Excerpt from Normance |
by Louis-Ferdinand C?line |
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translated by Mark Spitzer (the master of rage at the hands of former Corpse-meister!) Leaning over the railing, our window is the best seat in the house... even at the bottom of the Butte... but the Mine's underwear is still concealed!... they've been digging it for two thousand years! Who knows when they'll come up from the depths of that horrible pit?... nobody will ever know... because the secret map's been lost... and the Butte's nothing but a hollow bubble! They'll patch it up... it'll cave in... nothing will be left on the surface... and beneath the sewers, all that plaster'll be gobbled down!... we won't find a skitch of wall!... nothing!... I must tell Lili!... "It'll be gone forever!" Not even a torn-up metro station! That's what cataclysms do, I'm telling you! Just look down there at St. Ouen! All that fiery chaos! They'll pulverize Bezons, just you wait and see!... I wonder about Bezons... with that fire they're pouring into the waves... they might even set the Seine aboil!... but ah, I see a sudden giant opal... the Abbey of St. Denis... rising beneath the flames! Like a fantastic jewel! And that's no bull! "It's St. Denis, Lili! It's St. Denis!" I refuse to let go of the railing, I want to see everything!... "Sacre Coeur'll be gone forever!" I can see it now! Because a building like ours——with bricks! mosaics! an elevator!——where can it go? Even a landmine set far enough away can blow people into the sky! This building was constructed for a calmer time! When airplanes graze the gutters, everything trembles: tiles! foundations! dishes! That's why everything will be devoured! What a swell time, catacombs! We'll go down without a peep... with blasts of conflagrations beyond human comprehension! It doesn't matter who's flabbergasted, expect the worst! But what does Lili think? A deluge rumbles through the earth and sky... it's a spectacle and then it ends... stinging molten shrapnel flowering out in yellow and blue... and red... "Hold me!" she says. "Kiss me!" But it's not enough, she wants passion! There's no shame at all right now!... it's the cataclysm! and Brooum! and Brooum! Okay, I'll kiss her like she wants... and though I don't say anything... I'm thinking about how she posed for that hunchback Jules... baring her bare ass for him... that stumpy little piss-soaked scoundrel... he disgusts me to death! But I must give in... it's good for my health... "Shit! Shit! A hundred thousand shitloads of shame!" I mull it over. Suddenly the building coughs, jerks, shudders——as if it's about to shoot off!... No!... we're by the window... we should see... What a spectacle! Oh the benevolence! It's Bastille Day, I'm telling you! The ship of the City of Paris is crossing the heavens!... cutting through the garbage... while five hundred literal faggots, burning bright before our eyes, break apart into smaller parts with thundering Baboooms! Ah, the boat of Paris sails on... through all those sissy schoolboy firecrackers! I think of Jules again... what he did to me! Flood or no flood, it's not worth thinking about that sorry excuse for a semi-human... more buildings are ripped from the ground, obliterated!... taken away ten at a time... disappearing into the clouds! |
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