La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams

No. 118: June 1972

The double party

I’m visiting a house with the bartender from a bar I go to often. There is a glass wall, which is trembling. The bartender explains: it’s because it’s in contact with the metallic posts of the awning. There is a clogged sink. To unclog it, you first have to fill another: thanks to some sort of system of communicating vases, the flow of the normal sink will enable the flow of the clogged sink.

There is a large party at my parents’ house. I’m sitting on a couch between P. and a young woman with whom I am flirting. P. gets up angrily; I don’t understand why. I make a date with the young woman for 11:30 p.m.

I take a train. I cross a city. Somewhere, an incline in the sidewalk is replaced by a moving walkway.

I get to Dampierre, where there is a big party. Almost everyone who was at the party at my parents’ house has come.

I meet my aunt, who is with Z.; Z. looks like another one of my aunts and has the same voice as her (a disagreeable voice); she says to me:

“There’s a concert in the garden.”

At the dinner table. P. is across from me; she’s been drinking heavily.

I didn’t tell the young lady where we would meet.

I cross the property. Many things have changed. I have a hard time recognizing the old basements, which have become large vaulted rooms; I meet people whom I have seen before in the same place, a woman, in particular, who may have been my mistress; she gives me an enigmatic smile that seems to signify that our relationship is quite finished.

I can’t get over how unpleasant Z.’s voice has become to me.

A large lunch is served on a huge esplanade looking down on the entrance to the property. The people arriving down below look like ants; sometimes they actually are ants: someone sweeps the path to keep them from entering.

The young woman comes to meet me; she’s wearing a hat that is a sort of turban topped with a tiny umbrella; I am pleased that she knew she was supposed to meet me here.