Good Morning, Midnight Quotes

I stayed there, staring at myself in the glass. What do I want to cry about?....On the contrary, it’s when I am quite sane like this, when I have had a couple of extra drinks and am quite sane, that I realize how lucky I am. Saved, rescued, fished-up, half-drowned, out of the deep, dark river, dry clothes, hair shampooed and set. Nobody would know I had ever been in it. Except, of course, that there always remains something. Yes, there always remains something....

I tell him I will let him have the passport in the afternoon and he gives my hat a gloomy, disapproving look. I don’t blame him. It shouts ‘Anglaise’, my hat. And my dress extinguishes me. And then this damned old fur coat slung on top of everything else—the last idiocy, the last incongruity.

Twelve o’clock on a fine autumn day, and nothing to worry about. Some money to spend and nothing to worry about.

But careful, careful! Don’t get excited. You know what happens when you get excited and exalted, don’t you?....Yes….And then, you know how you collapse like a pricked balloon, don’t you? Having no staying power….Yes, exactly…. So, no excitement. This is going to be a quiet, sane fortnight. Not too much drinking, avoidance of certain cafés, of certain streets, of certain spots, and everything will go off beautifully.

The thing is to have a programme, not to leave anything to chance—no gaps.

Paris is looking very nice tonight....You are looking very nice tonight, my beautiful, my darling, and oh what a bitch you can be! But you didn’t kill me after all, did you? And they couldn’t kill me either....

Just about here we waited for a couple of hours to see Anatole France’s funeral pass, because, Enno said, we mustn’t let such a great literary figure disappear without paying him the tribute of a last salute.

Well, let’s argue this out, Mr Blank. You, who represent Society, have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month. That’s my market value, for I am an inefficient member of Society, slow in the uptake, uncertain, slightly damaged in the fray, there’s no denying it. So you have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month, to lodge me in a small, dark room, to clothe me shabbily, to harass me with worry and monotony and unsatisfied longings till you get me to the point when I blush at a look, cry at a word. We can’t all be happy, we can’t all be rich, we can’t all be lucky—and it would be so much less fun if we were. Isn’t it so, Mr Blank? […] Let’s say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple—no, that I think you haven’t got.

Walking in the night with the dark houses over you, like monsters. If you have money and friends, houses are just houses with steps and a front-door—friendly houses where the door opens and somebody meets you, smiling. If you are quite secure and your roots are well struck in, they know. They stand back respectfully, waiting for the poor devil without any friends and without any money. Then they step forward, the waiting houses, to frown and crush. No hospitable doors, no lit windows, just frowning darkness. Frowning and leering and sneering, the houses, one after another.

I listen anxiously to this conversation. Suddenly I feel that I must have number 219, with bath—number 219, with rose-coloured curtains, carpet and bath. I shall exist on a different plane at once if I can get this room, if only for a couple of nights. It will be an omen. Who says you can’t escape from your fate? I’ll escape from mine, into room number 219. Just try me, just give me a chance.

I am not at all sad as I walk back to the hotel. When I remember how one well-directed ‘Oh, my God,’ lays me out flat in London, I can only marvel at the effect this place has on me. I expect it is because the drink is so much better.

[…]

Just then two men come up from behind and walk along on either side of me. One of them says: ‘Pourquoi êtes-vous si triste?’

These people all fling themselves at me. Because I am uneasy and sad they all fling themselves at me larger than life.

And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease.

And there he is, lying with a ticket tied round his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease....

He says: ‘For me, you see, I look at life like this: If someone had come to me and asked me if I wished to be born I think I should have answered No. I’m sure I should have answered No. But no one asked me. I am here not through my will. Most things that happen to me—they are not my will either. And so that’s what I say to myself all the time: "You didn’t ask to be born, you didn’t make the world as it is, you didn’t make yourself as you are. Why torment yourself? Why not take life just as it comes? […]’

‘Do you know what I feel about you? I think you are very lonely. I know, because for a long time I was lonely myself. I hated people, I didn’t want to see anyone. And then one day I thought: “No, this isn’t the way.” And now I go about a lot. I force myself to. I have a lot of friends; I’m never alone. Now I’m much happier.’

I have an irresistible longing for a long, strong drink to make me forget that once again I have given damnable human beings the right to pity me and laugh at me.

I say in a loud, aggressive voice: ‘Go out and get a bottle of brandy,’ take money out of my bag and offer it to him.

This is where he starts getting hold of me, Serge. He doesn’t accept the money or refuse it—he ignores it. He blots out what I have said and the way I said it. He ignores it as if it had never been, and I know that, for him, it has never been.

All his charm and ease of manner have gone. He looks anxious and surly. I say awkwardly: ‘I don’t think it at all too much. But I haven’t got the money….’

Before I can get any further he bursts into a shout of laughter, ‘What did I tell you?’ he says to Delmar.

‘But have it, take it, all the same. I like you. I'll give it you as a present.’

‘No, no. All I meant was that I can't pay you now.’

‘Oh, that’s all right. You can send me the money from London. I’ll tell you what you can do for me—you can find some other idiots who'll buy my pictures.’

I only came in here to inquire the way to the nearest cinema. I am a respectable woman, une femme convenable, on her way to the nearest cinema. Faites comme les autres—that’s been my motto all my life. Faites comme les autres, damn you.

And a lot he cares—I could have spared myself the trouble. But this is my attitude to life. Please, please, monsieur et madame, mister, missis and miss, I am trying so hard to be like you. I know I don’t succeed, but look how hard I try.

I haven’t any money. He hasn’t any either. We both thought the other had money. But people are doing crazy things all over the place. The war is over. No more war—never, never, never. Après la guerre, there’ll be a good time everywhere....And not to go back to London. It isn’t so fine, what I have to go back to in London.

I am tuned up to top pitch. Everything is smooth, soft and tender. Making love. The colours of the pictures. The sunsets. Tender, north colours when the sun sets—pink, mauve, green and blue. And the wind very fresh and cold and the lights in the canals like gold caterpillars and the seagulls swooping over the water. Tuned up to top pitch. Everything tender and melancholy—as life is sometimes, just for one moment....

‘I want very much to go back to Paris,’ Enno would say. ‘It has no reason, no sense. But all the same I want to go back there. Certain houses, certain streets….No sense, no reason. Just this nostalgia[…]’

Suddenly I am in a fever of anxiety to get there. Let’s be on our way, let’s be on our way....Why shouldn’t we get as far as Brussels? All right, we’ll get as far as Brussels; might be something doing in Brussels.

But the fifteen pounds have gone. We raise every penny we can. We sell most of our clothes.

My beautiful life in front of me, opening out like a fan in my hand….

‘I’ve got some money,’ he says. ‘My God, isn’t it hot? Peel me an orange.’

‘I'm very thirsty’ he says. ‘Peel me an orange.’

Now is the time to say ‘Peel it yourself’, now is the time to say ‘Go to hell’, now is the time to say ‘I won’t be treated like this’. But much too strong—the room, the street, the thing in myself, oh, much too strong....I peel the orange, put it on a plate and give it to him.

‘Lise, don’t cry.’

‘Non, non, j’en ai assez.’

I also start to cry. No, life is too sad; it’s quite impossible.

Sitting in front of the flamme bleue, arms round each other’s waists, crying. No, life is too sad....My tears fall on her thick hair, which always smells so nice.

Enno, coming in with another bottle of Asti spumante, says: ‘Oh, my God, this is gay,’ and laughs loudly. Lise and I look at each other and start laughing too. Soon we are all rolling, helpless with laughter. It’s too much, I can’t any more, it’s too much....

Just the sensation of spending, that’s the point. I’ll look at bracelets studded with artificial jewels, red, green and blue, necklaces of imitation pearls, cigarette-cases, jewelled tortoises....And when I have had a couple of drinks I shan’t know whether it’s yesterday, today or tomorrow.

He takes my hand in his and looks at my ring, his eyes narrowing.

‘No good,’ I say. ‘Only worth about fifty francs—if that.’

‘What, your hand?’

‘You weren’t looking at my hand, you were looking at my ring.’

‘Oh, how suspicious she is, this woman! It’s extraordinary. But you will come this evening, won’t you ?’

‘Oh no, not yet, not yet. When I ask her for something it’ll be something. But one mustn’t do that too quickly, of course. She must be ready....She’s nearly ready. I think perhaps tomorrow she’ll be ready.’

He looks straight into my eyes all the time he is talking, with that air of someone defying you.

‘Then what are you afraid of? Tell me. I’m interested. Of men, of love?...What, still?...Impossible.’

You are walking along a road peacefully. You trip. You fall into blackness. That’s the past—or perhaps the future. And you know that there is no past, no future, there is only this blackness, changing faintly, slowly, but always the same.

I have my arms round him and I begin to laugh, because I am so happy. I stand there hugging him, so terribly happy. Now everything is in my arms on this dark landing—love, youth, spring, happiness, everything I thought I’d lost. I was a fool, wasn’t I? to think all that was finished for me. How could it be finished?