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resolve this story one way or another. Then, on the plane, as she was chatting away with D., despair overwhelmed me completely, I felt soiled, and I was overcome with the desire to just drop the whole thing, to leave her at the airport in G — and never to see her again, never to expose myself again to this indifference whose profound ambiguity was tearing me apart. My weakness got the upper hand, I went to that hotel: there were no more rooms. Good, I said to myself, at least that’s settled for me. We agreed to meet at eight that evening; I came, but she wasn’t there anymore. She had left a note at the reception for another man, whom she had to see for professional reasons: for me, nothing. Later that evening, I found her in a restaurant with all her colleagues. She was immersed in conversation with her boss, she barely looked at me. Taking advantage of a pause, I made a date with her for the next afternoon, for lunch. She offhandedly agreed and told me to come find her at the office. They all left soon afterwards and she barely said goodbye to me. She was far, very far away. The next day, around noon, I found her at the office with D., settling their administrative problems. She was exasperated and paid almost no attention to my presence. I waited for an hour, asking her two or three times if she planned on lunching with me: “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she replied, “I have to go back to the hotel.” I was sitting in the lobby of the office where she was with the administrator when a little black and white bird flew in. It began walking around with disjointed but calm steps, surprised at the closed door. Then it turned on a little moth that was sleeping there and attacked it with its beak. The moth struggled, but in vain, and the bird swallowed it in a cloud of scales, a fine white dust of torn off wings forming a luminous halo around its head. C. was chatting with D., they were waiting for the administrator to pay them, they were talking animatedly about incidents of their work, laughing. I sat down near them, useless. Then the administrator returned. Once again, I asked C. if she wanted to come have lunch: her answer remained vague, it was obvious that her problems had completely absorbed her, I was only disturbing her. I left with barely a word, she did nothing to hold me back. The next day, the flight that was supposed to carry me away from there was canceled because of a holiday.
— SPRING 1997

Fait Accompli
So there she had said that and already it was irreparable. For him as well as for her not being the kind of man to take that lightly. But making a decision right away was not something he was capable of, nor she. So first think, then talk. But even before thinking first not thinking, waiting, letting a little time pass, foul time, in any case there would be enough left, even if in this precise case it was objectively limited, for concrete physiological reasons making it so that a certain amount of time of no reflection and of no discussion and hence of no decision would in itself be a decision, a decision made. So not to think right away, so as not to think in the heat of the moment, but still to think, and fairly quickly, when the moment is lukewarm rather than cold. So she then on her side first not thinking and then rather quickly thinking, and he on his side as well. The other just growing. He then thinking but without knowing how she was thinking, telling himself that in any case for him it was of no importance how she thought since she is the one who did the thing, so she has only to wait, and if no decision then in fact decision, thus it’s up to him to think now. First error of reasoning perhaps but nonetheless that is how he proceeds. For him, then, two questions, that is question 1 the other or not the other, and question 2 her or not her. To these two questions four solutions, that is solution 1 him without her without the other, solution 2 him with her without the other, solution 3