The Bark Tree Read Free

found it against the wall of Hippolyte’s café. It had a bullet in its head.
    The flat entity can’t accept the idea of anyone killing his cat; he starts getting inflated, like the meussieus in the train. Then he gets deflated. He goes to bed. He feels odd. He’ll make love to his wife tonight. As for the child, he will abstain from any sort of pollution, because he’s got a mathematics test tomorrow, and whenever he does it the night before, it always brings him bad luck.
    —oooooo—oooooo—
    The observer is hatching something; what it is even he doesn’t know yet. But he is preparing himself; either he will continue to study his quarry, as he calls him, or he’ll look for some other random event, just as pointless, just as useless. After wavering between various possible occupations, he settles for Pernod and the silhouette. And with his eyes open, seeing the beings he encounters with perfect lucidity, he decides to play a waiting game. On his way, he meets his brother, whom he hasn’t seen for a very long time; he makes out he’s in a great hurry, and also very busy, and arranges to meet him at midnight. Finally, he attains one of his goals: his place is free; the man with emphysema is sitting next to him. Further to the south, the young man with the passport is brooding, all by himself. At the nadir, a cigarette butt, at the zenith, a striped awning, for the vigilant proprietor is preparing for his customers to get the perfidious drops secreted by the alleged protector down the back of their necks.
    The storm is taking its time; so is the flat entity, because just precisely today he’s doing an hour’s overtime. Finally one, two, three drops of water fall on to the asphalt. The observer, who has been disappointed by the 6 o’clock exodus, remains at his post. Four, five, six drops of water. Some people, anxious about their straw hats, raise their noses. Description of a storm in Paris. In summer. The timid take to their heels; others raise the collars of their jackets, which gives them an air of bravado. It begins to smell of mud. Many people prudently look for shelter, and when the rain is at its height, all that can be seen are blackish groups clustered around doorways, like mussels around the pile of a pier. The cafés are doing a brisk trade. 7 o’clock. Streetcars, buses and trains will be missed, dinners burned and appointments unkept. A few ostentatious thunder claps try to make people believe this is a real storm. Certain learned people declare that it had been working up to a storm and that it will cool the air, and that it’s a good thing, a little rain like that from time to time, and that it won’t last long.
    The observer allows these vain words which tell nothing but the truth to reach him; he notes with some bitterness that these banalities correspond perfectly to reality. The present reality couldn’t ask any more. And the silhouette has still not appeared. Yes it has, though; he sees it on the steps of the Audit Bank, patiently waiting for the rain to stop; in any case, it isn’t a silhouette any longer, but a flat entity. The other man catches his breath; the rain stops; the flat entity runs for the metro.
    The observer gets up, leaves without paying (he’ll be back) and starts to pursue his quarry. Now he’s going down into the metro. He’s right at the bottom of the steps, he’s about to go through the iron gate. Luckily, the other man has some tickets. A train arrives. What an incredible crowd! The flat entity is there in the second second-class coach; so is the observer; the first in front of the right-hand door, the second in front of the door he went in by.
    What a remarkable change, thinks the second, but it’s pointless to study him like this. I wonder what station he’ll get off at. Much shoving; Saint-Denis; he’s going to change.
    Rearrangements as far as the Gare du Nord. Which train will he catch, the local or the one that is an express more or less? The 7:31 or the