The Bear and the Paving Stone by Toshiyuki Horie

Author:Toshiyuki Horie [Toshiyuki Horie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782274384
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2017-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

I CLOSED MY BOOK.

Littré had lived in Le Mesnil-le-Roi in the Seine-et-Oise department. His house was old and small, though it did have a sizeable garden. He would arise at eight each morning and, while his wife was tidying his bedroom-cum-study, would go downstairs and work on such simple tasks as writing a preface. Then, at nine o’clock, he’d go back upstairs and pick up the proofs of his dictionary. After he’d finished lunch, at one o’clock, he’d return to his desk and work on articles for the Journal des savants until three. Between three and six, he’d immerse himself in his dictionary once again. He’d also work on the dictionary, after dinner, between seven and midnight. His wife and daughter would then go to bed, while Littré would continue working until three in the morning. Though there may have been minor distractions, Littré faithfully repeated this schedule every day for over a decade. It must have required an astounding level of physical, let alone mental, tenacity and spiritual strength. Here I was in Normandy, reading about Littré’s life in a house much like his, and I was exhausted after just one day. I had no means of diversion or entertainment, so I just lay on the sofa, smoking and staring at the photo Yann had given me.

The photo I’d eventually decided on was of the granite factory, a shot that Yann himself acknowledged had come out well. There was the factory building, which had a corrugated iron roof, and on the ground in front of it was a pile of cubic stones, just tossed there, as if discarded. Overhead, the sky was filled with an ominous cloud, which made rain seem imminent. The stones of the wall of the factory were all different sizes and shapes, a little bit higgledy-piggledy. In stark contrast, the exposed ends of the stones in the pile seemed all cleanly cut. In fact, it was this contrast between the two that made it an interesting composition.

As I gazed at that mound of stones, mindlessly piled together, one random thought led to another, and I had the sudden urge to see how Littré had defined a paving stone. Yann had said he had some volumes of Littré’s dictionary. There was no bookshelf in the downstairs living room, though, so I supposed they had to be upstairs. I hadn’t thought of going up there since that was Yann’s private space, but I decided to make an exception for Littré. I climbed the ancient stairs, each one creaking as I made my way up.

The loft was bigger than I had imagined. The area where Yann had his bed was separated from the area where he had his desk by a large, wall-like bookcase that was filled with boxes of negatives, magazines and an array of books. There was a row of A.E. van Vogt novels, which I remembered from Yann’s apartment in Paris. Beneath them, on the bottom shelf, were the heavy dictionaries I was looking for.

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