Slowness Read Free Page B

dances it! He hopes to move and dazzle the world with the beauty of his life! He is in love with his life the way a sculptor might be in love with the statue he is carving.”
    who aspire to change the world. Change the world! In Pontevin’s view, what a monstrous goal! Not because the world is so admirable as it is but because any change leads inevitably to something worse. And because, from a more selfish standpoint, any idea made public will sooner or later turn on its author and confiscate the pleasure he got from thinking it. For Pontevin is one of the great disciples of Epicurus: he invents and develops his ideas simply because it gives him pleasure. He does not despise mankind, which is for him an inexhaustible source of merrily malicious reflections, but he feels not the faintest desire to come into too close contact with it. He is surrounded by a gang of cronies who get together at the Cafe Gascon, and this little sample of mankind is enough for him.
    Of those cronies, Vincent is the most innocent and the most touching. I like him, and my only reproach (tinged with envy, it is true) is for the childlike, and to my mind excessive, adoration he devotes to Pontevin. But even that friendship has something touching about it. Because they discuss a lot of subjects that captivate him—philosophy, politics, books—Vincent is happy to be
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    I wonder why Pontevin does not make his very interesting ideas public. After all, he hasn’t got such a lot to do, this Ph.D. historian sitting bored in his office at the Bibliotheque Nationale. He doesn’t care about making his theories known? That’s an understatement: he detests the idea. A person who makes his ideas public does risk persuading others of his viewpoint, influencing them, and thus winding up in the role of those
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    alone with Pontevin; Vincent brims over with odd, provocative ideas, and Pontevin, who is captivated too, straightens out his disciple, inspires him, encourages him. But all it takes is a third person turning up for Vincent to become unhappy, because Pontevin changes instantly: he talks louder and becomes entertaining, too entertaining for Vincent’s taste.
    For instance: They are by themselves in the cafe, and Vincent asks: “What do you really think about what’s going on in Somalia?” Patiently, Pontevin gives him a whole lecture on Africa. Vincent raises objections, they argue, maybe they joke around as well, but not trying to be clever, just to allow themselves a little levity within a conversation of the utmost seriousness.
    Then in comes Machu with a beautiful stranger. Vincent tries to go on with the discussion: “But tell me, Pontevin, don’t you think you’re making a mistake to claim that… ,” and he develops an interesting polemic opposing his friend’s theories.
    Pontevin takes a long pause. He is the master of long pauses. He knows that only timid people fear them and that when they don’t know what to say, they rush into embarrassing remarks that
    make them look ridiculous. Pontevin knows how to keep still so magisterially that the very Milky Way, impressed by his silence, eagerly awaits his reply. Without a word, he looks at Vincent who, for no reason, shyly lowers his eyes, then, smiling, he looks at the woman and turns again to Vincent, his eyes heavy with feigned solicitude: “Your insisting, in a woman’s presence, upon such excessively clever notions indicates a disturbing drop in your libido.”
    Machu’s face takes on its famous idiot grin, the lovely lady passes a condescending and amused glance over Vincent, and Vincent turns bright red; he feels wounded: a friend who a minute ago was full of consideration for him is suddenly willing to plunge him into discomfort for the sole purpose of impressing a woman.
    Then other friends come in, sit down, chatter; Machu tells some stories; with a few dry little remarks, Goujard displays his bookish erudition; there’s the sound of women’s laughter. Pontevin keeps