MELANCHOLY
PAUL’s grave in the cemetery. ROMAIN and MARIE 2 have brought flowers.
MARIE 2
…I think he was melancholy.
ROMAIN
Not suffering from depression?
MARIE 2
I like melancholy better.
ROMAIN
Why’s that?
MARIE 2
Because depression has to do with landscapes: you know, a valley, a hollow, a ditch sort of thing. Melancholy is personal; it doesn’t concern anyone else, the term, I mean.
ROMAIN
Sure.
ROMAIN smiles at MARIE. They gaze at one another as though on the verge of kissing.
MARIE 2
…Later on, are we going to kiss the way the others do? Like some sort of understanding, an open code and a point of no return? Kissing will be a pact that says we count for one another, count on one another, take responsibility for one another’s happiness and sadness too, and we’ll strive in vain to maintain this absurd emphasis of vision that makes us appear mutually magnificent and astonishing?
ROMAIN
(amused) Excuse me?
MARIE 2
Nothing. I’m just trying to look ahead, but I can’t. I might as well tell you right now, I haven’t got the courage for all that.
ROMAIN
Don’t worry about it, Marie.
MARIE 2
Thanks.
ROMAIN
It’s nothing.
MARIE 2
Thanks for understanding so quickly.
ROMAIN
Any time.
MARIE 2
I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Pause.
ROMAIN
Well, we can still count on one another and for one another, right?
MARIE 2
Oh yes.
ROMAIN
You’re okay with that?
MARIE 2
Yes.
ROMAIN
No problem with it or anything?
MARIE 2
No, of course not.
ROMAIN
So… eventually… we might kiss, right?
MARIE 2
What for?
ROMAIN
Like a pact sort of, one that says we count for one another and on one another, but without necessarily having to be responsible for one another’s happiness or sadness, and we’ll never fall into the trap of that ridiculous vision that makes each magnificent and astonishing to the other, right?
MARIE 2
…Yeah, sure, as things stand, I can see that.
ROMAIN
Great. This is going just great.
MONIQUE
(to the eye) It isn’t so much that I miss him. I can live with missing him. I’ve always been used to having regrets. I miss Paul and I miss others too, like old scents and landscapes, like all that passes, like all things from before whose absence is like an old bite I know so well and have done from my very first memories. It’s not the missing so much as the idea he may have been afraid, and especially that he might have had time to change his mind. What if hanging his body by the neck was not his very last wish, but his second-last, and another one welled up too late when he least expected it? It was too late to back out when he was already hanging there and maybe frantically reaching around with his feet, desperately searching for support to take the weight off his neck, maybe get himself out of it. Maybe he called out to me, maybe with enough time left for the thought that I’d come and save him, then giving up hope all over again. This… this is what I can’t bear: that maybe he changed his mind and had time to despair all over again.
MARIE 1
My brother lost his footing, but even now I don’t know exactly what he died of. I believed it was from coming into the world a stranger. I also thought his ambitions were far higher than earthbound life would allow, but how can I be sure?
The salsa class. PAUL and MARIE are doing a pas de deux that has absolutely nothing to do with salsa, while the others continue as usual.
PAUL
You’re so light on your feet, Marie!
MARIE 2
Really, you think so?
PAUL
You’re like a feather.
MARIE 2
Practically flying through the air, eh?
PAUL
Yes, that’s it, flying.
MARIE 2
Isn’t it wonderful to be able to rise up off the ground?
PAUL
Like a really good sleep.
MARIE 2
Or being drunk.
PAUL
Numbness… feeling nothing at all.
MARIE 2
Not me, I want to feel it all.
PAUL
Sleeping.
MARIE 2
I’ve decided I’m going to be sensual.
PAUL
Perchance to dream.
MARIE 2
Just you wait and see: I’m a lover of life!
PAUL
To flow like water or else fly.
MARIE 2
You think I can do it?
MARIE 1
Throughout time men have hanged themselves, lifted off this earth in convulsions like a body quivering with impatience to leave this world of feeling behind. There are people for whom life is a burn that nothing can assuage.
We must think of them as suffering, of course, if we want to believe in relief.
But what if the suffering we wish to impute to the hanged is not so… what if we do it to try and understand them, for we wish to do that too: give them meaning, assume they are delivered… even eventually happy, not just grieve for them. But what if it isn’t pain; well then, what is it? (to MARIE 2) Huh? What exactly are you looking for?
MARIE 2
What?
MARIE 1
…Looking for?
MARIE 2
I want to live life fervently.
MARIE 1
What is that supposed to mean, “live life fervently”?
MARIE 2
It means to live driven, led by something powerful, something that gives you a feeling of elevation, transcending ordinary needs and desires…
MARIE 1
So your ambition is to live better than everyone else?
MARIE 2
That’s not what I said…
MARIE 1
And how are you going to do that?
MARIE 2
In search of beauty.
MARIE 1
And where’s that exactly?
MARIE 2
I don’t know, paintings.
MARIE 1
Right, paintings.
MARIE 2
What do you mean, “right, paintings”?
MARIE 1
If you’re going to spend our time contemplating religious art, you should expect to be depressed.
MARIE 2
I think religious art is beautiful.
MARIE 1
Sure it is… Catholicism with its cannibalism, its flames, its serpents, its Way of the Cross, its frescoes filled with people begging and killing one another. Yeah, that’s great for the morale, that is.
MARIE 2
You’re getting on my nerves.
MARIE 1
You too, you drive me crazy with your… your Bovarysme.
MARIE 2
With my what?
MARIE 1
The way to go on thinking you were born for something else.
MARIE 2
What something else?
MARIE 1
Something… else.
MARIE 2
Yeah, well, I’d really like to know what.
MARIE 1
It’s as if ordinary life just isn’t enough for any of you, not ever.
MARIE 2
Us who?
MARIE 1
All of you! You, Paul and all those others who feel they don’t belong.
MARIE 2
It’s not our fault if we feel that way.
MARIE 1
It’s normal to feel different when you’re a kid, but later on, you’re supposed to realize you’re just like the others, all the others!
MARIE 2
I wouldn’t mind being anyone except who I am.
MARIE 1
That’s not true: you want to be anyone but not just anyone.
MARIE 2
What are you talking about? It makes no sense at all! Go on, get out of here! I can’t stand myself anymore! Go on, beat it!
CHOIR E
(dancing in the salsa class)
1. You’re depressed, that’s why…
2. Nothing to hope for, it’s normal.
3. Nothing to hope for.
4. In our day, we had something to hope for.
5. We looked ever so far ahead.
6. We looked so far, we couldn’t see any more. That’s how far it was.
7. We had no fear of the future.
8. You’re right to be depressed, Marie.
9. You’re a young woman.
10. No fun being a young woman.
11. But you have to make the most of it.
12. You’ll be sorry later on if you don’t.
13. You’ll be sorry and you’ll say: Okay, fine, so I wrote a thesis, but I haven’t got a job, no house, no kids, nothing to fight or hope for.
14. Cut it out. You’re making her even more depressed!
15. Your thesis is interesting.
16. Of course it’s interesting.
17. It’s not that it isn’t interesting.
18. For people who are interested in that sort of thing it’s… interesting.
19. Different people are interested in different things.
20. There’s no limit to what people can be interested in.
21. It’s just that a thesis isn’t exactly a cause.
22. Now what we had was causes.
23. Causes have meaning.
24. And when you’re tired of those, you can start a family.
25. That’ll give your life meaning.
26. When you’re out of causes, you can at least start a family.
27. It’s sort of like a mini cause.
28. I can see why you’re depressed.
29. Everyone is a little bit.
30. Yes, I’ve noticed that.
31. It must be the spiritual void.
32. Everybody’s full of spiritual void.
33. It’s worrisome just to exist; that’s why everyone’s worried about existing.
34. You’re not going to do like Paul did?
35. You’re not going to do like your brother.
36. Not like your brother.
37. Think about your parents.
38. Think about us.
39. Paul didn’t think about anybody.
40. Didn’t think about anybody.
MARIE 2 writes. She is worn out, and we can tell she’s been working on her thesis for hours when PAUL appears.
PAUL
So how’s it coming along?
MARIE 2 goes on writing.
…So, can I help you?
MARIE and PAUL each light up a cigarette.
MARIE 2
No, you can’t. You’re dead, remember? The truth is you’re not here, and by now not even your body’s here anymore either. Not only can’t you help me, but you’re keeping me from writing. I can’t think properly because of you.
MARIE 1
I… No. Thus our research… our research on my brother and the children… No. Thus our research on the archaeology of the image—by way of this detail concerning the feet of the angels… concealed… No. First hidden, then revealed…
PAUL watches the smoke from his cigarette, while MARIE 2 doesn’t even realize she is smoking. She answers PAUL without even looking up at him or interrupting her work.
PAUL
Don’t you think smoke softens things?
MARIE 2
What’s that?
PAUL
Don’t you think smoke softens things?
MARIE 2
Softens what?
PAUL
The world. Its perspectives, its angles, its noise.
MARIE 2
No idea. I’m trying to write.
PAUL
Without smoke, things are too harsh on the eyes, so it’s better to fog up the landscape a bit… don’t you think?
MARIE 2
Shhh!
MARIE 1
Thus our research into this archaeology of image…
PAUL
…Draws a veil over our sketch of the world. A little fog makes the light more evident, removing contours and finitude.
MARIE 1
Thus our research into this archaeology of image by way of the matter of angels’ feet…
PAUL
The uncertainty of image.
MARIE 1
…and through this significant detail, and the uncertainty of their painted images… we have been led to raise questions about the world… no, rather the world’s appearance.
PAUL
(to MARIE 2) Marie, are you listening?
MARIE 2
No! Will you stop bothering me!
ROMAIN
Marie? Are you all right?
MARIE 2
Huh? Oh yes, of course.
ROMAIN
Who were you talking to?
MARIE 2
Oh, nobody, I was just rereading out loud.
ROMAIN
So it’s coming along?
MARIE 2
Why do you keep asking me that, Romain, “Is it coming along?”
ROMAIN
Well, just… you know…
MARIE 2
It’s like asking me if my hair’s still growing! In theory, yes, it is, but I don’t SEE it growing, so I can’t really know for sure, can I? Yes, I suppose my thesis is coming along, just as I suppose my hair’s growing. Now are you going to ask the same question every half-hour on the half-hour?
ROMAIN
Okay, fine, you just trip out on your thesis and your hair, and we’ll talk some more later.
MARIE 2
(rereads her work) “…This research, then, has led me to question the world as represented to us, and to what degree this representation has depth and truth.”
MARIE 1
I’m always on my guard, and it tires me so easily. All my friends have one or even two children by now, plus a career or at least a job, have bought a house or are about to buy one, are saving up money, celebrating birthdays, decorating, gardening, planning vacations or at least trips to the movies, taking up a sport, cooking, more or less keeping up with the news, getting promotions and/or another car and/or a divorce, filling photo albums, and affectionately falling into one another’s arms. Well, we seem so different; yet time devours us all the same.