La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams

No. 109: March 1972

Dives

Two of my plays are being performed “urgently.”

The older one isn’t going too badly, but the new one! All of my actors forget their lines. We have to stop the run. Irritation.

Very elderly people pop up like shadows and begin to applaud. Is it because they think it’s over, or because they’ve just arrived?

We run this new play again, but this time to music. A musician is directing the performance with the help of a “mixer” and is doing an excellent job of it.

All of this might be happening in Dampierre.

Conversation on a lawn. One participant is wearing camouflage fatigue pants. We share a common memory (between us and anyone who has jumped in a parachute): the difficulty of jumping with a hatchet at one’s belt. Many accidents.

The game goes on and on

Someone I was with leaves

I no longer know where I am, where I’m going

Furious, I go to the hotel office and demand — in French — that I be shown my room. The customs officer understands and speaks French: she will show me the way.

I get lost in a maze of tiny staircases.

It turns out I’m in a brothel. Three obese, cheerful women attack me in one of the rooms I explore while looking for my own. I run away. Another woman chases me (this isn’t so bad, actually).