The Possibility of an Island Read Online Free PDF Page B

mouths to feed; a contemporary adaptation about the problems posed by the development of the fourth age was scarcely difficult to imagine. At one point I had the idea of offering the lead role to the philosopher Michel Onfray, who, naturally, was enthusiastic; but the indigent graphomaniac, so at ease in front of television presenters, or before reasonably amicable students, completely collapsed when faced with a camera, and it was impossible to get anything out of him. The producers returned, wisely, to more tried-and-tested formulas, and Jean-Pierre Marielle was, as usual, masterly.
    At about the same time, I bought a second home, in Andalusia, in a zone that was then very wild, a little north of Almería, called the Cabo de Gata Nature Reserve. The architect’s plan was sumptuous, with palm trees, orange trees, Jacuzzis, and cascades—which, given the climate (it was the driest region in Europe), could be interpreted as slightly mad. I didn’t know it at all, but this region was the only one on the Spanish coast up until then to have been spared by tourism; five years later, the land prices had tripled. In short, in those years, I was a bit like King Midas.
    It was then that I decided to marry Isabelle; we had known each other for three years, which placed us precisely in the average of premarital association. The ceremony was discreet, and a little sad; she had just turned forty. It seems obvious to me today that the two events were linked; that I wanted, as a proof of affection, to minimize her shock at turning forty. Not that it manifested itself in complaints, or a visible anguish, or anything clearly definable; it was both more fleeting and more poignant. Occasionally—especially in Spain, when we were preparing to go to the beach, and she was putting on her swimsuit—I could feel her, at the moment when I glanced at her, wincing slightly, as if she had felt a punch between the shoulder blades. A quickly stifled grimace of pain distorted her magnificent features—the beauty of her fine, sensitive face was of the kind that resists time; but her body, despite the swimming, despite the classical dance, was beginning to suffer the first blows of age—blows which, she knew all too well, were going to multiply rapidly, leading to total degradation. I didn’t fully know what it was that happened to my facial expression in those moments that made her suffer so much; I would have given a great deal to avoid it, for, I repeat, I loved her; but manifestly that wasn’t possible. Nor could I reiterate that she was still as desirable, still as beautiful; I never felt, in the slightest way, capable of lying to her. I recognized the look she wore afterward: it was that humble, sad look of the sick animal that steps away from the pack, puts its head on its paws, and sighs softly, because it feels itself wounded and knows that it can expect no pity from its fellow creatures.

 
     
    Daniel24, 3
     
    THE CLIFFS TOWER above the sea, in their vertical absurdity, and there will be no end to the suffering of man. In the foreground I see rocks, sharp and black. Further, pixelated slightly on the surface of the screen, is a muddy, indistinct area that we continue to call the sea, and which was once the Mediterranean. Creatures advance in the foreground, along the crest of the cliffs, like their ancestors did, several centuries before; they are less numerous and more dirty. They fight, try to regroup, form packs or hordes. Their faces are now just a surface of red flesh, bare and raw, attacked by worms. They shiver with pain at the slightest breath of wind, which sweeps up gravel and sand. Occasionally they throw themselves on each other, fight and wound each other with their blows or their words. One by one they detach themselves from the group, their pace slows, they fall on their backs. Elastic and white, their backs can withstand contact with the rock; they then resemble upturned turtles. Insects and birds land on bare flesh, peck