silence on the great fields of ripe wheat, the burnt rigging ‘of the high-tension pylons. They will see glassworks, almost spanking new factories arge holiday camps, dams, ‘small houses ll alone in clearings. Children willbe running slong a white road, ‘Thejourney willbe plessantforalong while. Towards noon, they will wander nonchalantly down tthe dining ear. They willsitby a window, facing eachother. They willorder two ‘whiskies, They willlook at each other one last time with 2 smile of complicity. The starched table nen, the solid cut- Jery engraved with the arms of the Compagnie des Wagons Lit, the weighty, emblazoned crockery will seem lke 2 prelude to a sumptuous fete. But che meal they willbe ferved wil be quite simply tasteless he mens is much pa of he ha there. The ge for rat mussel beet eqs eur of ¢ rch he ifn ar combine he el es A MAN ASLEEP ‘Translated from the French by “Andrew Leakpondered curricula vitae. Their luck ~ but it will not be luck exactly ~ will be in, Their employment records, de- spite being irregular, will be given particular scrutiny They will be summoned. They will manage to find the ‘words that are needed to make 3 good impression, ‘And that is how after a few years of errant living, weary of nothaving enough money, weary of counting the ‘pennice and of resenting the counting, Jerome and Sylvie will accept ~ perhaps with thanks ~ ewin executive posts accompanied by salaries which could just about pass for a golden hello which some big shot will ffer them in advertising. “They will go to Bordeaux to take over an agency. They will prepare thei departure with care. They will sore out their fat, have it repainted, get cid of the piles of books, the bundles of nen, the stacks of crockery that had always clutered ic up and beneath which they had often felt they were suffocating. They will walk around their almost ‘unrecognisable two-roomed apartment which they had always said ic wat impossible to do anything in, expecially ‘to walk round. They will seit forthe first time the way they had always wanted tose, atlas repainted, sparkling ‘white and clean, without speck of dust, unstained, with ‘outa crack in the plaster ora tear in the wallpaper, with its low ceiling, its rustic courtyard, its admirable tre over ‘hich, very soon, just as they had in the past, the new ‘owners will ll into rapes, ‘They will sell their Books to dealers and their old rags to second-hand clothes shops. They will do the round of | tailor, dressmaker, shirtmaker. They will pak their runks, They will not relly earn a fortune. They will not be chairmen oF managing directors. The only millions they ‘will manipulate wil belong to other people. They will get some of the crumbs, for appearances, for silk shirts, for pigskin gloves. They will be presentable. They willbe well housed, well fed, well dressed. They will not be wanting, ‘They will have cheir chesterfield sete, their armchairs in soft natural leather as stylish as seats in Italian racing cars, thee rustic tables, their Iectems, and their fited carpets, silk ogs, and light oak bookcase, ‘They will have huge and empty rooms fall of light; plenty of clearance, glass panes, magnificent outlook, ‘They will have china, silver eutery, lace napkins, sumpeu- ‘us red leather bindings ‘They will not yet be thirty. They will have their whole lives ahead of them, ‘They will leave Pars early one September. They willbe Jinan almost empty firstcatscariage. The tran will pick ‘up speed almost straight away. TThe aluminium carriage ‘il sway comfortingly. ‘They wil eave, They willeave everything behind ther, ‘They will run, Nothing could have held chem, “Do you remember?” Jérdme will say. And they will ‘muse on time past, dark days, youth, their fist fiendships, thei frst surveys, the tree in the courtyard in Rue de ‘Quatrefiges, the frends they had lost, the comradely din- ner parties. They will recall how they would cross Paris to look for cigarettes, and stop in front of antique dealers They will summon up iHiemories of theie days in Sfx, their slow death, their slmosttrigmphant return, “So here we ae,” Sylvie will sy. And it will seem co them to be almost 4 matter of cours, ‘They will eel a ease in thet lightweight clothes. They vill spread themselves out in the deserted carriage. The French countryside will march past. They will look inground, and the green-and-ced ensign of Algeria, will wave inthe breeze, ‘There will be a bit ofthe sea, so blue, chen big building sites, interminable burbs jammed with donkeys, children tnd bicycles, then the endless olive groves. And then the ‘open road: Sakietes-Zit, El Djem and its amphitheatre, Maaken the city of brigands, Susa and its overpopulated seafront, Enfdavile and ts huge olive plantation, Birbou ‘eekba and is coffee shops, fruit and ceramics, Grombalia, Porinville and its vine-covered hills, Hammam Lif, then a stretch of motorway, industrial suburbs, soap factories, ‘cement works: Tunis. ‘They will spend hours swimming at Carthage, amidst ‘the ruins, at La Marsa; they will go all the way to Utica, to Kelibia, to Nabeul, where chey will buy 2 gugget, © Goleta where, late inthe evening, they will et amazing bream. "Then one day asx inthe morning they will be atthe docks. Embarkation procedures willbe long and tiresome: they will struggle to find a place on deck to pitch their chairs, "The crossing will be uneventful. At Marseilles chey will dink a bow! of café au lat with croiseants. They will buy ‘yesterday's Le Monde and Libération. On the train they will Ihear the wheels beating out the bars of songs of victory, of the Hallelujah chorus, of tiuraphant hymns. They will ‘count the kilometres; they will be in rapeures over the French countryside, ts great wheatfilds its green forests, its pastures and genle rolling bil ‘They will got in at eleven in the evening, All thie friends will be at the station. They will be amazed at how well they look: they wil be as tanned as trekkers, and wearing broad-beimmed hats of plaited staw. They will ell all about Sfx, deserts, splendid ruins, how cheaply you can live there, the sea so blue. They will be dragged off to “Harry's”. They will get drunk strnight away. They will be happy. ‘Ando they will return, and i wil be even worse. Rue de Quatrefages will still be there, with ts wonderful tee, and their lite fat, so quain, with its low celling, with its ‘one red-curtained window and its one green-carained ‘window, its good old books, is heaps of newspapers, its narrow bed, its tiny kitchen, its mes. ‘They will see Pais again, and i wil be all that life ean afford. They will saunter by the banks ofthe Seine, inthe gardens of Palais Royal, in the side-stects of Suint- Germain. And every night, in the brightly-tserets every shop window will once again be s wondrous enticement Sulls will groan with the weight of foodstuffs. They will Join in the shoving throng in department stores. They will ‘thrust their hands into folds of sik, cup thet hands around chunky phils of perfume, brush thei hands over tes. ‘They will ry to lives they lived before. They will pick ‘up their old contacts in the agencies. But the spells will have broken. Once again they will safocate. They will thnk they are dying from things being too small, £00 cramped. ‘They will dream of fortune. They willlook inthe gutters in the hope of coming across a bulging wallet, a bank note, a Fianc, a metro ticket They will dream of getting away to the country, They willdram of Sax. ‘They won't stick it out for long, ‘And so one day ~ had they not always known that this day ‘would come? ~ they will decide to be done with it, once and forall, like everyone els, Theie fiends, in che know, will look out for jobs for them. A good word will be put inatseveral agencies. Fll ofhope, they will write careFlly my