La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams Read Online Free PDF

1968
     

The stone bridge
    A stone bridge, at the crossing of a road and a river.
    A signal sign indicates the name of the place:
(YOU)
     
    In parentheses.

No. 40
1972
     

The Palais de la Défense, II
    I am in the Palais de la Défense. Its enormous vault seems to be opening, then closing.
    Later: I am still in the Palais de la Défense. There is no longer a vault, or, rather, the vault, the palace, are everywhere.

No. 41
January 1971
     

The chase in Dublin
    An action movie in color; the color is very flat, a fawn-toned monochrome, very “Hollywood” (like Douglas Sirk’s
Captain Lightfoot
or Raoul Walsh’s
The World in His
Arms).
    It takes place in Dublin, in the XIXth century.
    The single central character, whom I am shadowing, is a revolutionary chief who has either been handed over to the police or, rather, been sentenced to death by his former comrades.
    He knows it.
    He is walking with a small dog and he knows that as soon as two dogs come to track him it will be the signal for the assassins to show themselves.
    He does not try to escape what is clearly inevitable; on the contrary, he keeps walking, shows his face all over town, goes into pubs, etc. People turn away from him, or look at him with hatred, spite or pity. But no dog will even come close to his dog.
    But suddenly, at one point, the dog escapes her master and runs off.
    Hasty run to catch her. For he is willing to die, but he does not want to know when and by whose hand.
    Crossing courtyards
    Scaling walls
    Climbing stairs
    Very upsetting: everything and everyone become threatening.
    There are at least two shots of the same circular path (actually, the scene always goes in a circle and we end up where we began—like in an engraving by that Swiss artist whose name escapes me (Escher) or, rather, like being on a gigantic Mōbius strip.
    There could be scenes with a bit of a “Pepe le Moko” feel to them.
    At one point, a bit distressed, I try to “make the image go faster” (to watch myself run up the stairs faster) but I can’t.

No. 42
January 1971
     

Making the meal
    Z. is throwing a party for a friend. On the other side of a small partition, we—i.e., me supervising a crowd of kitchen hands—are making dinner. We’re in high spirits, we’re singing. I’m making some kind of cream, mayonnaise or flan, using lots of ingredients out of boxes: how easy this is! How appetizing!
    But—maybe later, at the end—a small animal comes and eats from the plate.
    I’m very cheerful. I am the fool, the favored entertainer.

No. 43
January 1971
     

Apartment
    Henri G.’s apartment. Interconnected rooms in “quincunx formation.”
    In each room, stereo equipment: tape recorders, radios, stereos, and more, and more, ever more perfect.

No. 44
January 1971
     

High fidelity
    I am walking with P. across the “high fidelity” section of a department store. Maybe one of the appliances has a particularly remarkable shape?

No. 45
January 1971
     

The tank
    P. and one of her friends and I have moved into an abandoned house. Though I recall having recently drunk water from the tap, we are told to use only mineral water, even to cook our food. But the bottle of water we find doesn’t even have a cap.
    We sit down to eat. Under the table we find (a bit like a chewed and abandoned piece of gum) a bit of pâté. Though it is likely several days old, it doesn’t seem rotten in the slightest, but P. throws it out in disgust.
    Out of the high, narrow window, I notice an immense tank. It’s actually a cliff, but it has the unmistakable look of a tank: large metallic plates covered with layers of varnish or paint that are chipping off in patches or coming loose from their base, like huge blisters. The whole thing looks muddy, dirty and slippery.
    Soon I make out, moving from left to right, a small boy running on the upper tracks of the tank, which is really the length of a path carved into the face of the cliff. A man ischasing him. Another man