Castle to Castle Read Free Page A

Other people, the way I see them, are all steamed up, most of all they're prodded by ambition. The life of the rich is a circus, they invite each other back and forth to keep each other's spirits up . . . I've seen it, I've lived with society people . . . Ah, Gontran, he actually said that to you? . . . Ah, Gaston, you were really brilliant yesterday! The way you put him in his place! Yes, really! He mentioned it again only yesterday. His wife said: Oh, Gaston was amazing!—It's a circus. That's how they spend their time. They chase each other around, they meet at the same golf clubs, the same restaurants . . .
    Interviewer: If you could start all over again, would you seek your pleasures outside of literature?
    Céline: I certainly would! I don't ask for pleasure, I don't feel any . . . the enjoyment of life is a matter of temperament, of diet. You've got to eat well and drink well, then the days pass quickly. If you eat well and drink well, take an automobile ride and read a few newspapers, your day will soon be over . . . You read your paper, you have a few people in, you drink your morning coffee, you take a little stroll, hell, it's time for lunch . . . . In the afternoon you drop in on a few friends . . . the day passes. At night, bed as usual, you fall asleep. And there you are. Especially as you grow older . . . because then the time passes faster. When you're young, a day is interminable, but as you grow older . . . it doesn't take long. When you're an old man living on your pension, a day's a flash; when you're a kid it passes very slowly.
    Interviewer: How would you choose to occupy your time if you were retired on an income?
    Céline: I'd read the paper. I'd go for a little stroll some place where nobody'd see me.
    Interviewer: Can you take walks here?
    Céline: No, never. Better not
    Interviewer: Why?
    Céline: First because I'd be noticed. I don't like that I don't want to be seen. In a seaport you can disappear . . . In Le Havre . . . I don't think a man would be noticed on the docks in Le Havre. They don't see a thing. A retired naval man, an old fool . . .
    Interviewer: You like boats, don't you?
    Céline: Oh yes! Yes! I like to watch them. To see them coming in and out. Sure, give me a jetty and I'm happy . . . They leave a trail of foam, they go away, they come back, and they've got nothing to do with you, see? Nobody asks you anything. Sure, and you read Le Petit Havrais , and . . . and that's all . . . that's all there is to it . . . Yes, if I had my life to live over, I'd do it entirely differently.
    Interviewer: Can you think of any individuals whom you look up to as examples? Men you would have liked to imitate?
    Céline: No. Because people like that are grandiose, and I have no desire to be grandiose, none at all. All I want is to be an old man nobody pays attention to . . . not . . . people like that have their names in the dictionary, I don't go for that . . .
    Interviewer: I was thinking of people you might have met in everyday life . . .
    Céline: Oh no. No. They're always putting on an act other people give me a pain. No. I've inherited a kind of modesty from my mother, a total insignificance, and I mean total. What interests me is to be completely ignored. I have a propensity . . . an animal propensity, for crawling away . . . Yes, Boulogne would suit me all right, Boulogne-sur-Mer. Place where nobody ever goes. I've spent a lot of time in Saint-Malo, but it's not possible any more . . . I'm kind of known there . . . I went to medical school in Rennes . . .
    [Céline's last interview, June 1, 1961. André Pardnaud.]
    Interviewer: Does love occupy an important place in your novels?
    Céline: No place at all. It shouldn't. A novelist should have a sense of shame.
    Interviewer: And friendship?
    Céline: Let's skip it.
    Interviewer: Then you prefer to talk of the less important feelings?
    Céline: Let's talk about work, the job of writing. It's the only thing that counts. And even that calls for a