Philippe Besson Quotes

I just wanted to write to tell you that I have been happy during these months together, that I have never been so happy, and that I already know I will never be so happy again.

Why me? He says: Because you are not like all the others, because I don't see anyone but you and you don't even realize it. He adds this phrase, which for me is unforgettable: Because you will leave and we will stay.

This is important: he sees me in a certain way, a way he will never deviate from. In the end, love was only possible because he saw me not as who I was, but as the person I would become.

(And when you've been hurt once, you're afraid to try again later, in dread of enduring the same pain. You avoid getting hurt in an attempt to avoid suffering: for years, this principle will serve as my holy sacrament. So many lost years.)

Nothing touches me more than cracks in the armor and the person who reveals them.

I think I love him for this loneliness, that it's what pushed me toward him. I love his aloofness, his disengagement with the outside world. Such singularity moves me.

This feeling of love, it transports me, it makes me happy. At the same time, it consumes me and makes me miserable, the way all impossible loves are miserable.

Have you noticed how the most beautiful landscapes lose their brilliance as soon as our thoughts prevent us from seeing them properly?

I know that Thomas consented to this single picture only because he knew (had decided) that it was our last moment together. He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.

I don't know then that one day I won't be seventeen. I don't know that youth doesn't last, that it's only a moment, and then it disappears and by the time you finally realize it, it's too late. It's finished, vanished, lost. There are some around me who can sense it; the adults repeat it constantly but I don't listen. Their words roll over me but don't stick. Like water off the feathers of a duck's back. I'm an idiot. An easygoing idiot.

I had the time to think all the way home about how affairs of the body are so much more preferable to affairs of the heart, but that sometimes you don't have the choice.

He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.

In the end, love was only possible because he saw me not as who I was, but as the person I would become.

No matter how much you want to respect someone's freedom (even when you consider it selfish), you still have your own pain, anger, and melancholy to contend with.

Always we desire too much or not enough and we compensate accordingly.

En fin de compte, l'amour n'a été possible que parce qu'il m'a vu non pas tel que j'étais, mais tel que j'allais devenir.

I also know how much of yourself you have to leave behind in order to look like everyone else.

I discover that absence has a consistency, like the dark water of a river, like oil, some kind of sticky dirty liquid that you can struggle and perhaps drown in. It has a thickness like night, an indefinite space with no landmarks, nothing to bang against, where you search for a light, some small glimmer, something to hang on to and guide you. But absence is, first and foremost, silence. A vast, enveloping silence that weighs you down and puts you in a state where any unforeseeable, identifiable sound can make you jump.

Je me demande si la froideur des pères fait l'extrême sensibilité des fils.

But we’re left stunted, compromised, by the burden of having to always lie and censor ourselves.

Je dis : pourquoi moi ? Il dit  : parce tu n'es pas du tout comme les autres, parce qu'on ne voit que toi sans que tu t'en rendes compte. Il ajoute cette phrase, pour moi inoubliable  : parce que tu partiras et que nous resterons.

I wonder if it's cold fathers who make the sensitive sons.

I should be able to stay in this state of ecstasy. Or astonishment. Or let myself be overwhelmed by the incomprehensibility of it all. But the feeling that prevails the moment he disappears is that of being abandoned. Perhaps because it is already a familiar feeling.

Il me rend à la solitude. La plus profonde, celle qu'on ressent au cœur d'une foule.

We are alone in the world. I've never enjoyed the rain so much.

Today, I'd like to slap this seventeen-years old kid, not because of the grades but because of his incessant need to please those who would judge him

It's the most simple words that destroy us.

Today, when I meet children on this beach, when I see them running in the dunes, or lying on the hot stone wall that was once a levee, I remember that I was like them once, with their incredible lightness and insouciance, soaking in the sun. You can never really let go of your childhood. Especially when it was happy.

He groans, no longer able to contain it, a sound that he releases maybe without even realizing it himself; he moves me tremendously. As I've said, nothing in life moves me more than these moments of pure abandon, of self-oblivion.

Desire does not go out like a match, it extinguishes slowly as it burns into ash.

He adds this phrase, which for me is unforgettable: Because you will leave and we will stay. Even now I remain fascinated by this sentence. Understand, it isn't the premonition that fascinates me, nor even the fact that it has been realized. It's also not the maturity or poignancy implied. It's not the arrangement of the words, even if I'm aware that I probably wouldn't have been able to come up with those exact ones myself. It's the violence that the words carry within them, their admission of inferiority and, at the same time, of love. He tells me something I did not know: that I will leave.

The question that imposed itself: Why me? The image doesn't fit: my thick glasses, my stretched-out blue Nordic sweater, the student head slaps, the too-good grades, the feminine gestures. Why me? He says: Because you are not like all the others, because I don't see anyone but you and you don't even realize it.

His was the first male sex I held in my hand, other than my own. My first kiss was the one he gave me. My first embrace, skin against skin, was with him.

I sense the ambition and ease of a generation that has grown up on a much smaller planet. Those who consider travel an ordinary adventure rather than a grand expedition, for whom a quiet life is considered a slow death. I see this child of the world and can't help but think how fate probably would have played out differently had his father been driven by the same curiosity. If he had not lived in another day. If he had known how to free himself.

(I correct myself because I've just been lying. Of course, it took time, a lot of time, before I admitted that everything was lost, before I decided to say goodbye forever. I kept hoping for a sign. I thought of initiating another meeting, I started letters that I never sent. Desire does not go out like a match, it extinguishes slowly as it burns into ash. In the end I gave up on all possibility of a reunion.)

It was love, of course. And tomorrow, there will be a great emptiness. But we could not continue—you have your life waiting for you, and I will never change. I just wanted to write to tell you that I have been happy during these months together, that I have never been so happy, and that I already know I will never be so happy again.

I’m in this state of one-way desire. I feel this desire swarming in my belly and running up my spine. But I have to constantly contain and compress it so that it doesn’t betray me in front of others. Because I’ve already understood that desire is visible.

He goes back to the books—this crazy number of books in the house neatly lined up or stacked in piles. All of a sudden I see a sort of admiration return to his face, but it’s a painful admiration; what he likes about me is also what keeps me separate from him.

I wrote the word: love. I did consider using another one. It's a curious notion, love; difficult to identify and define. There are so many degrees and variations. I could have contented myself with saying that I was smitten (and it is true that Thomas knew how to make me weaken), or infatuated (he could conquer, clatter, even bewitch like no one else), or obsessed (he often provoked a mixture of bewilderment and excitement, turning everything upside down), or seduced (once he caught me in his net, there was so no escaping), or taken with (I was stupidly joyful, I could heat up over nothing), or even blinded (anything that embarrassed me, I pushed to the side, minimizing his defects, putting his good qualities on a pedestal), or disturbed (no longer was I ever quite myself), which would have had less positive connotations. I could have explained it away as a mere affection, having a 'crush,' an explanation vague enough to mean anything. But those would just have been words. The truth, the brutal truth, was that I was in love. Enough to use the right word. All the same, I wondered if this could be a complete invention. As you already know, I invented stories all the time, with so much authenticity that people usually ended up believing me sometimes even I was no longer able to disentangle the true from the false). Could I have made this story up from scratch? Could I have turned an erotic obsession into a passion? Yes, it's possible.

Because you will leave and we will stay.

here are the lost years won back with words,

Je sais que Thomas n'a consenti à cette unique photo que parce qu'il avait compris (décidé) que c'était notre dernier moment ensemble. Il sourit pour que j'emporte son sourire avec moi.

I've seen the wedding pictures, my mother put them in an album. She looks at them regularly, she must like to remember her youth. (Or else she confuses youth with happiness, as people frequently do.)

I say “courage,” but it may be something else. Those who have not taken this step, who have not come to terms with themselves, are not necessarily frightened, they are perhaps helpless, disoriented, lost as one is in the middle of a forest that’s too dark or dense or vast.

I discover the pain of waiting, because there is this refusal to admit defeat, to believe that a future where it happens again is possible. I try to convince myself that he'll make some kind of sign in my direction. The memory of our tangled bodies will overcome his resistance, it has to. As he told me himself, it's a question of necessity. You can't fight necessity. If you do, necessity will win. I discover the pain of missing someone. I miss his skin, his body, which I once possessed and then had taken away from me. It must be given back under threat of madness.

I want to experience only the moment, not the looming certainty that I will lose that moment, not the certain awareness that, ultimately, this moment must slip from present to past, only the joy of the moment and the graze of memory.

C'était de l'amour évidemment. Et demain, ça sera un grand vide.

I listen to you, but all I want to remember is your skin, your smell, the life that pulses within you.

It is important to have friends. They are the meaning we give to life.

Lucas adds: Even so, there is something that has always struck me in the photos . . . my father often looks sad. I guess he didn’t like having to smile on command.

I smile when he tells me the story. It's also the first time I've smiled at him. He smiles back at me. It seems as intimate to me, as magnetic, as skin against skin.

Tout ça sentait les économies de bout de chandelle, pas la misère mais la médiocrité, ce qui est indéniablement beaucoup plus impardonnable.

In any case, I like to repeat his name to myself in secret. I like to write it on scraps of paper. I am stupidly sentimental: that hasn't changed much.

You must have liked him a lot, to look at me like that.

... a sense of not belonging is something one inherits.

He tells me something I did not know: that I will leave.

I am an exemplary student, one who never misses a class, who almost always gets the best grades, who is the pride of his teachers.

You get used to everything, even the defection of those you thought you were bound to forever.

I add: It was then that we lost touch, he and I. These last words are articulated with the least possible affect, as if life is just like that sometimes, you spend time together and then lose touch and life goes on—as if there were no breaks from which you never quite recover.

And then over time, it dissipates, and fades, dispersing like pollen in the air at the return of spring. Lucas whispers: You get used to everything, even the defection of those you thought you were bound to forever.

Later I will write about this longing, the intolerable deprivation of the other. I will write about the sadness that eats away at you, making you crazy. It will become the template for my books, in spite of myself. I wonder sometimes if I have ever written of anything else. It’s as if I never recovered from it: the inaccessible other, occupying all my thoughts.

Finally, slowly, I raise my head and lean back on my elbows and take in the sight of him. I'm struck by his voracity. He's like a ravenous child who has just been given food and prefers to choke on it. I'm not sure where this need for another man's sex comes from but I sense that on the other side of all the repression and self-censoring there exists an equally powerful fever.

I think: In the end, he remained hidden all his life. In spite of the great departure, the ambitious effort to forge a new existence, he fell back into all the same traps: shame, the impossibility of sharing a love that endures.

Mais surtout, nous ne retrouverons pas ce qui nous a poussés l'un vers l'autre, un jour. Cette urgence très pure. Ce moment unique. Il y a eu des circonstances, une conjonction de hasards, une somme de coïncidences, une simultanéité de désirs, quelque chose dans l'air, quelque chose aussi qui tenait à l'époque, à l'endroit, et ça a formé un moment, et ça a provoqué la rencontre, mais tout s'est distendu, tout est reparti dans des directions différentes, tout a éclaté, à la manière d'un feu d'artifice dont les fusées explosent au ciel nocturne dans tous les sens et dont les éclats retombent en pluie, et meurent à mesure qu'ils chutent et disparaissent avant de pouvoir toucher le sol, pour que ça ne brûle personne, pour que ça ne blesse personne, et le moment est terminé, mort, il ne reviendra pas  ; c'est cela qui nous est arrivé.

I wasn't looking for a diversion, or a way to soothe my pain. I wasn't looking for an alternative. I just gave in to the ease of it. That was all.

Without the war, without this magnificent summer, this absence of men, would we ever have met?

What one believes when one is sixteen is more powerful than any truth.

I need to say everything before I die, I cannot die carrying this secret, this amazing secret.

I did not understand then that the bac was the end of us.

He says: It’s a letter that was written a long time ago but never sent. It’s addressed to you. It starts with your first name. It dates from August 1984.

Il a, sur le bord des lèvres, toutes les rancunes de l’enfance.

Je me souviens d’instants d’une grâce indépassable dans une solitude insondable.

Au fond, je n’écris que pour retrouver la belle sensation du soleil luisant entre les omoplates d’un garçon étendu, ventre et visage contre le sable, dans août qui s’en va.

Et puis, il l’a dit, c’est toute sa vie : on ne s’excuse pas de ce qui fait sa vie.

Dans le spectacle de son absence, c’est sa présence que je reconnais.

I just wanted to write to tell you that I have been happy during these months together, that I have never been so happy and that I already know I will never be so happy again.

I will write about the sadness that eats away at you, making you crazy. It will become the template for my books, in spite of myself. I wonder sometimes if I have ever written of anything else.

J'ai dix-sept ans. Je ne sais pas que je n'aurai plus jamais dix-sept ans, je ne sais pas que la jeunesse, ça ne dure pas, que ça n'est qu'un instant, que ça disparaît et quand on s'en rend compte il est trop tard, c'est fini, elle s'est volatilisée, on l'a perdue, certains autour de moi le pressentent et le disent pourtant, les adultes le répètent, mais je ne les écoute pas, leurs paroles roulent sur moi, ne s'accrochent pas, de l'eau sur les plumes d'un canard, je suis un idiot, un idiot insouciant.

He says: Because you are not like all the others, because I don’t see anyone but you and you don’t even realize it. He adds this phrase, which for me is unforgettable: Because you will leave and we will stay.

I don’t know then that one day I won’t be seventeen. I don’t know that youth doesn’t last, that it’s only a moment, and then it disappears and by the time you finally realize it, it’s too late. It’s finished, vanished, lost.

Those who have not taken this step, who have not come to terms with themselves, are not necessarily frightened, they are perhaps helpless, disoriented, lost as one is in the middle of a forest that’s too dark or dense or vast.

We make love without a condom. AIDS is there though. We even know its true identity. It’s no longer referred to as the “gay cancer.” It’s there but we think we are safe from it. We know nothing of the grand decimation that will follow, depriving us of our best friends and old lovers, that will bring us together in cemeteries and cause us to scratch out names in our address books, enraging us with so many absences, such profound loss. It is there but we aren’t afraid yet. We believe that we are protected by our youth. We are seventeen years old. You don’t die when you are seventeen years old.

A million questions flash through my mind: How did it begin for him? How and at what age did it reveal itself? How is it that no one can see it on him? Yes, how can it be so undetectable? And then: Is it about suffering? Only suffering? And again: Will I be the first? Or were there others before me? Others who were also secret? And: What does he imagine exactly? I don't ask any of these questions, of course. I follow his lead, accepting the rules of the game. He says: I know a place.

En rentrant hier soir dans mon appartement, j’ai aperçu d’emblée qu’il manquait quelque chose. C’est cela qui m’est venu à l’esprit en premier : il manque quelque chose. J’ai contemplé un paysage clairsemé. Je n’ai pas pensé : il manque quelqu’un.

While the credits roll he says: That scene with the chain saw was great, wasn’t it? I look at him and joke: Yeah, I almost grabbed you at that moment. He smiles back at me and I receive his smile like a gift. There weren’t many times Thomas smiled at me like that. It wasn’t his way.

Je dis  : c'est pour cette raison que tu as précisé que tu avais quelque chose d'étranger  ? Il dit  : oui, les yeux sombres, la peau brune. Et ce sentiment, qui sait, de ne pas être tout à fait à sa place, ici, d'être une sorte de déraciné, comme si on pouvait avoir le déracinement en héritage.

Je découvre la morsure de l'attente. Parce qu'il y a ce refus de s'avouer vaincu, de croire que c'est sans lendemain, que ça ne se reproduira pas. Je me persuade qu'il accomplira un geste dans ma direction, que c'est impossible autrement, que la mémoire des corps emmêlés vaincra sa résistance. Je me dis que ce n'était pas seulement une histoire de corps, mais de nécessité. Qu'on ne lutte pas contre la nécessité. Ou, si on lutte, elle finit par avoir raison de nous. Je découvre la morsure du manque.

Paul l'a écoutée, sans ciller, sans répliquer ; son beau visage détruit est demeuré impassible. A la fin, il a seulement glissé : "Je me demandais quand tu te déciderais à me faire cet aveu. Je me demandais lequel de vous deux viendrait le faire. Ce que tu m'annonces, je le sais depuis longtemps. Je le sais depuis le jour de mon retour, depuis la seconde exacte où tu as posé ton regard sur moi. C'était sur toi, l'effroi, la honte, la gêne, et puis aussi la légèreté des femmes amoureuses. C'était immanquable.

This passion that can’t be talked about, that has to be concealed, gives way to the terrible question: if it isn’t talked about, how can one know that it really exists? One day, when it’s over, when it finally comes to an end, no one will be able to attest to what took place. One of the protagonists (Thomas) will be able to go so far as to deny it if he wants to, to insist that such nonsense was invented. The other (me) will have nothing but my word, which doesn’t carry a lot of weight. And besides, that word will never come. I will almost never speak of it.

I think: In the end, he remained hidden all his life. In spite of the great departure, the ambitious effort to forge a new existence, he fell back into all the same traps: shame, the impossibility of sharing a love that endures. I think of all the men I met in bookstores, men who confided in me about having lied for years and years, before finally resolving to leave everything to start all over again (they will recognize themselves if they read these lines). Thomas never found their courage. I say “courage,” but it may be something else. Those who have not taken this step, who have not come to terms with themselves, are not necessarily frightened, they are perhaps helpless, disoriented, lost as one is in the middle of a forest that’s too dark or dense or vast.

Dans le mot défection, il y a une autre idée  : son père lui a manqué. Et le double sens de ce verbe convient absolument. D'abord, une faute, une infraction, une violation. Il s'est dérobé à ses obligations, écarté des routes droites, il a enfreint les règles non écrites, péché contre l'ordre établi, joué contre son camp, piétiné la confiance placée en lui, offensé ses proches, ses amis, il a trahi. Ensuite, une morsure, une douleur, un chagrin. Il n'a pas été présent alors qu'on comptait sur lui, il a laissé un vide que nul n'est venu combler, des questions auxquelles nul n'a su répondre, une frustration irréductible, une demande affective que nul n'a été en mesure d'étancher.

Philippe, I’m going to Spain and I’m not coming back, at least not right away. You are going to Bordeaux and I know it will be only the first step in a long journey. I always knew you were made for somewhere else. Our paths are separating. I know you would have liked for things to be different, for me to say the words that would have reassured you, but I could not, and I never knew how to talk anyway. In the end, I tell myself that you understood. It was love, of course. And tomorrow, there will be a great emptiness. But we could not continue—you have your life waiting for you, and I will never change. I just wanted to write to tell you that I have been happy during these months together, that I have never been so happy, and that I already know I will never be so happy again.

Your sadness is a place which you inhabit. Sadness is a geographical reality. I cannot join you in that sadness, it is impossible. Millions of you know this sadness, but not I. I do not even try to imagine this sadness; to do so would be absurd. I am elsewhere, that is all. I do not resent the fact that I am elsewhere. Nobody could resent me for it. I am in your arms: this is all I know. I have this extraordinary knowledge, this knowledge of the space between your arms. It is my happiness. Happiness, too, is a geographical reality.

Il ajoute cette phrase, pour moi inoubliable  : parce que tu partiras et que nous resterons. J'ai les larmes aux yeux en recopiant les mots. Je demeure fasciné que cette phrase ait été prononcée un jour, qu'elle m'ait été adressée. Qu'on me comprenne  : ce n'est pas l'éventuelle prémonition qu'elle contient qui me fascine, ni même qu'elle ait été réalisée. Ce n'est pas non plus la maturité ou la fulgurance qu'elle suppose. Ce n'est pas davantage l'agencement des mots, même si je prendrai conscience que je n'aurais sans doute pas pu les trouver alors, ni plus tard les écrire. C'est la violence de ce qu'ils signifient, de ce qu'ils charrient  : l'infériorité qu'ils racontent en même temps que l'amour sous-jacent dont ils témoignent, l'amour rendu nécessaire par la disparition prochaine, inévitable, l'amour rendu possible par elle aussi.

Cette histoire est celle d'Arthur Valès et Vincent de L'Etoile. C'est l'histoire que je raconte. Si quelqu'un, un jour, tombe sur mes cahiers, qu'il n'ait pas de doute puisque tout cela est la vérité, qu'il n'ait pas de honte puisque nous n'en avons pas, qu'il livre nos noms à la postérité plutôt que d'avoir le réflexe de les dissimuler aux regards, qu'il ait conscience qu'il s'agit bien d'une histoire d'amour et pas d'une exaltation passagère et non maîtrisée puisque nous savons ce que nous faisons. Cette histoire est celle d'Arthur Valès et Vincent de L'Etoile. C'est l'histoire que je raconte

Les jours qui suivent sont un véritable cauchemar. Je me doute bien que l'amant ne va pas venir vers moi, puisqu'il a exigé le silence, imposé une chape de plomb. Les autres élèves ne manqueraient pas de relever cette bizarrerie si, d'aventure, il me saluait, s'il se contentait de me saluer, même de loin. Car, je l'ai dit, nous appartenons à deux cercles distincts, sans intersection possible  : une conjonction, même furtive, même accidentelle n'est tout bonnement pas envisageable. Pas question de prendre le moindre risque, j'ai bien compris. J'ai bien compris et, pourtant, je ne peux pas m'empêcher d'espérer un signe qui ne serait détectable que par nous, un frôlement qui paraîtrait le produit du hasard, un clin d'œil que nul ne pourrait repérer, un sourire bref. Je rêve d'un sourire bref.

J'ai écrit le mot  : amour. J'ai bien envisagé d'en employer un autre. Au moins parce que c'est une notion curieuse, l'amour  ; difficile à définir, à cerner, à établir. Il en existe tant de degrés, tant de variations. J'aurais pu me contenter d'affirmer que j'étais attendri (et il est exact que T.   savait à merveille me faire faiblir, fléchir), ou charmé (il s'y entendait comme personne pour attirer à lui, conquérir, flatter, et même ensorceler), ou troublé (il provoquait souvent un mélange de perplexité et d'émoi, renversait les situations), ou séduit (il m'attirait dans ses filets, me bluffait, me gagnait à ses causes), ou épris (j'étais bêtement enjoué, je pouvais m'enflammer pour un rien)  ; ou même aveuglé (je mettais de côté ce qui m'embarrassait, je minimisais ses défauts, portais aux nues ses qualités), perturbé (je n'étais plus tout à fait moi-même), ce qui aurait un sens moins favorable. J'aurais pu expliquer qu'il ne s'agissait que d'affection, que je me contentais d'avoir le «  béguin  », une formulation suffisamment floue pour englober n'importe quoi. Mais ce serait me payer de mots. La vérité, la vérité toute nue, c'est que j'étais amoureux. Autant employer les mots précis.

Plus tard, j'écrirai sur le manque. Sur la privation insupportable de l'autre. Sur le dénuement provoqué par cette privation  ; une pauvreté qui s'abat. J'écrirai sur la tristesse qui ronge, la folie qui menace. Cela deviendra la matrice de mes livres, presque malgré moi. Je me demande quelquefois si j'ai même jamais écrit sur autre chose. Comme si je ne m'étais jamais remis de ça  : l'autre devenu inaccessible. Comme si ça occupait tout l'espace mental. La mort de beaucoup de mes amis, dans le plus jeune âge, aggravera ce travers, cette douleur. Leur disparition prématurée me plongera dans des abîmes de chagrin et de perplexité. Je devrai apprendre à leur survivre. Et l'écriture peut être un bon moyen pour survivre. Et pour ne pas oublier les disparus. Pour continuer le dialogue avec eux. Mais le manque prend probablement sa source dans cette première défection, dans une imbécile brûlure amoureuse.

Un aveu. Je fais autre chose encore, autre chose que visualiser la scène, autre chose que convoquer un souvenir, je me dis  : à quoi Thomas a-t-il pensé, quand ça a été le dernier moment  ? après avoir passé la corde autour de son cou  ? avant de renverser la chaise  ? et d'abord, combien de temps cela a-t-il duré  ? une poignée de secondes  ? puisqu'il ne servait à rien de perdre du temps, la décision avait été prise, il fallait la mettre à exécution, une minute  ? mais c'est interminable, une minute, dans ces circonstances, et alors comment l'a-t-il remplie  ? avec quelles pensées  ? et j'en reviens à ma question. A-t-il fermé les yeux et revu des épisodes de son passé, de la tendre enfance, par exemple son corps étendu en croix dans l'herbe fraîche, tourné vers le bleu du ciel, la sensation de chaleur sur sa joue et sur ses bras  ? de son adolescence  ? une chevauchée à moto, la résistance de l'air contre son torse  ? a-t-il été rattrapé par des détails auxquels il ne s'attendait pas  ? des choses qu'il croyait avoir oubliées  ? ou bien a-t-il fait défiler des visages ou des lieux, comme s'il s'agissait de les emporter avec lui  ? (À la fin, je suis convaincu qu'en tout cas, il n'a pas envisagé de renoncer, que sa détermination n'a pas fléchi, qu'aucun regret, s'il y en a eu, n'est venu contrarier sa volonté.) Je traque cette ultime image formée dans son esprit, surgie de sa mémoire, non pas pour escompter y avoir figuré mais pour croire qu'en la découvrant, je renouerais avec notre intimité, je serais à nouveau ce que nul autre n'a été pour lui.

Et puis, le manque est arrivé, dans le moment où je m’y attendais le moins, il est arrivé alors que j’avais presque fini par croire à mon amnésie. C’est terrible, la morsure du manque. Ça frappe sans prévenir, l’attaque est sournoise tout d’abord, on ressent juste une vive douleur qui disparaît presque dans la foulée, c’est bref, fugace, ça nous plie en deux mais on se redresse aussitôt, on considère que l’attaque est passée, on n’est même pas capable de nommer cette effraction, et pourquoi on la nommerait, on n’a pas eu le temps de s’inquiéter, c’est parti si vite, on se sent déjà beaucoup mieux, on se sent même parfaitement bien, tout de même on garde un souvenir désagréable de cette fraction de seconde, on tente de chasser le souvenir, et on y réussit, la vie continue, le monde nous appelle, l’urgence commande. Et puis, ça revient, le jour d’après, l’attaque est plus longue ou plus violente, on ploie les genoux, on a un méchant rictus, on se dit : quelque chose est à l'œuvre à l’intérieur, on pense à ces transports au cerveau qui annoncent les tumeurs, qui sont le signal enfin visible de cancers généralisés jusque-là insoupçonnables, on éprouve une sale frayeur, un mauvais pressentiment. Et puis, le mal devient lancinant, il s’installe comme un intrus qu’on n’est pas capable de chasser, il est moins mordant et plus profond, on comprend qu’on ne s’en débarrassera pas, qu’on est foutu. Oui, un jour, le manque est arrivé. Le manque de lui. Au début, j’ai fait comme si je ne m’en rendais pas compte, le traitant par l’indifférence, par le mépris, je me savais plus fort que lui, j’étais en mesure de le dominer, de l’éliminer, c’était juste une question de volonté ou de temps, je n’étais pas le genre à me laisser abattre par quelque chose d’aussi ténu, d’aussi risible. Et puis, il m’a fallu me rendre à l’évidence : ce match, je n’étais pas en train de le gagner, j’allais peut-être même le perdre, et je ne possédais pas le moyen d’échapper à cette déroute et plus je luttais, plus je cédais du terrain ; plus je niais la réalité, plus elle me sautait au visage. Autant le reconnaître : j’étais dévoré par ça, le manque de lui.