Félix’s notebook
I thought I was done. I had set the letter aside with that deceptive relief that sometimes accompanies the decision to stop. But thought, once it has found a point of purchase, does not withdraw so easily. It begins again elsewhere, in another form, almost without my noticing. A single breath is enough, and everything starts moving again, like mechanisms that are too sensitive and run wild at the slightest draft.
A detail returned. I call it a detail out of habit, knowing full well that it is nothing of the sort. Igniatius suspects—and this is not insignificant… he has never quite formulated it, but the allusion was clear—that I might be the author of the drawings he sometimes brings to the sessions. He says it almost casually, as if he were putting forward one hypothesis among others, but this hypothesis concerns me too directly to be left hanging. He claims to have found them in a gallery located at the foot of Lucian’s building. He insists on the verb “to find.” As if their provenance were meant to remain accidental, almost trivial.
Yet I know that place. Too well. I pass by it without stopping, precisely because I know what is shown there. This proximity is not innocent, even if I have never crossed the threshold with the intention attributed to me. Coincidence, of course. Cities are full of them. And yet I cannot rid myself of the unease produced by this convergence.
What complicates matters further is Lucian’s position. According to what I can gather, at least through what he has let me perceive, he assumes that these drawings come from Igniatius himself. He sees in them a displaced production, an indirect way of speaking without acknowledging authorship. Two readings, then, that cross without meeting. In one, I become suspect. In the other, Igniatius hides behind his own images. And I stand exactly at the intersection of these narratives.
I try to put things in order. Facts first: the drawings exist. They circulate. Their origin remains floating. Igniatius says he found them. Lucian thinks they are produced. As for me, I have done nothing to dispel the confusion, perhaps because I did not yet know how directly it concerned me. This silence, in retrospect, seems less neutral than I would have wished.
I wonder what is at stake here. Not the factual truth, which would probably end up being established, but the very necessity of these crossed suspicions. Why must an author be designated, and why does this need take such an almost circular direction? Each seems to attribute to the other what troubles him. And I, who observe, discover that I could occupy this vacant place without having sought it.
There is something in this affair that moves me more than I want to admit. Perhaps because I recognize a familiar mechanism: that moment when thought, believing it clarifies, multiplies reflections until it loses itself. The mills begin turning again. I watch them, with a fatigue mixed with an attention I have not managed to deactivate.
I am not writing to conclude. I would not succeed. I write to hold on to these elements before they recombine differently, for I can already sense that by tomorrow they will have changed places. Putting things in order here does not mean resolving them. It simply means accepting to see how the lines intersect, and acknowledging that I am more involved than I had believed.
I close this page with an emotion I prefer not to name. It has less to do with the fear of being discovered than with that of discovering something I was not seeking.
A detail returned. I call it a detail out of habit, knowing full well that it is nothing of the sort. Igniatius suspects—and this is not insignificant… he has never quite formulated it, but the allusion was clear—that I might be the author of the drawings he sometimes brings to the sessions. He says it almost casually, as if he were putting forward one hypothesis among others, but this hypothesis concerns me too directly to be left hanging. He claims to have found them in a gallery located at the foot of Lucian’s building. He insists on the verb “to find.” As if their provenance were meant to remain accidental, almost trivial.
Yet I know that place. Too well. I pass by it without stopping, precisely because I know what is shown there. This proximity is not innocent, even if I have never crossed the threshold with the intention attributed to me. Coincidence, of course. Cities are full of them. And yet I cannot rid myself of the unease produced by this convergence.
What complicates matters further is Lucian’s position. According to what I can gather, at least through what he has let me perceive, he assumes that these drawings come from Igniatius himself. He sees in them a displaced production, an indirect way of speaking without acknowledging authorship. Two readings, then, that cross without meeting. In one, I become suspect. In the other, Igniatius hides behind his own images. And I stand exactly at the intersection of these narratives.
I try to put things in order. Facts first: the drawings exist. They circulate. Their origin remains floating. Igniatius says he found them. Lucian thinks they are produced. As for me, I have done nothing to dispel the confusion, perhaps because I did not yet know how directly it concerned me. This silence, in retrospect, seems less neutral than I would have wished.
I wonder what is at stake here. Not the factual truth, which would probably end up being established, but the very necessity of these crossed suspicions. Why must an author be designated, and why does this need take such an almost circular direction? Each seems to attribute to the other what troubles him. And I, who observe, discover that I could occupy this vacant place without having sought it.
There is something in this affair that moves me more than I want to admit. Perhaps because I recognize a familiar mechanism: that moment when thought, believing it clarifies, multiplies reflections until it loses itself. The mills begin turning again. I watch them, with a fatigue mixed with an attention I have not managed to deactivate.
I am not writing to conclude. I would not succeed. I write to hold on to these elements before they recombine differently, for I can already sense that by tomorrow they will have changed places. Putting things in order here does not mean resolving them. It simply means accepting to see how the lines intersect, and acknowledging that I am more involved than I had believed.
I close this page with an emotion I prefer not to name. It has less to do with the fear of being discovered than with that of discovering something I was not seeking.
F.
How and why did I come to make this slip… Naturally the attentive reader will have understood that I should have written “he.” It is Lucian and not me. But this shows me how necessary it is to put order into my notes and to master my thoughts without giving free rein to my imagination… I will have to look into this a bit more…
Meanwhile…
Revolt does not always take the form of a confrontation. In Igniatius’s characters, it manifests as a displacement. Don Carotte, as if an umbilical cord had been severed, no longer fights what gave him birth. He frees himself from it. By becoming Anatole, he ceases to occupy the central position of the conflict. He no longer opposes. He shifts. This change is not a flight. It marks a passage. Anatole gains access to a broader vantage point, where revolt is no longer merely a reaction but an understanding. He is no longer caught in the necessity of responding to Igniatius. The place he leaves does not remain empty. It creates a call. Sang Chaud steps into it without hesitation. By becoming Don Carotte, he accepts what accompanies that name. He gains new visibility. He also gains harsher exposure. What he receives is both an ascent and a loss, for taking Don Carotte’s place means renouncing the distance from which Anatole now benefits.
They then find themselves face to face. Two characters. Two positions. One system in motion. They know they come from Igniatius.
They also know that Igniatius speaks to Lucian. This knowledge circulates within them without any scene having transmitted it to them. It is the product of their very revolt.
By ceasing to obey, they have begun to understand. Don Carotte, who was Sang Chaud, speaks first.
Don Carotte
– You know things that I do not yet know.
You speak of Igniatius and Lucian as if they were part of your field. Tell me how you have access to them.
Anatole listens to him as an analyst listens to a displacement he recognizes.
Anatole
– You think you know… that this knowledge comes from information. You are mistaken… it comes from a position. When I was Don Carotte, I resisted. Since I have become Anatole, I observe.
This change alters what I perceive.
Don Carotte
– Yet we are made of the same gesture.
Anatole
– Yes. But we are no longer in the same place within that gesture. Igniatius thought us. Then he spoke of us. Then he spoke of himself to Lucian. Each time, something shifted, and that shift runs through us.
Don Carotte remains silent for a moment. He measures what he has gained. He also senses what he has lost.
Don Carotte
– Then what I feel is not only a revolt.
Anatole
– No. It is a taking up of function. You now occupy what I left. You are at the heart of what still resists. I have moved elsewhere.
They look at each other without hostility. Revolt does not separate them. The roles have been redistributed. And while Igniatius still believes he is giving them life, they continue to transform themselves.
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