "And you?" "Marco." "Come in." "So, "6 months ago in Nantes..."" "I enrolled in a Socialist Party workshop, and I met a really nice fellow my age." "Beer or Coke?" " Beer." "We talked a lot." "It was my first time in a workshop." "In the evening, we talked in his hotel room." "It was so nice I didn't use my room for 3 nights." "And it changed your outlook on things?" "I'd never felt that way with a girl." "It wasn't even anything sexual." "It was pleasant in another way." "A kind of fraternity." "We exchanged addresses but I never saw him again." "I wrote but he never answered." "Since then I observe people." "In the street, in public transport, at the pool." "I meet people, but I'm disappointed." "Tell your girlfriend." " Think I should?" "She's a nurse." "I work day, she at night." "She's visiting her parents now." "I really like your pad." "What do you do?" " I've gone back to school." "Actually, I work part-time for the Electricity Company." "And you?" " l teach." "You teach what?" " Math." "But I just quit teaching on a whim." "It's lousy work." "You're worn out prematurely shot." "Go ahead, smile, but it's true." "Time is rough on a teacher." "You feel like you're ageing twice as fast." "You tick off the years like that." "And every new class is forever young." "I couldn't go on." "Can I look?" "Sure." "Read the text underneath." ""In the human body, the balls impress me most." "I hate the kind that droop like a tramp's shopping bags." "They have to be firm, compact, round and hard like twin clams."" "Salvador Dali." "A wolf was all skin and bone" "So well watchdogs kept it at bay," "The wolf met a mastiff, all alone," "He was fat, sleek and had lost his way," "To attack him, to tear him apart was the wolfs very art," "But it would mean a fight," "And the hound had the might to sell his hide dear," "So, humble, the wolf drew near and began to chat, saying this and that, admiring his strong form," ""It's up to you to be as portly as me,"" ""What is it I'd have to do?"" ""Next to nothing, fawn on those of the house," "I make your master happy," "The greater will your wages be, Lenders will be yours for free;" "Chicken bones, pigeon bones," "" " not to mention many a caress," "Seeing himself already in paradise," "The wolf wept with tenderness," "As they went, he saw the dog's short haired neck," ""What is that?"" ""Nothing,"" ""How, nothing?"" ""The collar that keeps me in check,"" ""In check?" "Can't you run If you're in the mood?"" ""Not always, But what does it matter?"" ""It matters so that you can keep your food," "At such price, any treasure is nil"" "And saying this, saying I master Wolf fled and is running still," "What are you afraid of?" "Oh, please!" "You don't catch it like that." "You're all alike." "Make up your mind." "You can't sleep with your girl and expect us just to hold hands." "I know what you want, but still..." "What's our daily lot?" "Fear, distrust of others." "And then AIDS comes and complicates things." "Why are homosexuals the hardest hit?" "You really are naive." "Let's say a guy has one girl a week." "A fellow who prefers guys can have one a day." "Some even have several." "Nothing easier." "With a girl, things are more complicated." ", You have to take her out" "Talk to her... a lot." "It takes time." "With a guy, you meet, get it on," ", make love an hour, or 10 minutes and separate." "Sex and love don't automatically mix." "Things are clearer." "If so many are contaminated, it's a mere question of arithmetic." "Get it?" "Straight or gay, the virus couldn't care less." ""Sexuality" has no prefix." "On TV they never explain how the disease spreads." "Can you explain it?" "Understand what I'm saying?" "Can u come tomorrow?" "." "No, not tomorrow." "I'm at a movie." " The day after?" "What day is that?" "Wednesday..." "No." "I'm at the gym." "In the evening?" "Okay." "But not before 10." "Have the door code?" "10-45-B." "Avicenne Hospital." "I hope you're not a homosexual." "I've nothing against them." "I have lots of homosexual friends." "But I have a special rapport with them." "I'm no fanatic." "I want to know, that's all." "I like women to be feminine and men masculine." "You're masculine-looking." "You work out or something?" "You have a girlfriend." "I have a wife." "Or rather, a companion." "Funny how desire flows between men and women." "I asked you a stupid question." "Homosexuals don't exist." "Homosexuality exists." "It's even a scientific fact." "I have a friend who does research." "He's an anthropologist." "I help him out" ", because I work in the field while he stays in his lab." "You see, sexuality..." "You have to get involved." "I go out, I meet people in the projects, in hi-rise basements" "It's a science." "It's sexology, it requires a hard-on." "It's a science you study from in the inside." "Homosexuality is odd." "It doesn't belong to homosexuals." "Anyone can practice homosexuality." "You don't need a label." "Homosexual desire is all around us." "If I had homosexual urges, paradoxically, it would be for a non-homosexual." "My wife also likes men masculine and women feminine." "Too bad if it sounds conformist." "When you're open to experiences like we are you needn't look for femininity in men and masculinity in women." "It doesn't make sense." "Nature distributed things like that, you have to accept it." "I find you very attractive." "I can see people desiring you." "I don't want to have sex with you." "I want to see you in an erotic situation." "With my wife, for instance." "Still... something bothers me." "I have to admit it I have a theory about male homosexual behaviour." "I discovered a category of women and a category of men that are paradoxical :" "faggot women and lesbian men." "My wife has masculine homosexual tendencies." "That makes her a faggot." "What I mean is when she has sex with' a man she fantasises about being a man." "If I talk about a desire to have sex with you, it comes from her male homosexual desire." "So I cruise for my wife." "My wife is a faggot." "Speaking to you, I realise that more and more." "At the same time, you have... lesbian men." "Lesbian men are people" ", who make love with women thinking themselves a woman." "That makes them lesbians." "You may be a bit lesbian yourself, without knowing it." "There's a wide range of possibilities." "You can have anything." "But nature is full of contradictions." "Nipples." "The proof is in the nipple." "What's a male nipple?" "What's a nipple for?" "It's for breast-feeding, milking a baby." "But for machos, it's something awful." "A less contradictory nature might have made a nipple-less breast." "But no!" "Men have nipples." "In any case, the clitoris is a penis, the ovaries are testicles." "It proves we're bisexual." "Bisexuality is a laugh, too." "It's a gimmick." ""Bisexual" is meaningless." "By bisexuality, you mean sexual open-mindedness." "Ideal open-mindedness would be trisexuality." "Trisexuality :" "masturbation, homosexuality, heterosexuality." "In the age of AIDS, talk about masturbation advocate learning masturbation, and do away with the guilt associated with it." "It's stupid." "It's an erotic technique like hetero and homosexuality." "They're all equal." "Jerking off isn't inferior to getting laid." "Freud used to say :" "childhood - masturbation adolescence - homosexuality, adulthood - heterosexuality." "You can be an onanist all your life." "It's all right." "They're all equal." "You getting off?" "How could you get taken in by that story?" "Because of all the hype." "I'd virtually forgotten the story." "You didn't see it when it came out." "You talk about it as if it were an old movie." "I see now they talked it up too much." "It's not what "The Mother and the Whore" was to the 70s." "Whose dumb idea was that?" "I read it in several newspapers." "My senior students said the same thing." "It's nonsense!" "The film lacks what gave Eustache's movie its value :" "a real moral devoid of exhibitionism." "It's crazy!" "In this age of prevention, here's a guy, HIV-positive, who has unprotected sex, and everybody cheers!" "What's that?" "An apotheosis of premeditated murder!" "Aren't you appalled?" "But finally the girl isn't contaminated." "So?" "." "That's worse." "It prompts assholes to do likewise." ""Who needs condoms :" "In this exemplary film the girl stays clean."" "You pinpointed the worst of it." "And the film's used in anti-AIDS drives!" "How wrong can you get?" "We all foul up." "No one tries to understand." "This is an age of consensual slavey." "We keep a low profile." "We swallow what we're fed mindlessly." "That goes for more than just movies." "This is nice county." "Recognise the setting of L'Atalante?" "Yep!" "Virtually unchanged." "When the low, heavy sky, like a leaden hood weighs on the mind long pressed with care" "When it embraces the horizon's curve" "The light it pours is as black as despair..." "Things are so simple with you." "You need me, and I'm here." "I'm afraid without you and I call you." "You were everything for me from the start." "Everything I dreamed of." "You know all the dreams that never come true." "You believe in dreams coming true?" "." "With you, I do." "I'm sure of it." "I'm cold." "You're the little brother I never had." "I love you." "More than that." "It's hard to say." "I love your smile, the way you look at me." "It's all new to me." "I bet you get any girl you want." "Not really." "I guess I'm clumsy." "I think they intimidate me." "Me too?" "You're different." "I hope it's always like this." "Always!" "What a funny word!" "We say "always" but it only lasts a while." "We only have good moments." "Why try to make them last?" "It must be possible." "Have confidence." "I so want to have confidence in you." "You're unlike the men I've known." "I'll stay with you, teach you to stop being afraid." "You have something special that touches and troubles me." "But I'm not into long relationships." "A long relationship can be senseless." "It's the listless routine of the living dead who don't even know if they're living or dead." "Don't fear the worst, enjoy the best." "Maybe you're afraid of being dumped." "You don't understand." "Yes, I do." "It's my misanthropic side." "Like in Molière?" " If you like." "Like with everyone." "A misanthrope works at being hated, for fear of not being loved." "But I love you, Anna." "You have nothing to fear." "I'm here." "I know." "Next stop;" "Central Station," "Sorry to disturb your peace of mind, reading, daydreams or digestion." "I don't bite." "Ty me, I'm spotless." "Don't bother walking me 3 times a day." "You look out of it." " I'm in the shit, you mean." "I just lost my job." " At the Electricity Company?" "Help yourself and you needn't ask God or anyone else to help you." "The new electronic system is replacing 170 employees." "Another technological advance." " Yeah, one more." "And another committee on unemployment!" "With the same people who order downsizing." "It's a welfare program." "No doubt about it this means disaster." "Economics means man's downfall." "It's the same old stoy;" ", misunderstood lessons useless experiments, avoidable errors never avoided." "Liberation," "The same old stoy." "You free tonight?" "10-45-B." "Weren't you seeing Thomas tonight?" "I wanted to be alone." " Well, thanks a lot!" "I exist, you know." " Stop it." "I don't feel like seeing him anymore." "I don't know what it is." "I feel less involved." "I don't believe it!" "It looked so great." "After everything you told me!" "I know, it's awful." "Going from rapture to disappointment, inventing tricks." "I don't understand." "The routine bug you?" "He becoming a habit?" "That's it." "Long-term relationships scare me." "No smoking at the pool." "I forgot." "Sorry." "It's all right." "Can I finish it?" " No." "Put it out." "What were you saying?" "Afraid of being fenced in?" "Miss out on another, better romance?" "." "Being fenced in spoils the pleasure." "I can see all the compromises." "I'd rather be alone." "I'm even considering it as a permanent solution." "No permanent decisions, please!" "That would be stupid!" "When I feel tied down I can't dream." "You know, the twin pillows, breakfast bowls, toothbrushes... I know only too well." " It doesn't work for me." "You've never really been in love." "What are you talking about?" "When you're in love, you leave." "You're so scared love will die you murder it instead." "You quit in advance, only to find another heartthrob." "Into the wolf's maw." " Love's maw." "Still, today... I feel you're hiding something." "There's somebody new." "You feel that?" "You always amaze me." "So, girls, discussing your new boyfriends?" "Raoul!" "You two haven't changed." "Think not?" " That's a bad sign." "Not at all." "You two are just like at school." "Inseparable?" "Less than before." "How about you?" "What are you?" "Physicist, mathematician, politician?" "." "You're in what?" "." "Nothing." "Not much, anyway." "Community service jobs." "A college degree to run errands for old folks!" "And you, Anna?" "You're too late. I just told Isabelle." "I won't repeat it." " Let me guess." "I'll make it all up." " You won't be far wrong." "These are times for illusions." "You must have amazing stuff to tell." "All the girls at school ogled you." "We didn't." " You two intimidated me." "What nonsense!" " l mean it." "You didn't take romance seriously." "Except in movies." "You and your Johnny Guitar!" " l just love that movie!" "It's so romantic." "And how's your love life?" "Tell us all." "There's nothing to tell." "Nothing but failures." "Things start off all right, but I end up empty-handed." "Always the same..." "You'd like a nice, tidy life with the person you think ideally suits you." ""Person"?" "." "Girl, if you prefer." "A new scenario that ends in a new disaster." "Each writes the other's part, which the other accepts, hoping to please." "And then the masks crack." "The first storm knocks them off." "Hell, it's not all that serious." "So let's hear it." " Is it my turn?" "I'm not complicated." "What I want in life... is a house." "It's true." "What I want in life is a house." "Not just any house." "A nice house, full of flowers at the seaside." "But in the county, with a garden, sunlight and mountains behind." "The mountains are a must." "It's important for the air, and for winter skiing for the children." "Oh yes, I want children..." "4, 5 of them." "Well-behaved the apple of their mommy's eye, their sugar mommy, their woollens mommy, their jelly mommy." "It's vital to be a good mommy who can cook and be a good housewife." "Me, the perfect housewife." "Polishing and decorating and cleaning for when you get home." "And I'm all neat and tidy and made up for you." "And then... I stop minding the house to mind your body." "It's like a storm sweeping over you, and two epidermises meet." "I give it all, all to my man." "Because I have a man." "A hell of a man." "A man... how do I describe this ideal?" "A man in love, a faithful man, yes." "The first time with him was... my first time." "Nobody had ever laid a finger on me." "When he took naive little me in his arms, I sensed..." " feminine instinct!" " something moving inside me." "Oh, Gontran!" "Yes, his name's Gontran." "His father's a Spanish king..." "With Gontran I'm a wife, a sister, a mistress." "We succeeded in every way, sentimentally, professionally." "We're role models." "We get write-ups in all the papers." "But we don't mind." "We don't mind the drawbacks of fame." "We are... what's the word?" "..." "Saved." "That's the truth." "We save a lot." "Oh, Gontran, the life we led!" "Right now I have a furnished studio with Patrick." "He wants to marry me, rent a house by the sea and have lots of kids." "I'm not keen on the idea." "Patrick's sweet." "He loves me, but he's crazy." "I'm not a housekeeper." "I'm not ready for children." "And I'm allergic to sea air." "Patrick's sweet." "He loves me." "I feel good with him." "But with him I can't." "Philippe wants Valium and Seconal." "It's too much." " But Valium isn't helping anymore." "His headaches and anxiety are worse." "Give him what he wants." "What is it, Marie?" "I can't go on." " They're so fond of you." "I almost gave up once, too." "There are moments like that." "At your age, things went fuzzy for me." ", I was a novice then with little savvy." "I was young and so sheltered." "I blew everything out of proportion." "I could've remained under treatment for life." "My existence was so pleasant." "For each anxiety, I had a pill." "Nothing was real anymore." "No more anxieties either." "A successful treatment!" "I once asked my doctor if he'd ever cured anyone in his life." "He said : "Cured, that's saying a lot."" "That's for me." "From that moment on something amazing happened." "I don't know..." "You know, those flashes of perception :" "mental illness can be soothing if you let yourself go." "A wonderful solution." "Let others take care of you." "It's so simple." "No bumps." "No desires, either." "My instinct of self-preservation saved me." "My instinct recovered in time to resist." "Today, it all seems so far away, so laughable." "It's late." "See you tomorrow." "I like it when you're relaxed." "You feel it?" " Changes everything." "You know, you ought to realise :" ", we're all made of the same matter the same atoms." "Man or woman, no one escapes that biological truth." "Six atoms define the make-up of the human body :" "Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur..." "Remember that." "There's a way :" "CHONPS." "C-H-O-N-P-S." "Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus... and sulphur." " Sulphur, right." "David, you're really something." "You're a "champ"!" "Did you like it?" "Especially Origin of the World," "The Archer impressed me, too." "Who did it?" " Bourdelle." "You look like him a bit." " You're flattering me." "Aren't you overdoing it?" " No, I love you." "That you, Christine?" "I've quit." "Your job,?" " Mom I can't take it anymore." "It's gone too far." " l don't doubt it." "Here's the manager's last memo." "We got it late in the day." ""l count on you to keep in mind these three concepts :" "First, you are profit builders." "Second, you are market developers." "Third, you are managers with priorities."" "See why I couldn't go on?" "Need any nurse's aides in your hospital?" "Even a trainee position." " It's awful everywhere." "At Lucie's brother's company, they make executives take culture workshops." "What for?" "They claim listening to a Mozart symphony sharpens your business sense." "How can you deal with that?" " By laughing at it, first." "In hospitals, future retirees can take a retirement planning seminar." "Some things don't need planning." " Exactly." "It's as inevitable as falling leaves." "In Maubeuge today some 10,OOO demonstrators protested the lack of jobs in the North," "Politicians from all parties joined in, 10 fire trucks led the march as churches tolled the knell," "Expulsion." "Coercion." "Rackets." " Violence." "Vandalism." " Arson." "Menace." " Technology." "Dynamism." " The vilest serpent won't bite its own tail." " Bliss : yesterday's hope." "Grief : today's certainty." " Crush or be crushed." "The economy's sole focus :" " The market." "Profit : the only standard." " Full employment gone." "Poverty helps growth." " I'm in human resources." "Let us instil company spirit." " Can you?" "Replace older personnel with new blood." "Commerce despises its workforce." "Technology scorns reason." " More, always more." "If you're not ambitious..." " You're dead." "Arithmetical madness and its rationale sets the Jewish genocide apart." "Productivity and efficiency." "The mechanics of its horror form the basis of industrialised society." "industrial barbarity." "The abyss which silently enfolds the smug notion of progress." "The executioner..." " Surpassed by his valet." "And man..." "when will he matter?" "When the earth is like a damp prison cell ln which hope, like a bat in a tunnel" "Beats the walls with its timid wing" "And strikes its head on a rotted ceiling" "When the rain beats down in endless trails" "That seem like the bars of some vestal" "Where silent hordes of loathsome spiders wind" "And spin their webs in the corners of our mind" "When the bells sling, seized with a sudden fury" "And send their horrid howl up to the sky" "Like spirits lost and wandering endless Iy" "Who wall and moan uncontrollably" "When a long line of hearses, drumless and mute file slowly through my soul, hope is dead" "And vanquished, as Anguish, that despotic brute" "Plants its black flag on my bowed head..." "Goodnight, my sleepers."