[It was Jessica Grim the American poet...]

It was Jessica Grim the American poet who first advised me to read Violette Leduc. Lurid conditions are facts. This is no different from the daily protests and cashbars. I now unknowingly speed towards which of all acts, words, conditions — I am troubled that I do not know. When I feel depressed in broad daylight depressed by the disappearance of names, the pollen smearing the windowsill, I picture the bending pages of La Bâtarde and I think of wind. The outspread world is comparable to a large theatre or to rending paper, and the noise it makes when it flaps is riotous. Clothes swish through the air, rubbing my ears. Promptly I am quenched. I’m talking about a cheap paperback which fans and slips to the floor with a shush. Skirt stretched taut between new knees, head turned back, I hold down a branch,