""I'm scared of the forests." ""In the midway of this mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood," ""astray." "Gone from the path:" ""and even to tell, That forest, how robust its growth," ""Which to remember only, my dismay." ""Renews, in bitterness not far from death..." "All else will I relate discovered there."" " Don't go there." "I've checked." " And?" "A joke." "Fine if the hotels are pricey, but this one, not even by the seafront." "But I called, I don't get it." " Try this one?" " Since we're here already." "Bom dia!" "We come'sh for the room'sh." "Auntie!" "Two gentlemen to have a look." " Are you French?" " Yes, like my aunt." "How charming!" "...absolutely, one room for two or two rooms full board, as one of our guests has just left." "How long will you stay?" " A week?" " I flunked an exam, I need to resit." " You're a student?" " Law." "Third year." " Oh, studies..." " One has to cram, Madame." "...So here you have a bathroom." "And here's one of the rooms." "What are you doing here, sweetie?" "May I introduce my daughter, Lena..." "It's breakfast in bed, and dinner downstairs." "It's a family business, we want to keep a certain atmosphere." "Catherette will make the beds, and give it a go with the..." "If it's all right with you." " Absolutely." "Madame..." " Same with me." " And your luggage?" " In the car." " As for the price..." " We are two so we should take both." "This is a family business, gentlemen, so er..." "Needn't worry, Madame." "Oh, the things I've seen..." "I passed a car park, I'll see to the car and get my stuff." "I'd like to take a walk in the forest." "Is there a way through the back?" "Certainly, Sir." "The gate is straight ahead, through the garden." "I've put some towels in the bathroom." "Shit, it's going to rain." "There was a bird, hanged." " Hanged, how?" " From blue string." "From a cable." "What a hassle to park." "What kind of bird?" "A sparrow, I think." "Silk and alpaca." "Expensive." "Just kids." "A prank..." "It's too weird for a kid." " Bizarre." " I would say even more..." "Bizarre." "How pretty." "Tolstoy wrote that our biggest mistake is to confuse the pretty with the good." "Times are modern, aren't they?" " So you want to say I'm old-fashioned?" " A bit." ""Modern Times", a review by Sartre." " Who, who?" " Jean-Paul, a mistaken cross-eye." " An acquaintance of yours?" " Like Tolstoy." ""Modern Times", isn't it a Chaplin film?" " Isn't she pretty?" " Too pretty." "Bourgeoisie, our parents..." " What do your parents do?" " Dad's a judge." " And your mum?" " Housewife." "A cold house." " This Tolstu who..." " Tolstoy!" "Yes, the guy who writes... who's he?" "A writer." "Russian." "Friend of yours?" "I'm from Paris." "A rag trade slave." "The hanged sparrow, Catherette's lip." " You know Ralph and Lang?" " Not really." " What's your plan now?" " To think." "General Criminal Law." "Dinner is served." "Where?" "Downstairs." "Don't fret." "It always ends the same way." "Well... me, you will notice..." "Now I'm just a spare part in the hands of my better half." "The dripping tap, undercoat of paint, fallen leaves to rake..." "Master Lucien, my stepson, if I may say-um." "Married to Lena, who is the daughter of my spouse." "Fruit of her first marital bliss, my charming dumpling." "Oh sorry, my love..." "You don't find a hanged sparrow weird?" "Indeed." "Just last weekend I noticed a chicken hanged near the house." "Lucien is a young architect." "Laughable, these sparrows dangling, chickens hanging." "Like killing two birds with one stone." "Well, imagining..." " A sadist?" " A bad man out of work." "Yes, a bad man." " Must you contradict me?" " I'm saying bad." " These are bad guys!" " The out of work at work." "You don't even know what you're saying!" "Lena, my own Juliette, can you pass the radishing wine-um to your stepfather?" "I recommend the radishes with this yoghurt, totally unique." "My wife is a specialist in home-made dairy." "The key is in the way it ferments." "The taste..." "I hope it will be milder tonight." "It's the after season." "The weather has turned cold." "Mind if I turn up the TV?" "The fashion show is about to start." "What are you fussing about now?" "Don't you hear daddy radishing away?" "At least they're ballsy, Ralph and Lang." "At first things were sweet between us." "Then I started pissing them off." "Now I just piss them off." "All day, they steer clear of me." "All it takes is for me to cough..." "Around them is a huge bird cage." "Babbling, gossiping, chirping." "And me, I'm the rash." "Hatred." "Me, it's my parents who hate me." "At least my father, for my failure." " And your mum?" " Silent." "I hate law." "I even tried writing a novel." " A thriller." " Why a thriller?" "Easier to read." "It was to be called "The Haunted"." " "The Daunted"?" " It wasn't published." "Well I shut down my computer." "Oh really?" "I switched off my phone." "That way they'll see..." "What it's like without me." "Three weeks without me, the menswear collection..." "Models, menus, flowers..." "Have you seen Master Lucien?" "Handsome guy, huh?" " Have you seen his hands?" " Yeah." "Why hang it?" "Who hanged it?" "The Big Dipper..." "The Little Dipper..." "Libra..." "The Moon..." "I don't know." "I'm scared of the night." "Fuchs?" "Did I hurt you?" "How strange that a thing is before, another behind?" "I am absurd." "We'll have a lovely day today." "One must make the most of it when on holiday." "Monsieur Lucien and Lena have already left." "Oh, thanks." "Monsieur Lucien is doing up a charming house for them." "Very rustic." "It's dragging on a bit, but great." "Monsieur Lucien is having a hard time." "Miss Lena dreamed of acting, but now she teaches." "They make a sweet couple, eh?" "Married for two months and still..." "In love..." "They stayed in their room all day." "It was like their..." "Nuptial suite." "Right." "Mind you, now it's settling down a bit." "With time..." "With time passing." "Oh love." "Good thing it's not for me." "What did she mean by "good thing"?" "Where were you last night?" "Monsieur was on watch?" "It's not your business." "If you come back with a disease..." "I play safe." "The senses, even when they make no sense..." "We'll go see your sparrow." " Catherette..." " What?" "When one has a mouth like hers..." "Manipulated, I could say." "He, to himself, for his own." "He, to himself, for his own!" "It was here?" "Well, yeah." "The string?" "What about going to the beach?" " I'll skip my homework." " My pleasure." "Wait." " Don't tell me..." " Ralph and Lang." " Borrowed?" " More or less." "Like your chic suit?" "You're the errand boy, right?" " I came here in retaliation." " Same with me." "This pretty girl, the posh one?" "She dumped me for an idiot from Grenoble." "They always dump us for idiots." ""The Daunted."" "The title." ""The Haunted."" ""The Fuck-ted", right!" "You never told me what it was about." " A love story." " Like yours?" "The opposite." "Him and her, like an apple split in half." "Incest?" "He was her tennis coach." "So she was the posh girl?" "Except the horror came from a towel hanging." " Hanging where?" " A locked room." " And?" " The towel is moving." " By itself?" " It billows." "On its own, it billows." "Just a draft?" "I wish." " Your father read it?" " He hated it." "Your mother?" "She pretended not to understand." "Hold it." "So much water!" "Fuchs' idol." "For me, it would be theatre." "Louis Jouvet." "The savage power of a stupid thought." "The savage power of a stupid thought." "Your bird?" "In person." "Oh, for once to be seated near to her." "First names, okay?" "Multiple adventure-ess, pass the gas to your stepfather?" "Rapture of the senses little smoking goose." "So then, the big boss of my outlet." "Leon, dodging and contrast." "If you're too soft with a client, dodge, drop a dirty word in order not to get complacent, choke his peepee..." "And toughen the terms." "Yes, but who can assure anyone of anything?" "Look, the secretary of the boss-um as dumb as one can be, ratting the day she was at the boss-um, to tell him that I spit in the paper basket." "Y es, but..." "What blouse did she wear on that day?" "The one with the embroidery." "But then one day, unannounced the big boss-um of the boss-ums, the one of all the outlets and me already being the under boss-um of our outlet." "So, I received him, I made a big splash with an elegant lunch, best restaurant-um." "And then when I was to serve him the vin-um" "I flung half a bottle on his shirt." "Tie, vest-um, whatever." "Know what he said?" "The boss-um of the boss-ums drenched in C?" "tes du Rh?" "ne." "He said:" ""Leon, I see that you have been to the right schools."" "Sorrel soup!" "With dill." "Another delight from Mummsy-the-Gourmette!" "With eggs hard boiled!" "The ashtray and the sparrow?" "I'll say it again:" "Catherette." " She's too simple." " Nobody is simple enough." ""The hand, the leg, the mesh, what disorder."" "What disorder?" "This dis-order of the things." " And then she likes animals." " Who?" "Catherette." "The cat slept on her bed." "Oh, because Monsieur visited?" " Maybe she retrieved the sparrow?" " It can't rehang itself." "I feel like I'm in high society." " Oh really." " Yeah, I really saw you." "The hand of Madame de Rênal." " Stendhal." " Yeah?" " I'm from Grenoble." " So?" "Stendhal was born in Grenoble." "Lightning fast, Julien Sorel grabbed her hand." "He dared." "A Napoleonic conquest." "The boldness, a stroke of military genius." " Is that your writing?" " No." "Lena, who pulses like blood." "Oh la la, I've had it." "I'll go take a walk." "The mouth that relates to another mouth like a star to another star..." "On the one hand, the ugliness of a fleeting sidelong deviation and on the other..." "That two mouths which have nothing in common nevertheless have something in common." "Saturated in night, already steeped in the winter." ""Modern Times."" " Sartre was hideous, a toad." " Another acquaintance?" "Except that he wrote "Nausea"." "And he refused the Nobel Prize for Literature." "Lena..." "It's only when someone new sees it that it jumps out at us." ""Y es auntie, I'll go tomorrow."" "Never will she, and I am very sensitive on an aesthetic level." "I told her I'd pay for it." "She's like my niece." "I'm not letting down the family even if they are un-aesthetic, in an aesthetic sense, out of place." "A five-year drag..." "You just need to recut and resew." "The accident, the bus, smash!" "Into a tree!" "And Leon this, Leon that, and Lena, and Lucien..." "Thank God Lena found a decent man." "Except they'll do nothing with their soft little hands, like Leon." "She gets that from her late father." "I deal with buttons, coffee, sandwiches, salad, newspapers, and chops, and salads, and so on... and the tenants on top of that." "The one with tuberculosis, I had to serve cream all day." "It's colder than yesterday." "It'll be better after the rain." "This after that and not the other way around." "Ti-ri-ri!" "When an icycle mounts a bicycle it makes a tricycle." "A sheet for this one, an enema for that one..." "I've seen it all." "Won't you help Catherette with the peas?" "And the sauce?" "35 years in the insurance business, Sir." "But the collapse of the global economy, the crisis, lay-offs, redundancies..." "So we had to make endies meet and we started to rent." "17 years with a man who can't hammer a nail." "Pray he won't wreck himself over the peas..." "Sorry I'm late." "Did it go well?" "Couldn't have gone better." "Imagine that he's a new Russian." "Roubles in real time." "The best customers." "Oh no, this is my thing." "That his first wife never warned me who I would have to deal with..." "Well, she couldn't have, dead as she was." "I'm telling you... the caprices, a calamity for all this filth." "Your scarf, where is it?" "Often at night when he starts to whine..." "Rheumatism, angina, his liver, his kidneys..." "Stop this madness... this debauchery." "To think that Catherette has asked for the day off tomorrow." "Mind you, she promised to go to Leon's surgeon friend for her lip." "Leon doesn't know how to change a light bulb." "Oh, it happens to her, when she gets overexcited." "What do you think, father-in-law?" "Ten soldiers marching one behind the other, how much time would it take to exhaust all possible combinations of their order, putting the third in place of the fourth, etc.?" "We can only make one change per day." "Three little-um months?" "Ten thousand years was calculated." " Scientifically?" " By computer." "Scientifuckally, yeah." "In the scheme of things, what, where, when, how, why, with what?" "You don't get it, almost-father." " Get what?" " The organisation." "What organisation?" "The irrational organisation of the world." "Because you think, my little birdbrains, pecking at crumbs..." "Kaboom, something like that can be seized?" "Bang, pffft, gone." "Took me years to think it over, me, I think." "Since Leon Woytis was fired from insurance, he does nothing but think." "What about you?" "Ahoy, sailors!" "Ahoy, sailors!" "He's afraid of his ex mother-in-law." "No smoking!" "Have a puff, what with your duff ticker." "Just stop pulling my leg." " Your sparrow?" " He was there when it started to rain." "I can't imagine someone cutting it down in the rain." " And your chicken?" " That's what surprised me: vanished." "Your watch?" "Fake." "Made in China." "It makes a certain impression." " And the Russian?" " Still Russian." "When do we graze?" "He's gone off the rails." "Yes, the hand of the husband seemed quite well behaved but what do appearances mean?" "It all depends on how he touches her." " This Madame de Stendhal was married." " De Rênal." "Your first name." "Where does it come from?" " Mother loved Gombrowicz." " Another acquaintance?" "I can well imagine a decent touch or an indecent one, libertarian, furious, even brutal, because why would regular hands not touch each other in irregular ways?" "Pretty boy, Gérard Philippe." "To think that she lets herself go regardless to worsen the indecency..." "If he had just hooked a finger on her finger it would have been enough for both to attain the supreme licentiousness." "Supreme licentiousness." "That sounds good." "One evening, do you remember?" "We were drifting in silence." " What?" " The corner." " What?" " What do you see?" "Nothing." "This straight line behind the island and the triangle close to the isthmus." " Isth... what?" " ..." "Isthmus." " Remind you of anything?" " No." "It looks like an arrow." "The offshoots are flakes from the damp." "This line, so straight." "It wasn't there when we arrived." "There was a spider..." "A spider in your brain!" "It looks like the arrow in the dining room." "What dining room?" "The one from just now, dammit." "Pointing through the ceiling." "I see a rake." "A rake, why not." "If it's an arrow, then it was carved recently." "I can smell it." "Smell, you?" "You're drenched in this nauseating perfume." "Ralph and Lang." "Monsieur Lucien found it very good on me." "I'd remind you, sir, that "Nausea" is a book that you recommended." " No cat walks?" " Weather's bad." " Not going out?" " No." "At least you'll stay in one piece." "Passing a threshold..." "The two fishes." "Why not three?" "Oh my." "We forgot to close the kitchen door and Mrs Woytis cannot stand noises in the morning." "The day will be radiant." "Lena and Lucien are already... at their house." "To oversee the work." "Bom dia." "We could check where your arrows are pointing." "They're not mine." " And your sparrow?" " Not my sparrow!" "Whose then?" "I'm an expert in human passions." "A rake." "We need a rake." "I'll be right back." "Hold it." "Don't let go." "Got it." "Wood hanged - one doesn't see that everyday." "Chance, the wind..." "But the birdies sacrificed, the sparrow put on show..." "It moves me." "I will write it." " Why?" " Someone is screwing with us." " What if this was just a novel?" " Novel?" "Hang a sparrow, draw arrows, hang a piece of wood?" " Well, the rake took us somewhere." " To a charade." "A leaning for symmetry, a kind of confusing signal..." "I'm looking better." "It's someone from the house." "The sparrow reinforced by the piece of wood." "Now you've lost me." "A wacko, yes." "Oh no." "So much effort for such a refined joke?" "How many unnoticed signs in the natural order of things?" " Stupid jerk." " You say?" "He says?" "He's breathing." " A swim?" " It's raining." "Rain, that?" "Ha!" "A burn." "Tell me the story of "The Red and Black"." "You sure?" "A burn" "And Julien shoots Madame de Rênal who he'd seduced at the beginning, remember?" "He kills her?" " He wounds her in a church." " Why a church?" "He was a seminarian." "Seminary, you know what it is?" "Nah, not really." "That most important thing:" "they cut off his head." " That most important thing:" "love." " A stupid title." " And they cut off his head?" " Yes." "It adds spice." "Madame de..." "That was a sweet film." "Bresson." "Luc Bresson?" "Ophüls, Max." "The guillotine, a hanging, blood." "For your thriller..." " Really?" " A murder." "I'd love to act in a Pasolini film." " "Theorem", seen it?" " Now you lost me." "The story of a stranger, who visits a bourgeois family." "And?" "He makes them all fall in love, father, mother, son..." " Is that it?" " Oh no." "When he perverted them, the young maid with whom he slept levitates above the rooftops." "She what?" "She levitates, you moron." "Like the saints do." "Hey guys, you know rugby?" "Stop this, form a scrum." " Catherette..." " Catherette what?" " Tonight we'll search." " You think?" "Leon told me she'll go to church, then have lunch with her girlfriends, play cards with them, catch a movie and return late." "To see what?" ""Star Wars"." "The last episode." "How peculiar to call someone Catherette." "I'm afraid of the water." "I'm afraid of the water." "So imagine, Mr. Witold, that one day we bumped into her, me in my Sunday best, fancy new hairdo, pedicure even." "Even Leon was stopped in his tracks." "And I tell it to her face..." "Cold fish mayo, leek vinaigrette for you!" "Dumpling, are you all right?" "So so." "My dumplingette." "My word!" "She is impenetrable, elusive, immense like the ceiling..." "Some fish?" "Then I said to my Leon:" "Don't be afraid." "I'll take on the ex mother-in-law." "Lucien's coming." "He's on the phone to his Russian." "Anything but this!" "You think you can do whatever you please?" "Don't hurt Charlie!" " He's got a mouse!" " That's why he didn't get it." " What?" " The fish!" "It makes sense." "Charlie is Lena's cat, but Lucien is allergic to its hair." "Hello, hello." "We were living in Lyon at that time, which wasn't good for his cholesterol." "He doesn't want anything old." "He wants something ultra modern." "I need a piece of wood and string to draw a circle accurately." "I've got a compass." "You can borrow it." "Y eah, thanks." "An architect's compass." "Very precise." "Come, ghost, show yourself." "...that folds and unfolds before my eyes so this hypothesis is like a breeze that rises a tornado, like a spark that causes a fire." "The hand of the husband." "This courteous horror, linked, unlinked, with her mitt..." "For this woman, who knows, she could grow to hate this man with her irrelevance, all her blanditude." " Can you say "blanditude"?" " No idea." " You're getting worse." " Your black eye's healing." "Yeah, it's Catherette." "A slice of calf's liver." "The animal kingdom." "The cat and the mouse..." "No reaction when I mentioned the compass." "The Abyss and confusion, peas, dumplings, toothpicks." " Words, words, words." " Shakespeare!" "Even more severe." "Who wasn't at the meal?" " Catherette." " See, I told you." "The order is being born before our eyes." "And the shape." " Intellectual, your thriller!" " Sartre's "Words"." " About what?" " His childhood." "I never had a childhood." "Thanks to Leon, we were able to tour the garden." "You feel good here?" "Homely, I mean almost." "Father drank, never knew my mother." "I grew up in the street." "I'll show you something." " It points at what?" " Pieces of wood." "No, it points there." "See something?" "See anything?" "Help me." "Come!" " Look at the axe." " Axe?" "On the ground with the red handle." " You saw it this morning?" " No." " And the handle?" " A handle." "Angled like this?" "What does it point to?" "Catherette's room, if you prolong it." " Isn't she on the other side?" " It goes through the walls." "Look here, an imprint in the sawdust..." "The blade was on the other side." "And there, these three pebbles, and these few blades of grass, and here, this clothes peg." "Someone makes a sort of rhyme towards Catherette." "Shaped like a triangle directed at the axe, to confirm the axe." "At this rate, you'll have nothing to put on." "So your thriller, how's it going?" "It vanishes in radishes." "Tonight I'm going into town, coming?" "If I don't pass this exam, my father will kill me." " In your book..." " "The Haunted"?" " Who killed who?" " A father." "His son." " A who-who." " A who-who!" "I'm alone tonight with my dreams" "I'm so alone tonight" "I treated myself to a nice jacket, my revenge." "Dear friend, dear friend, just in time." " Oh, bleurgh." " Pardon?" "Arnold." "The dodeca-cacophony." ""Transfigured Night"." "A variation..." "Sliding down..." "Yes, Catherette, we know, but Lena is not here as well?" "Nor Lucien?" " They're dining in town." " With their Russian..." "Just the two of them." "The sneaky combinations." "Combines..." "Oh, what are you fussing over?" "Daddy is muscling again." "Ralph Lang, here we are!" "Acting to create the real." "To see!" "To verify!" "Verify!" "Oh, to enlighten!" "To make it all obscure!" "It the midst of the chimeras of the night!" " Sure you're okay?" " Why are still you here?" " I was going to check." " Check what?" "If they sleep, when they turn in." "The things are indeed a kind of screen and play with me like with a balloon." "Oh, we could... we should... we'll get it." ""Words, words, words..."" ""Caramel, sweets and chocolate?"" ""If you didn't exist..." "I'd invent you."" " Look at what I found in the kitchen." " What is it?" "A toad." "Alive." "If we get caught we'll say it's to put it in her bed." " Whose?" " Your Catherette's." " Not my Catherette." " And not your Lena?" "By the way, it seems Stendhal was a skirt chaser." "And Pasolini a wild thinker." " That's it." " That's it." "Did you have fun in your little garden?" "Now you look presentable." "They are all in their rooms." "We can visit your sparrow." "I'm afraid of the dark." "All the dark cavities..." "This toad is all about its slippery moisture." "A crooked mouth and a dark cavity encroaked with the sparrow in a sphere of toady-sparrowy-Catherettery." "I'm gobsmacked." "A few more days with you and I'll win the Nobel Prize in thrillerettery." "That's not gonna work!" " Two retards." " Different songs, same tune." " Drop it." " An obsession..." "Yet these crooked lips exist..." "They suck you in, spit you out, from a face so smooth..." "Lena..." "The full moon." "And my lovely erotic watch." "Nosferatu the Vampire." "I preferred the one by Dreyer." " Right, I have to go!" " Where now?" "A little rendezvous on the beach." "Pasolini was killed on a beach." " Just wanted to help." " With what?" "With giving birth, my chicken!" "Oh, you frighten me." "All right, see you later." "I'm dreaming!" "Look what I found at the market." "This is divine." "It is exactly what we need for the house." "Why are you laughing?" "It's what we were looking for." "I don't believe this." "If she'd been a child with very green eyes, she could also be a monster." "A childlike monster with green eyes." "Unfathomable." "Darkness." "She fears or she loves, or nothing at all." "Or something else." "Vile, sensual, cunning, shy, deep, coward, saint, sensitive, pure, faithful, innocent, cheeky, coquettish." "Or simply easy, disillusioned, bored, indifferent, angelic or modest, unhappy, a debauched virginity, brutal shyness, cynical shame, cold heat, sober drunkenness or nothing!" "The dirt, the perversity, the horror!" "Unfathomable." "Darkness." "She fears or she loves, or nothing." "Vile, sensual, sly, shy, deep, coward, saint, sensitive, pure, faithful, innocent, cheeky, maybe coquettish." "Or simply easy, disillusioned, bored, indifferent, passionate or mean, angelic or modest, unhappy, a debauched virginity, a brutal timidity." "The blackness of their hearts." "She was naked before him." "I'll never know anything about her." "I'll ask the husband if his rooster was nude too." "Sir!" "A terrible thing, sir!" "Somebody killed Lena's cat!" " Charlie?" " Yes, Charlie..." "He usually slept with me but that night, I got home after "Star Wars"." "Only this morning..." "What a shock for you..." "I never thought anyone..." "No one, anyone..." "What do you think?" " No idea?" " Where's the idea in hanging a cat!" "And you, dear, dear, wouldn't you know?" "Who, where, how?" "How?" "With this string." " For me, regarding..." " You regard nothing." "Who did this to you, poor darling?" "We know something is going on here..." "We've even started an investigation." "I found it!" "I found it in my room!" "We were thinking of checking Catherette's room." " Checking what?" " Everything." "What's in that box?" "A frog!" "Sparrows, chickens, frogs and cats..." "Who could..." "what kind of a person would..." "No." "The hangings started before we arrived." "The sparrow was a bad sign." "And the pieces of wood..." "What pieces of wood?" "Put your glasses on, you old fool!" " Fool?" "Me?" " Someone..." "Can't see anything, there's the wall!" "If you'd just stop..." "Someone who plants toothpicks... and sprinkles salt on his wart could very well hang a cat." "Okay, let's leave things as they are." "I'd like us to meet in the dining room." "Witold and I want to share a few things." "No more of this." "That's how great detectives do it." "How she has blossomed since last night a pen planted in lemon peel and a file planted in a plastic box." "Needles, pens, lemon peel... safety pins." "Fuck all, yes." "Fuckallisimus!" "So all this shitimus found by these gentlemen in your room?" "Keep yer snout out!" " Where are you going?" " To bury Charlie." "Catherette has her moods..." "Leon." "It can only be Leon!" "Mind you, Madame, you too were swinging..." " I was swinging?" " Yes." "An axe." "At the chopping block." " Me?" " You?" " So what?" " So what!" "You were swinging with a vengeance!" "I wasn't swinging, I was banging." "Lena, my sweet, explain why I was thumping." "Mum, from time to time..." "It's like a crisis now and again." "So she grabs anything just to let off steam." "She smashes." "She breaks glass." "I grab anything." "Anything!" "Yes, anything." "Not anything!" "Anything!" " We should go to the police." " I wouldn't recommend it." "Those bastards are most unpleasant!" "And then... there was more knocking." "From upstairs..." "It was me." "When it takes hold of me, she grabs me by the arm and then she makes a ruckus." "For me to come back to myself." "I heard two sets of noises." "I know, I was on the stairs." "I heard!" "Two sets?" "Y es, I banged again against the shutters." "I was nervous, I wasn't sure that mum had calmed down." "With Lucien's shoe, while he was taking a shower." "We should go help Catherette with the cat." "But, as I'm allergic, wouldn't you..." "So you could say good riddance!" "All this savagery..." "Will you just shut up!" "I'll shut up, fine, but thinking... that, never I will stop!" "She's lying." "She's lying!" "Come." " Why do you say she's lying?" " I was the one banging at the door!" " What for?" " To penetrate." "And then I hanged the cat!" " What did it do to you?" " It was her cat." "A triangle with the sparrow and wood." "Stop it!" "There's something soft but assassin like about cats." "They're atrocious!" "Those electric crackles..." "The cat is good for caressing, but also for torturing." "Listen to me!" "The teapot was the last straw." "What are you saying?" "I killed the cat, but her feet stay so little." " How does this affect you?" " I've seen a lot of things." "She found herself small in front of the cat and was ashamed of the cat." "My friend, you look totally..." " I'll ask forgiveness." " To Lena?" "To the cat." "Too small for everything, she's only good for love, nothing more." "You're getting deep." "Like Sartre or Stendhal..." "Anything relating to her can only be loving." "That happens when a writer hangs a cat?" "And even if she can't guess who did it, she'll still be ashamed of the cat which is her cat." "Our cat." "That wasn't the real murder." "How could this beauty, so perfect and out of reach, unite with me through lying?" "Y es, wait." " May I?" " Y es, come in." "This is to tell you, to tempt you..." "My sweet lovely dumpling, thanks to whom we are all here," "had a happy idea, like all her ideas..." "We should get some fresh air to get away for a bit, from this house, its aberrations, if you want to or not no more guarantees of tranquillity." "The aberration, fiat ubi vult, can happen again-um." "Swinery-tum, in-swine-tum." "Tiriri!" "So, my dumpling had the idea of going on a day trip finishing at the seaside." "Oh my God!" "Lena reminded us of their house, which is nearly finished and quite habitable." "Lena even gave the key to her best friend who is in the middle of her honeymoon." "It's true that in time, she'll be up to her neck in the sea." "Therefore, dumplingette thought of first making a little pilgrimage to fight" "the curse." "Just now they're preparing the grub, some sandwiches... a seaside picnic." "And dumplingette, the telephonette already called Lena's friend..." "And here I am in my very home like an old stray dog, and I cannot trust anybody because who can guarantee" "that it will stop with the cat?" "After the cat, will it not turn into a bigger game?" "And above all, take your car in case anyone wants to regain freedom." "Like you, from Grenoble." "No, from Paris." "Even worse." "The gloom." "Post cards to poo-poo, pee-pee-tum." "The sinister guano tourism." "I will show you little first class landscapes, prima, wonders of wonder-ums, wonderingity-unicus but enchantingness-um tiriri for an entire lifetime." "Leon!" "He is always blah-blahing-um, joking-um." "And dumplingette-the-cateringette!" "This I found seventeen years ago." "He lugs it around everywhere, the old fool!" "The phenomenality of grass blades," "of smallest flowers, a sort of streaming in purest poetry." "Tiriri..." "Licking-um the jowlies of my dumplingette." "If Lena goes, I go." "Full stop." "Sparrows, cats, pieces of wood, chicken, cops..." "and now excursions." "Have you noticed that Lena's put lipstick on?" "I haven't." "Mr Lucien chastised her." "He thinks it's like smearing her mouth with blood." "Vice and Virtue." "Please explain." "My trousers, clean." "Variations, romances, sometimes soft, sometimes brutal." "And nothing can be explained, at least properly." "He to himself for his own." "My little moon beam!" "You've regained your randiness!" "You did!" "It's like going on honeymoon!" "This car's a bone shaker." "A whole trip, in this trap." "And Leon!" " He'll never squeeze inside." " Yes he will." "Your stick, Leon!" " Do you mind?" " Of course, please." "Dumpling and I have one, but it's a hybrid." "These days, my dear, my dear, there are too many hybrids for comfort." " Pity we won't go around." " Why?" "We'd see if Catherette is levitating." "Don't tell me you Pasolinied her." "Oh, the peaks!" "The perspective." "The beyond!" "Careful!" "A hawk?" " A non-sparrow anyway." " A whore hawk." "Hard to hang, this one." "Feeling better, my little doll?" " Faith!" " Y es." "Fifteen minutes of infinity, blackjack in a life where nothing's free." "God almighty, merciful God..." "The devil take me if I forget this one." "Your flights of fancy, Leon." "What a charming excursion." "Father, did you hitchhike?" " Where to?" " A sandwich?" " Same as us." "To the sea." " An excursion." "These are not good walking shoes." "Does it not inconvenience you to take the priest in your car?" " Not at all." " Oh come." "Aren't you waiting for me?" "Y a de la joie!" " Something begins to form." " What?" "The embryo of the whole." "Just like "Nausea"." "The bird, too high, the red mouth, rustic fingers, too low." "He had to meddle with something." "Something that disquiets him." " What, do you think?" " Some sin?" "This priest, a colleague, sin, conscience, crime, remorse surfaces..." "He bothers, he's too much..." "Almost like the teapot." "All these things which stay behind, are becoming more and more present..." "Everything is hybrid, as Leon says." " What would you do to her?" " To whom?" "Lena, who else?" " Aside from bang her..." " Hang her." "You fuckwit!" "I dunno, kiss her, adore her, caress her." "Torture her." "Humiliate her, just to see." "If she puts on lipstick after her cat's death," "Then push a finger into her mouth!" "And Leon, always the gentleman!" "It's Tolo." "Ginette." "Witold." "Tolo is the gym teacher in our school." "He was a brave in Afghanistan." "He resigned when they pulled out, then he met me." "It's been two weeks since they can legally do it." "So bink, bonk, bang, biology!" "Will you join us, Father?" " I have something heavy to tell you." " Heavy?" "I'm in love." "That Ginette, isn't her body boring?" " Mono-toned?" " Sparrow-toned!" "Boring?" "So, welcome." "There's the kitchen, the toilet is on the right." "The rooms are upstairs." "Take any you want, Lena and I will choose last." "Okay?" "Don't keep the wine." " How many are we for lunch?" " Nine." "Mono-toned and boring." "Chasms, knots, strata, patterns, rhythms, wounds, sores, scree..." "Did you see those delicately joined limbs, like a ballerina's..." " Careful." " Shit, you're a real coconut." "Limbs, delicately joined..." "The irresistible and menacing tide of things." "The irresistible and menacing tide of things." "Lena, clean or dirty..." "I love her." "I love her." "Oh, there you are Father, dinner's served!" "Tiriri." "Cooks it, it's gone." "Over." "No more." "As soon as the sun goes down..." "In vino-um veritas!" "And the mutton?" "Tolo's doing as well?" "Tolo's, it's always Tolo's..." "These are not those first class landscape-ums, but have patience." "Everything is too much!" "What a joy, on top of that, weather to die for!" "Yes, Colonel!" "To die, says I!" "To die." "Not to die, to die!" "Some wine?" "Remind you of someone?" "Of course." "Catherette's spitting image, well, except for..." "Almost everything where one needs it." "But then... a bodily solitude..." "Oh, I've got my eyes on you, scoundrel." "Such bliss!" "No TV!" "It's like at a station, waiting for a train to depart..." " Would you like some wine?" " A drop." "Blood down the drain!" "Would you believe that seventeen years ago, my Leon was quite fit?" "Dodging and contrast." " Care for anything else, Father?" " Camembert." "Oh, Camembert, here it is!" "With salad." "Delicious, the salad!" "You were so much more delicious!" "My callipygian Venus." "Prehistoric..." "We shouldn't complain." " Except about the Spielberg movies..." " Terribly off..." "It doesn't have..." "The ineffable." "More wine..." "We love your trousers, Mr Tolo." "We're such fans of Tintin!" " We hated him in jeans." " Lack of class, Ginny." "Oh you and class..." "I'll talk to Ralph and Lang, might inspire them." "Castafiore's aria, what is it?" "I'm ecstatic to see myself so lovely in the mirror!" "The Brussels restaurant, where the..." ""Klov"!" "She stinks more and more..." "Or maybe its the priest..." "A sort of physical self-centredness?" "The smell is barely bearable." "Makes you puke, right?" "When she gets a whiff of herself!" "I could take three baths a day, with a few drops of lemon." "Jokes and japes." "The petits fours melt in the mouth!" "Don't I have the right?" "Y es, I have the right..." "I know he's handsome, and I'm not." "To human meanness, don't I have the right to oppose the purity of my love?" "You cannot forbid it, nothing can replace love!" "And I'm not ashamed." "I need my siesta!" "I have a right to it." "You coming, Tolo?" "Yes, my love." " Your fly." " Yes, my precious..." "When her father dies, an industrialist she'll inherent a packet!" "A siesta." "Yes I am." "And a shower." "To be clean." "Clean me, Lucien?" "But now..." "Already he loaned them his car..." " What kind?" " A black one." " It's a Merde-cedes." " Mercedes cars are shitty." "Mrs Woytis had to come down a bit from her pedestal-um when she married me." "Leave me alone!" "If the priest vomits, she shouldn't, her mouth reinforcing the ecclesiastic mouth." "But if priesty pukes, why shouldn't she?" "How long will it hide and encircle?" " Bleurgh." " Bleurgh what?" "Spielbleurgh." "What else?" "Bleurgman the filmmaker, Strindbleurgh," "Bleurghson, the philosopher of boredom." "What do these mouths have against me?" "Well, you're less dumb than the others." "So many emotions..." " I'm done." "And you?" " Drunk." "Oh, but what drunkness?" "What promises?" "L 'amour..." "Oh, what a great idea coming here!" "Exactly like facing mountain, facing the sparrow, the ceiling, the axe, the waste like in Catherette's room... the cat." "Nothing." "Listen to the silence!" "The Rule of the priest, weddings, his fat fingers." " Oh, that's viscous..." " Oblique." "I suffer thinking of caressing her nape." "Whose?" "Ginette's, asshole..." "Not the priest's!" "Oh, the lips of Catherette!" "You never stop astounding me." "To write, isn't it to astound?" "Or the generosity whispers to a woman that her hand can constitute a gift." "Their torture." "Her torture." "How can I listen to silence if you blah blah?" ""The right... to love."" "Staring at the view or at my toes?" "At your..." "Your lipstick's faded." "Indeed." " Your neck..." " What?" "If I broke your cat's neck" "I would have to break your neck too and hang you." "Well, only just for me..." "God, are you naive." "But why me?" "Because there is an imperfection in each perfection." "A wrong in each righteousness." "A mouth flawed in a mouth." "A mouth just like mine." ""When will this inner night disappear" ""The universe" " And I - my soul " ""When shall my day come?" ""When will I wake up from being awake?" ""I don't know" ""The sun shines on high noon" ""And impossible to stare at" ""The heart beats far from itself" ""And impossible to hear" ""When will this drama without theatre" " Or this theatre without drama - disappear?"" " You know this one?" " It's better in the original." ""Who's the one who lives inside you?" "O cat staring at me with eyes of life" ""The same one even if totally different." ""It's him!" "It's him!"" "When will this drama without a teapot disappear?" "You forgot that I'm a language teacher." " How many do you know?" " Some." " Lena!" " Coming!" "I only know one, barely..." "I'm sick." "I'm very sick..." "I'm not so sick after all." "But what are you doing here, Leon?" "Nothing!" "I do nothing!" "I'm doing what one does all one's life:" "nothing!" "The chap-um stands up, sits down, jabbers, writes, and nothing." "The chap-um insures, sells, gets married, doesn't get married, and nothing!" "The chap-um marches-um in sand-um and nothing." "Bubbly water." "A whale." "And for what?" "Nothing!" "I've had enough!" "Thievery!" "You look upset." "Is it still the cat?" "The cat-um is but a detail..." "On the other hand, you my old boozing partner." "Look at me!" "Bring your nose-um closer!" "To sniff you?" "I've put on some cologne!" "Tiriri!" " You coming with me?" " Where?" " The other way." " I'll grab my umbrella." "Look!" "Look at this immense water salty like tears!" "But..." "But here, too: nothing." "And you?" "Apart from that... yes, there are some nerves in my tension, and some tension in my nerves!" " Where you going?" " Wherever I'll blow the wind!" "As a pilgrim with my stick to Mass I go!" "Where I'll be my own priest, my little man, my stinking Pope!" "I sing, evenings and morning" "I sing!" "The cadaver-um of the scrounging cat could grate my nerves." "You are probably thinking about my little muzzle-games on the cloth-um" "T oothpickums and salt, under the gaze of my wife." "Except that she doesn't get it." " Get what?" " That bleurgh." "Any bleurghing of dodging and contrast." "Look at that!" "This bumblebee." "Like a helicopter, the rascal." "Whenever I want." "Because, dear, my youth was so-so." "Me just a bit, but not really..." "Like behind glass, one watches the other from morning to night." "And I invented for myself, a tiny pleasure at the office." "With my nail, I deepened a groove in the wooden table." "And once in Neuilly, when I was insuring an actress, a lioness, believe me, handing over papers, I touched her hand." "The mad excitement of this tiny touch but no way..." "So I wised up:" "why seek the hand of another when we have two ourselves?" "With practice, one can become an expert." "A hand touches another, no one can see it." "And it's not even a felony, but with a finger one can touch one's knee or the ear..." " You're bleurghing too?" " I what?" "Proper, huh?" "Tutti frutti!" "Our other follies." "In the void the desert-um in the far far aways, in the deadly calm of the mountains, the sea..." "Leaving aside all what remains, a left over, immense and menacing..." "Do you really think I'm blind?" "Say..." "Secreto-desire-um and bleurgh." "You Sir, would love to get into-bleurgh the panties of my almost daughter in full lover-um number one in her tiriri marriage-um!" " You're a shit." " Oh no." "The priest is the shit." "Besides, who knows?" "With me, at least, you know, a dumplingette, a grain of salt, Catherette and bang!" "If a corn can hurt the foot why could it not bring ecstasy?" " You're a believer." "I'd never guess." " Believer..." "Even the slightest of things cannot be without belief..." "For, primum:" "the boar, the lion, the mountain." "Secundum:" "the lice, the sparrow, the worm." "Ergo, the huge and pathetic scale..." "It is true that I fuck about often, to facilitate." "But if I wouldn't facilitate, it would be too difficult." "So it was you?" "Artillery discharges are as important as the sound of bells..." "Are We All Murderers?" "A movie." "Wondrous Marina Vlady!" "It wasn't Marina Vlady!" " Lick!" " My finger?" "Lick a bit, say I!" "Or go spit on yourself." "Because you thought Leon, the old fart, his life ridiculous, subterranean, did he bring you here for nothing?" " But it's for the anniversary." " Whose?" "Well, not exactly seventeen years less one month and three days." "Mine." "Water, sweet!" "Sweet water!" "Once, only once in all my life-tum." "With the little slut helping in the kitchen." "I reached." "She was working in a small hotel that has since burnt down." "Luckily, Lucien settled down not far from here." "He's charming, Lucien, isn't he?" "Lucien, who doesn't want his wife being actress." "It was here, just once..." "I've known... the miracle, if you allow me... between grace and malediction." "I've loved." "There might be a chill in the air." "Your husband?" "Somewhere..." "Sorry." "Sorry." "Sorry." "Did you see him, Mr. Witol?" "Yes, in the forest." " And?" " He wants us to join him." " What for?" " I don't know." "Admire his landscape?" "At night?" "Typical Leon." "One sees nothing at night." "Mr Witol, as for walking, I gave it my due." "It's Witol-d." "Queen Maxima... the King..." "Hold that for me." "The worst part is that she is so inspired." "Lena?" "Of course not Lena, Ginny!" "They never cut her any slack." "The poor soul." "Fuck, you don't look so good." "It was him." "Leon." " Except the cat." " What?" "As long as you did not understand that every thing is a huge army, everything, a crowd..." "It is as if we were not quite there, me and her, her and me, it's as if we had been projected from elsewhere from the moon." "Hello Mickey!" "I'm still here for you." " Get dressed, we'll have some fun." " Super!" "We could use some!" "The events we went through, are slipping through our fingers like sweepings, and all those blows..." "Too clean, her Lucien." "Isn't he a bit dumb?" "No, he's a swell guy." "He's got surgeon's hands, not like mine." "Mind you, sticking these in wherever." "How did a guy like that get such a beauty?" "His story about that chicken, also weird." "Couples forming by chance." "What is there to say?" "Carpe diem!" "The weight of the here and now has become like the bleurgh, decisive." "The weight of the here and now has become like the bleurgh, decisive." "Aren't you over doing it, a bit?" "There will be a full moon, it can be romantic." "Where are we going?" "Leon, the arrows, the piece of wood, the axe, everything." "But what is curious, very curious, is that it changes nothing." "I'm drowning with Lena." "I won't let you." "With your shitty-tum thriller." "It won't be a thriller." "A film." "Bravo, Tolo!" "You did well to cover up, there might be mosquitoes." "The sea will smell wonderful after the dew." "You're the one smelling wonderful." "Careful!" "How are you doing?" "It's Catherette who illuminates me." "From where will the predator pounce?" "I wonder what's going on..." "Soon it's me who'll be on my honeymoon!" "Anatole?" "Would you carry me across the stream?" "Right, Tolo, why not you?" "Anatole, please, carry her." "Let's go!" "I think I forgot to pack my razor." "Would you mind lending me yours, later?" "It's time to drown the bug." "Clouds, clouds... the moon." "It's grand." "Then too, as I remember." "I remember-um." "Transfigured Night." "You are just a face." "A mask." "An object, a thing." "Behind it, there's nothing." "The void." "Say nothing." "I know that without her, my life loses its music, its freshness, its passion." "Without her, standing there, full of attractions I no longer want to see." "My life is turning rotten, perverted, flat." "Her smile... her mouth... her hands." "It was I who became disgusting, not her." "I am the maker of disgust." "It's my fault." "Who will believe me, who would have thought?" "It's different doing it to a corpse than to somebody alive." "You're hurting me." "Sorry." "Maybe he hanged himself because you slept with a tenant?" "Leon?" "Catherette?" "Or was it a mania for hanging that drove him to hang himself..." "There are no impossible combinations." "Catherette's mouth, your mouth, the sparrow, wood, cat." "Lucien hangs..." "To hang!" "Hangings turn upon me, I've fused them with two mouths." "I could not hang you." "But that would be a disappointment." "We're in love with each other..." "And if I want to do you in, it's because you..." "Because one cannot fathom what another has in his teapot." "Me, an exemplary spouse, holding this egg, toying with it between my fingers." "Yes, but how to turn it?" "Innocently, virtuously..." "But if I want to, I can also..." "Tolo!" "He's not organising, Leon-um." "He thinks." "Lenin said:" ""Thinking has a colossal future."" "You never told me why the towel moved by itself." "In "The Dumpted"." "I wouldn't know." "There's a reason I have Gombrowicz's first name." "He never knew how to finish his novels, nor their meaning." "I can't get you any closer..." "And your father wouldn't be so hot about it." "No..." "Do you have faith?" "No..." "I can't get you any closer..." "And your father wouldn't be so hot about it." "No." "Do you have faith?" "No..." "I still have to introduce her to my parents." "You'll see Catherette?" "For sure." "He to himself for his own." "He to himself for his own." "Yes, we kept an eye on each other." "But Catherette could have come and lurked in the shadows." "And that could have been the murder." "Ralph and Lang, of course..." "It's here." "Lena!" "You will become a great writer." "Will you help me to become a real actress?" "A real actress?" "My mother wouldn't approve." ""Today we had chicken fricassee with béchamel sauce for dinner."" "Perfect, if not for the bunch of people in the frame." "What are you fucking doing?" "Leave her alone." "Malady of love" "Malady of youth..." "Monsieur Leon, what's happening to you?" "Nothing." "There's nothing more to see."