II. To be

I have been. It is so a bit – to be. Then she said to herself once again: I have been. And the picture has opened up. She sees herself going. She felt that walk of her, in hesitancy, that ground, in suffering, and that indecision of her, in pertinacity. Any way. She separated little her stepping from the earth, from the earth, and said again: i have been. Again.

There, on the edge of the road, at its very bottom, on the end of its lasting, at the very bottom of her slow descending – to Someone, to Something, while she keeps silence – here it is, receiving her. That sunshine. Morning. City. More alive now in her memory than what she was alive in it.

There rescued her, that sunshine. Not sunshine, one of its traces, one of its comfortable smiles at the very bottom of the street. Neither too hot, nor too clear. Only a trace. But one has still to take up to it, to that trace, and to one's salvation.

A pleasant light of an indifferently nice morning in the city from her memory. She said again: I have been. And the picture has got broadened up. Humbly, from up, from the top of the streets, on the left and on the right from her descending

cabbage, fish, a late tasty artichoke, too big, cakes, sweet, candied, ice cream, pink i white, white ice cream and white lingerie, intimately dirty from its early purpose, shoos, dishes, poorly decorated, chopped up, hosting, home warm dishes, a lot of shoes, cafes, a smell of coffee, many smells, legs, many legs, a shoe on the leg and ground, and another shoe lost in the air, in a vivid move of a nervous… deodorants and washing staff, food, food for dogs, dogs food, to say it, and dogs dishes, love for dogs, and dogs love, flowers, fragrant, blue, parisienne, home staff, ice cream, cabbage, fish

Paris, 1973/4