A Void by Georges Perec

Author:Georges Perec [Perec, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

quantity, that total taboo, that is transforming - ab ovo, so to

say — all our talk into poppycock and driving all our actions to

distraction. All of us know of this anonymous abomination that

acts upon us without any of us knowing just how it acts upon

us, all of us know, alas, that, by continually barring our path,

continually obliging us to adopt unidiomatic circumlocutions,

roundabout ways of saying things and dubiously woolly abstrac-

tions, continually damning us to a bogus philosophy and its just

as bogus spiritual comfort, a 'comfort' stifling all our crying and

sighing, sobbing and blubbing - all of us know, as I say, that a

wall far too high for any of us to surmount is now imprisoning

us for good and a malignant wrath is thwarting all our approxima-

tions of that missing sign - quixotic approximations born out of

a natural wish to grasp such an amorphous immaculation in our

hands. So, Haig, my boy, you must know that, from this day

1 4 0

on, as in a not too distant past, Thanatos is in our midst, prowling

all around Azincourt.

' T o start with," said Augustus, "I was optimistic about saving

you from that inhuman fatality to which I was bound hand and

foot. But I know now that I can do nothing for you, nothing.

Thus you must go - for what a miscalculation you would commit,

and I would commit, if, risking your all, you had a notion of

staying on in Azincourt. No, my boy, go you must, and by

nightfall!"

Instandy dismissing this proposition as absurd, and unworthy

of a Clifford, Haig said that his "motivation" was unconvincing

and most probably phony and that Augustus was simply trying

to do away with his son!

Oh, poor Douglas was in a sorry condition, almost touchingly

so. "What! You, too, my own blood! Don't think I don't know

what you want - you want to find my body in a ditch, don't

you? God, I was so trusting, I put my faith in you, I would look

up to you with a truly filial admiration - and now I find you

hatching a plot against your own son — a plot as brutal as it's

stupid! And so goddamn obvious it wouldn't fool a child! Don't

you know what candour is? If you truly want to abandon your

own offspring, cry, shout, pull his hair out if you must, but don't

try to justify your cowardly act with such an idiotic alibi!"

"My boy," said Augustus with a groan, profoundly hurt by

such an insulting slight on his honour and probity. But his words

got lost in an uncontrollably loud burst of sobbing.

That night I found out from him that it was his wish to blurt it

all out - that Augustus, in short, if only for an instant, was willing

to inform Haig of his status as a bastard, inform him of Zahir,

of Othon Lippmann, and of Tryphiodorus in his grubby smock,

and of his lustral baths, and so on, and on. But that took guts,

and his valour would finally fail him.

Without saying a word, Haig took a long, last look at his papa;

and, making an abrupt U-turn, ran off out of his sight.

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