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Truly Alone
This evening I am alone.
Alone in a hotel room.
It is now that the moment should arrive, if it is ever to arrive, when, freed of any presence, it is possible for a man to be rid of memory itself.
So why am I reminded of the existence of others? Is it that I like myself so little-at least not enough to satisfy myself, to stand being with myself. Solitude, the loveliest festival, will your miracle arrive? I have to keep repeating that I do not like myself this evening and never will, any more than I can recognize myself in this room. The hotel room where I am alone.
As if it were some grievous sin, I accuse myself of thinking of others, and not myself.
Me, the others?
As soon as there is nothing of myself, tiiey become indispensable to me, and if I am ready to detest this hotel room, it's because I find no trace of their existence in it. I would easily repent for our earlier arguments and announce that each of them was a revelation to me, and the more distant they are, the more dazzling they appear.
I lack the strength to find in myself the promise of necessary surprises and cannot imagine what vacuum has sucked from this room the comfort of a bit of dust, even the memory of human warmth.
I ran my finger over the marble of a chimney. It was bare and so cold that I could only conclude that this mist on the mirror could not have come from the breath of any breast similar to my own. Damp, rootless flowers, without soul, without color, that is the garden of my dreams, this evening.
I flexed the muscles on my back to crush the first shivers, for I am cold from being alone.
Already.
Between the four walls of pink roses on a pale background I organize a reconnaissance mission. A waste of time. There is no one and even, since there is no living thing, nothing with which I might want to become friendly. The armoire is made of blond wood and in this armoire not a single one of those papers that conscientious travelers arrange between their...