The Xenobiotic Invasion by Théo Varlet

Author:Théo Varlet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2012-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

X. Enter Danae

Even in the context of my personal history, the sentiments that agitated me that afternoon and evening are of no great importance. They only influenced the events of my life in a negligible fashion, and it’s better to pass over them in silence. Destiny’s decision was not modified in the slightest by the follies that racked my brain during the hours I spent walking through the city, and then in my studio: by my resentment, in thinking about the separation she had imposed on me for that exceedingly precious day; by my rebellion against the obstacles and my resolution to vanquish them, to take Aurore away in order that she need only listen to the voice of her heart.

During those hours, I believed in the absolute power of the human will; I forgot my habitual belief that we are in the hands of the gods: our interior gods and those of events...

And by virtue of an ultimate inconsequence, I went so far as to reproach Aurore for having made me that confession, for having let me understand that she loved me, when I was beginning to adapt myself to our reciprocal situation, when I had resigned myself to being nothing to her but a good comrade...

How the retrospective illusion of passion can transform and falsify the memory of our own sentiments!

But, I repeat, the moral suffering I endured that day, and everything I promised myself to say the flowing day, during the sitting, are of no importance. None of it was realized—even the last part.

It’s better to offer a glimpse of the situation in Paris, that evening and the following day. That period of my life was, in general, so intricately linked with the history of the Lichen, that I cannot recount my memoirs of one without talking about the other. During the 18 hours in question, however, only the Lichen had any importance, and I can dispense with any mention of my humble person; I do not routinely mistake myself for the center of the universe.

This time, instead of recording events in the order in which I found out about them, I shall anticipate the next day’s news, in order to talk about the facts of communal experience.

The total stoppage of traffic throughout the Metro network, even on lines still unaffected, did honor to the discernment and decisiveness of the directors of the company, who immediately realized the urgency of that measure and dared to institute it at 7 p.m., despite of the consequences for the shareholders.

Admittedly, it required two further incidents and several more “explosions of life” analogous to that of the North-South to make the company understand that it ought not to be stubborn in maintaining the train service. At 5 p.m., the Maillot-Vincennes line was badly contaminated in its turn, the tunnels invade by an ultra-rapid growth of lichen, and two trains were blocked as ours had been, one at the Champs-Élysées station and the other near Bastille—but the current was swiftly cut off and there were no victims.

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