Without Any Pressing Need(Passe-partout) Lui, Le corps proper, Ni chaud ni froid, Sans aucun besoin pressant. --Francis Ponge, from "Grand Nu Sans Bois" It is a very long way from home, and I am resting. The field in my view is barely green, and the soft earth is not unkind to my limbs. I try not to think how far I have traveled. I know it does not matter. That there are two trees and one rock and a bit of soft earth are sufficient. And what abundance to have the field ahead. I take off my white low shoes, and very deftly but slowly unlace each one. I am surprised at the dirt that lies along each lace in small erratic patterns. But I try not to show too much pleasure at this discovery. How difficult to restrain oneself, to forfeit these joys. Now I have both shoes off, and I look at my stockingless feet. I count my toes. I still have ten, five on each foot, and no blister. I wonder whether this is a sign. Is it correct not to have suffered the blister? I remember that I could have chosen the black tight shoes. Why didn't I choose them? I try to think my cboice was propitious, that the choice of white shoes was the sign. The absence of the blister is merely the natural concomitant of the proper choice. I am not satisfied with my reasoning. Should I pursue it further? Should I reconsider the question of shoes? Should I discard the white ones and pursue my journey with bare feet? What is the proper sign and when do the signs begin to appear I do not know whether it is too early or too late. I turn my head and look at the butterfly that with me makes two moving worlds near the trees and the rock and the soft earth. I must discard the field. The butterfly does not give me joy. I permit myself to watch it. It has wings. It can fly, and when it wishes it can alight on the field. So will I through it arrive without motion on the field. Will the butterfly find the proper flower? Will it get the proper nourishment? When will it die? I am no longer concerned. Butterflies are ephemera. Yet I consider for the moment the yellow wings and remember that butterflies have delicate antennae. Have I consoled myself with that fineness? I must be more careful. Ah, the traps that beset one on the journey: the small patterns of dirt on the knee, the black antennae. Should include the lure of the field? Even the soft earth on which I rest if one suffered from punctilio could be included. I decide to make a judgment: the soft earth is permissible. I must abandon the laces on which I noted the dirt patterns. I must not admit the fineness of the butterfly's antennae. I have already ignored the field. I now see the rock more distinctly. It amazes me that as small as it is I recognized it at once as part of my milieu. I am beginning to have more confidence in my judgment. I make another decision. I shall lie down and close my eyes for five minutes (I know that because I have no watch I shall have to count to determine the time but I am relying on a very early knowledge of arithmetic.) These decisions please me, but they do not move me. I know I have not transgressed. I start to count. I find on reaching 299 that I have lost the rhythm of my counting. But I make a crucial leap and with no consequence other than the voicing of l I arrive at the full five minutes. I am still tired but I do open my eyes. I am relieved that my eyes turn away from the field and I again take in the single rock. The rock is hardly extraordinary. Gray, unevenly round, and alone on the sand, it rests. I am aware that I long to pick it up. The awareness makes the desire inconsequential. I place it on the palm of my right hand, and do not admire it. I touch with my left hand its edges and then place the rock onto the palm of my left hand. I touch with the right hand the edges of the rock but make this movement more slowly. The effort of the movement unites rock and hand. The rock is palpable. I observe the relation. Have I rested too long? Thre are still the two trees. Shall I observe them now or note them only when I resume my journey? I know I shall look at them now and yield to this knowledge. They are huge with low ranches, unwieldy but strong. Their gnarled roots are almost entirely visible, and the thickness of their bark proclaim their health. They have stood a long time. I pick up the laces that I must leave behind me and getting up place them on one of the lowest branches. This mark of attention neither dignifies nor soils. It can barely be noticed …. It still may be a token of defamation. I am wary: I realize the significant question. If it is a token of defamation, who has defamed it - I by placing the laces upon the branch or the laces by being placed there? Since there will be no night I have the possibility of continuing on my journey or of remaining near the two trees and the rock. I require no preparation to do either. If I remain I will not have to find food or shelter. I do not have to ask myself whether or not to remain The question is meaningless. In fact I know I do not have to ask the question. This does not rattle me beacuase I am aware that I have not asked the question but allowed the suggestion of other possibilities to make itself known. The suggestion reveals prior knowledge of earlier conditions. It does not imply that the earlier situation has imposed itself on the present. Suddenly I know I must move on. I cover distance. The sameness of my view confirms it. The shoes unlaced are on my feet and I am heading far away from the field and the two trees. I am aware that I am not shuffling despite the fact that I have no laces on my shoes. I consier the ease with which I walk a phenomenon. I know the phenomenon deserves mention. As I am wondering to whom to mention this phenomen I hear a sound. There is a ripple to it, and I try to recall why it is familiar. I listen more intently. The ripple now sounds like a blubber. There are more and more blubbers. His is an obvious sign. And it is curious that the sign has not come in the form of a vision but of a sound, a noise, a disturbance falling only on my ears in this space now without trees without rock without field. I have traveled a long way, and this blubber intruding itself on my journey is neither welcome nor an annoyance. There is no doubt, however, that it is a sign, and I must wait. I listen. Blubber blubber. Sudddenly the feet leave the water and I am not surprised to see two white rabbits stop, transfixed, hold me entrapped in their stare, and hop quickly away. I think of Alice in Wonderland but this thought does not amuse me. I close my eyes for a brief moment to absorb the image of the rabbits. Because this is the first sign I know it will have the least importance. My primary duty is to remember the sequence of events and to be able to picture the scene at a moment's notice: the ripple, the blubber, the two feet sonorously moving the water, the transformation, the steady gaze of the white rabbits, the speedy hop away. I know that my only difficulty will be my desire to linger over the image. I must hold it without being enrapt. I try it once and tremble as I begin to succumb. I cannot afford such weakness. I try again, and this time my resistance works. The white rabbits' silence and stare hold me without rapture. I am entranced and cold. I am myself and simultaneously observe two white objects. I have retained the image. I walk on never once turning back. (Shy I grant that only the first sign is within my recollection.) My shuffle is the only noise in the soundless atmosphere, and as I move along at an even pace I begin to nod my head in accompaniment. My lips almost form a smile, which I suppress, of course, and instead with my arms form a circle above my head to balance the awkward motion. My arms tire soon, however, and as I approach the long promenade I drop my arms, and extend them as if in an embrace of those thousand dead columns now appearing on each side of me, tall, thick, and unembellished. The columns are about five feet apart and seem to extend down an endless road. I am aware that I shall have to walk between this wide row of columns to meet whatever is beyond the horizon. Now, however, it is time for me to take the pill. I ignore for one instant the gray, ineffectual columns and authoritatively select from my pocket the smallest pill. I swallow it with precision. Fullness is partial. Nourishment is complete. Vestigial digestion takes place, and there is assurance an organism is present. Problems of overindulgence or starvation are irrelevant, and there is no consciousness of weight nor fatigue. I dismiss the lack of fruitless consequences of swallowing food that is neither hot nor cold, spiced nor bland, delicious or indifferent, and rest beside a column on my left. As I settle my self I notice lying horizontally on the road opposite me a large picture frame. I estimate the dimensions as l08" x " and overcome regret at not seeing a painted canvas. The blues and greens are missing, the oval shapes hanging in white space and the lost circles cunningly being displaced by black shadow lines, the oblique suggestion of a running figure abuse my memory. A prisoner of my memory I succumb to the recognition: I have overtaken the second sign. Its visual nature seems proper. That it should have appeared after the taking of a pill is not worthy of mention, since there was neither a desire nor a fulfillment of a desire. The absence of urgency, the unproclaimed nutritive absorption are evidence enough of a successful pursuit of the journey. It is clear that the timing of the appearance of the second sign is not significant. I recall the first sign: hear again the ripple, the blubber, see the rhythmic motion of the feet and the transformation into two white rabbits. I betray an earlier excitement in the rapt motions of the rabbits. But does this second sign not beguile me? Will I yield to its subtler force? The sign tempts the memory, uncovers the secrets and says "no" to the powers of forgetting. The running figure can be made to stop, the ovals move onto squares on the missing canvas, and the greens and blues can appear with chalk, or the lines can be etched in acid. Sprays and drippings of paint can let loose desire and that single door closed near the path or return can be unlocked not by the key in the pocket that has lain undisturbed by the whole length of the journey but by the secret key held taut in the picture frame (the door?) almost palpable in memory (liquidly on the tongue) and slyly obliterated by the forgetting. With my journey half done, have I overcome the dangers inherent in the first sign only to yield to those more obvious dangers of the second? Must I now be aware of a conscious effort? As though by way of answer there is a loud noise. I hear what sounds like the tramping of thousands of hooves and yet see nothing. Again I am afraid but in a state of passive wonder. I deliberately shuffle to within inches of the frame, and bend slowly down so that I can touch it, and in totally absorbed action destroy the loud relevance of noise. The ritual of my action fails. I am scorned by the sudden disappearance of the frame. I refuse to admit this as a third sign. Negation holds no clarity and what is not and has been still has power. It is important to hold in memory without tremor the second sign. Its pure recollection will be a sufficient affirmation of its prior existence complete and whole. It must not have the power to unfold a memory as if what has been can be renewed by touch or smell. The journey has declared its own signs and looking backward is not one of them. Permission has been granted only to recall what has been a single stone, two trees, and a field. The transformation into rabbit was an obvious relenting, and the second sign showed too clearly that the store of memory has too much power to stir the senses. Will the object be forgotten and desire renewed? I return to a standing position and determine to begin the long walk down the road between the columns. I realize I am not distracted by the columns. The sameness of their thick passiveness is welcome. They lead me neither to turn my head to the left nor right nor lure me to touch them in admiration. I am in need of no resolution but I do not relax into passivity. Although there have been no warnings, there have been two signs, and I am still alert to a weakness that may yet be required to be exorcized: the object may not be sufficient. I find it unnecessary to consider the rhythm that my steps will take. The steps fall naturally into three parts: one two three stop pause one two three stop pause one two three stop pause. I have traveled a long way but I must go farther still. Suddenly the rhythm of my walk engages me. I am finding a seduction taking place. The motion of the rhythm affects me: my body is beginning to respond without duress. I am finding joy in my walk - my body pushes on. I am becoming lithe and weightless and the only control is the rhythmic motion of my breath. One delight two delight three delight stop pause. Under what terror I am put. Ah, at last, I am able to stop short. My knees sink beneath me. I am on the ground, the horizon still far off before me, and the long columns impassive unrelenting. I am shaking. I lose my resolve. Will there now be a warning? Will there be another sign? Will I be able to continue the walk? Or shall I close my eyes unconscious and in a fit? There is no sign. I work toward becoming unmoved. The same objects before me assist me to regain my composure. I study the ground on which I have fallen and notice that near my arms still extended because of the fall there is a brown object. It is the size of a pill. Of course it must have fallen from my pocket when I fell. I know I am regaining firmness as I slowly and without spasms reach for it, touch it, hold it, place it on my tongue, roll it and feel it painlessly dissolve. It will have a quieting effect I know and the repercussion of my seduction will dissolve with it. I am not in danger. I manage to place myself into a shifting position and my knees bent in front of me with my arms resting upon them assure me that no resolutions will be necessary. Calm is a byproduct of seduction and seduction is neither desire nor unreason. I recall the first sign without tremor: the ripple, the blubber, the two feet sonorously moving the water, the transformation, the steady gaze of the white rabbits, the speedy hop away. I consider the second sign: the frame, 108" x ", the absent canvas, the missing blues and greens, the unseen ovals not taking shape, the running figure unmoved and invisible, the slow stoop to touch the canvas, its complete and unpredicted removal. I am impenetrable, a mover unmoved and without sound smile and oblivious of rhythm. I discover that I have progressed beyond the road away from the columns and am looking upon a valley of unrelieved green. As I stand unperturbed I am aware of a powerful stench. The stench is not familiar. It is not pretty or neutral. It is very much in the form of an obvious attack upon the nostrils. The degree of attack is undeserving of measure. But the attack cannot be ignored. I know it is a third sign. I observe the contours of the valley, and as my eyes wander down to the extreme left I see what looks like a very small pond. In the pond there is a huge frog, soundless, green and brown. Even from my position I am able to see rising from its skin a white emanation. This emanation travels upward. There is no question that the emanation contains the stench; the sign contains the smell. In the stench is decay, an effluvium of age and illness. The death exhalations of the frog seem continuous. Had I not observed the frog the vapor would have seemed low clouds of a rich fertile valley. I am pleased to determine the course of the sight and smell and without effort engage my memory to hold the third sign. I note there is little difficulty connected with this third sign other than its endurance, but I had felt at once that the degree of this olfactory attack was undeserving of measure. As I am making this observation again I overcome the surprise I feel to be violently jerked down into the valley and to be set directly at the foot of what now looks like a giant frog, a frog-sphinx. I am a small hailstone beside it. I feel one of us will have to disappear. It is I. When I discover where I am after my disappearance I accept its appropriateness. I am standing in front of a huge door obviously of a place of residence.. There is a key in the keyhole and it is a replica of the one I carry in my pocket that has lain undisturbed the whole length of the journey. It is not necessary to replace the key with my own. I know the one in the door will work. But why should I use it? Is it not a warning? Does it not suggest that the same key to the same door is not the same key that lies in the pocket? The same key to the same door will allow an entrance to the same place at the desired time but it will leave unused the original, the one that has lain undisturbed in my pocket for the whole length of the journey. The rejection of the object that has the surety of the whole journey is the rejection of the signs. To retain the signs is to use the object. I know there is no suggestion of a problem as I decide to touch the key in my pocket and to enclose it within my palm. As I do so I recognize a distention in the keyhole and the replica is oozing liquid that seems to beckon me to taste. I do not hesitate and with my tongue lap up the liquid until the entire key has disappeared. I recognize the fourth sign. I have drunk it up. The taste lingers only long enough to direct me to its source: the keyhole. I look at it quickly and understand. I take out the key that has lain undisturbed in my pocket for the whole length of the journey and place it in the keyhole. There is no question of fit. I have opened the door, the passe-partout, and have walked in. |