THIS, TOO
Arthur Bernard - 2005
THIS, TOO — 2
THIS, TOO:
What do we see?
We see something.
We see the same thing.
We see something else.
We see nothing.
We see.
THIS, TOO:
One and one make two:
A man and a woman.
Two and two make four:
Tokyo and Venice,
New York and Toulon.
Can we add people and cities together?
THIS, TOO:
Tokyo: capital of Japan since 1868. Until the sixteenth century, merely a fishing village called Yedo, overlooked by a feudal castle at the head of a broad bay.
Venice: at the heart of a basin sixty kilometres long and four wide,
and joined to the mainland by works of engineering
(who will speak of the beauty of these works of art?),
the city is built on one hundred and eighteen small islands.
New York: the largest and most famous city in the United States of America.
Toulon: a city in France (Var),
an important naval port on a magnificent
Mediterranean harbour, overlooked by Mont Faron.
THIS, TOO:
A man and a woman.
A woman and a man.
A couple?
In French, the masculine un couple: “a man and a woman brought together” (the dictionary).
In the feminine, une couple: “a tether used to bind two or more animals of the same species” (the same dictionary).
THIS, TOO:
Couples call each other on the telephone.
Sometimes the connection is poor. “Hello, hello, can you hear me?”
they ask anxiously, not always sure of themselves.
THIS, TOO:
This is repetition, because we see the same thing again.
It is also rehearsal—the other meaning of the French répétition: a piece of music, a play, practised as many times as we deem necessary to make it better.
Without repetition, there is neither art nor literature.
THIS, TOO:
This is a building site: there are cranes, earthmoving machines.
THIS, TOO:
This is fiction. What is fiction?
Walking through Venice and making yourself risotto?
She makes herself risotto and reads Gaston Bachelard’s Water and Dreams.
This is not fiction. What is the other side of fiction?
Taking an escalator?
He takes an escalator and reads a newspaper, sitting on a public bench in Tokyo, Japan.
THIS, TOO:
It keeps coming back.
THIS, TOO:
Hello, hello, can you hear me?
THIS, TOO: (the next-to-last)
Rehearsal: Richard III, the limping king, curses the sea as though it were a woman,
the voice says: “Fool who yields! Frivolous, fickle woman!” Herodotus
tells how Xerxes, king of the Persians, orders the sea whipped and chained
because a storm prevents his army from embarking to invade Greece:
“Bitter water,” those who scourge the Hellespont with three hundred
strokes of the lash are ordered to say, “our master punishes you because you have wronged him,
though he has never done you harm.”
THIS, TOO: (the last)
Again.