Without insisting

 

 

 

Even before Lucian arrives, Félix senses that something has changed. Nothing spectacular. Nothing that could be named a rupture. An erosion, rather. Slow. Almost polished. A wear so mild as to be homeopathic, yet continuous. Until now, their exchanges had retained an amicable tone. A discreet complicity, made of trust and mutual esteem. Félix realizes that this self-evidence no longer holds. Not that Lucian has closed himself off, nor that he has become hostile. But a reserve has settled in, as though every word now had to cross an invisible border.

Félix sits down, quickly rereads his notes, then closes the notebook.

Do not insist, he tells himself. Do not push him toward what he still refuses to see.

He forms a resolution, almost a strategy: let Lucian speak of Igniatius. Return to detours, to episodes, to invented figures. There, he is certain, lie many elements he has yet to grasp. Igniatius’s characters speak too much to say nothing. They say a great deal about him—and perhaps, indirectly, about Lucian.

There is a knock at the office door. Lucian enters. This time he carries a folder, which he sets down without comment on the low table. He takes out two drawings. Same format as those Igniatius usually brings. Same paper, same nervous lines, same restrained palette.

Lucian says nothing.

He makes a simple, almost courteous gesture, inviting Félix to look.

Félix takes his time. He forces himself into slowness. He does not want to defend himself through haste—besides, what defense would that be, and where would it come from? Silence settles in, but it is not an empty silence. It is a watched silence.

 

 

 

The drawing is strange. A figure appears, inclined, almost off balance, caught in a network of vegetal or tentacular forms. Lines intertwine, coil, support as much as they hinder. The figure seems both carried and threatened, suspended in an unstable space, without any true ground.

Félix immediately understands that this is an episode from Don Carotte’s story and sees at once how much the figure resembles Lucian. Associations rise in him instantly. Too instantly. He restrains them.

Lucian finally breaks the silence.

 — I’d like you to comment on it…

The request is direct. Almost too direct.

Félix immediately senses its effect: he is, in a way, summoned to speak first. To produce meaning. To take, if only for a moment, a place that is not his. His inner plan cracks. He clears his throat slightly—not out of embarrassment, but to buy time. Then he chooses the only path that seems viable: to ask questions.

— What struck you, when you saw it for the first time? he asks softly.

Lucian sketches a brief smile, almost amused.

— It’s your turn to comment, he replies. You can see that’s what I’m asking.

Félix inclines his head slightly. He accepts the constraint, but in his own way.

— All right. Then I’ll take another path… I’ll try differently.

He pauses.

— When you say “comment,” are you expecting a description—or what it does to me?

Lucian does not answer right away. He looks again at the drawing, as though trying to absent himself… or to be absent from it.

— What it does to you, he finally says.

Félix breathes in slowly.

— What it does to me… is give me a sense of precarious balance. Something is holding, but we don’t quite know why. I feel that if a single line were to give way, everything would collapse.

He stops. Watches Lucian out of the corner of his eye. No reaction.

— I wonder, he continues, whether this body is supported by what surrounds it… or whether, on the contrary, it is trapped by it.

(He hesitates.)

— And I also wonder whether that indecision matters.

Lucian crosses his arms.

— It’s interesting that you speak of indecision, he says. Igniatius, for his part, speaks more of a struggle.

— A struggle against what? Félix asks immediately.

Lucian shrugs slightly.

— Against whatever prevents him from moving forward. Words, figures, impostures… you know the refrain.

Félix nods. He turns back to the drawing.

— What also strikes me, he says, is the absence of ground. There is no obvious point of support. Everything takes place in the in-between.

He corrects himself.

— But I’d rather ask you: do you see a ground?

Lucian looks at the image for a long time. Then:

— No.

A silence.

A real one, this time.

Félix feels something tighten between them. He has not taken Lucian’s place, but he is no longer entirely outside either. He has spoken. And that speech, however cautious, has left a trace.

— And Igniatius? he asks again. What does he say about this drawing?

Lucian answers without hesitation:

— I think he said he had never seen it before… at least not exactly as it appears to you.

Félix does not comment.

He merely nods.

The session can continue.