L'Usage de la parole / The Use of Speech Author(s): Nathalie Sarraute Source: Yale French Studies, , Special Issue: After

the Age of Suspicion: The French Novel Today (1988), pp. 14-17 Published by: Yale University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929338 Accessed: 16/11/2010 03:13
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NATHALIE SARRAUTE

L'Usage de la parole*

LE MOT AMOUR C'etait au fond d'un petit cafe enfume, mal eclaire, probablement d'une buvette de gare ... il me semble qu'on entendait des bruits de trains, des coups de sifflet ... mais peu importe . . . ce qui d'une brume jaunatre ressort, c'est de chaque cote de la table deux visages presque effaces et surtout deux voix ... je ne les percois pas non plus avec nettete, je ne saurais pas les reconnaitre ... ce qui me parvient maintenant ce sont les paroles que ces voix portent. . . et meme pas les paroles exactement, je ne les ai pas retenues ... mais cela ne fait rien non plus, je peux facilement inventer des paroles du meme ordre,les plus banales qui soient... de celles que deux personnes etrangeresl'une a l'autrepeuvent echanger au cours d'une rencontre quelconque, a une table de cafe... est-ce sur le gouitde ce qu'elles boivent . . . une orangeadeou bien du the? ou sur les avantages et les inconvenients des voyages en train, en avion ... ou sur n'importe quoi, je vous laisse, si vous le voulez, en imaginer d'autres ... mais ce que je ne peux pas vous laisser, ce qui dans ces paroles pour quelques instants m'appartient, ce qui m'attire, me taquine ... c'est ... je ne sais pas ... c'est peut-etre cette impression qu'elles donnent. . . de legerete. . . elles semblent voleter, aeriennes ... on dirait que ce qu'elles portent ... le gouitde la grenadine,la fatigue des voyages en train ... ce qu'on peut trouver de plus banal, de plus modeste, de plus discret, ne les emplit pas completement, laisse en elles des espaces vides ou quelque chose qui ne peut trouversa place nulle part, dans aucune parole, aucune n'a ete prevue pour le recevoir ... quelque chose d'invisible, d'imponderable, d'impalpable est venu s'abriter ..
*L'Usage de la parole (Paris:Gallimard, 1980), 67-71. This passage is reprintedwith the kind permission of Gallimard.

14

NATHALIE

SARRAUTE

15

Ces paroles peu lestees, dilatees, s'elevent, flottent, legerement ballottees, se posent doucement, effleurent a peine ... On pourrait, en observant ces paroles porteuses de platitudes et la legerete avec laquelle elles se posent, effleurent, rebondissent, les voir pareilles a des cailloux minces et plats voletant, faisant des ricochets. Mais cette image exacte a premiere vue et seduisante est de celles qu'il faut se contraindre a effacer, auxquelles il vaut mieux renoncer avant qu'elles ne vous egarent. Elle aurait immanquablement fait apparatre celui par qui ces cailloux sont lances et son geste montrant du savoir-faire, de l'habilete . . . elle aurait fait oublier ce qui dans ces paroles m'attire, ce qui revient me hanter . . . ces espaces vides en elles ou, a l'abri de choses modestes et effacees, vacille, tremble ... venu d'oui? Ceux de qui aussi naturellement, aussi irresistiblement que l'air qu'ils expirent cela s'exhale ne sauraient pas nous renseigner. Le lieu en eux d'oui cela emane n'a jamais ete decrit, il est dans une region que personne, si bien muni qu'il soit des mots les plus effiles et penetrants, ne peut atteindre ... aucun mot n'a pu venir ici prospecter,fouiller, saisir, extraire, montrer. . .
D'un cote a l'autre de la table les paroles circulent ... elles sont

comme des rayons que des miroirs identiques places l'un en face de C'est l'autre reflechiraient sous un meme angle, comme des ondes . . . << agreable, ces lumieres ... On ne voit plus partout que des eclairages au neon ... Les trains sur des petites distances . . . >> Les paroles a peine lestees, parcourues de vibrations, de radiations, jaillissent ... venues d'un lieu intact ouipour la premiere fois, une premiere et unique fois . . . sourd, fremit... 'a la source meme ... a la
naissance . . .

Mais oui, bien sufr,ca ne pouvait pas manquer,je vous entends, vous l'avez dit, nous l'avons dit ensemble ... voila ce que c'est que d'avoir l'outrecuidance de s'introduire dans ces lieux preserves, de briser leur silence ne serait-ce qu'avec des murmures, des balbutiements, avec les mots les plus timides, prudents . . . Qu'on les laisse penetrer et il est suir naissance >>... 'asa suite a qu'ils en ameneront d'autres ... Celui-ci: << amene . . . trop tard pour l'empecher d'entrer,le voici, il est la ... de ce mot: << naissance >> le mot << de >> est sorti aussitot, s'est tendu comme un amour >> ... bras,tirant a soi, enorme, faisant un grandvacarme, le mot << << La naissance de l'amour ... >>

16

Yale French Studies

The Use of Speech*

THE WORD LOVE It was at the back of a smoky, ill-lit little cafe, probably a station buffet . . . I rather think you could hear the sounds of trains, whistles
blowing . .. but that's of no importance .
..

what stands out from a yel-

lowish haze is, on either side of the table, two blurredfaces, and above all
two voices . . . I can't make them out very clearly either, I wouldn't be able to recognize them . . . what reaches me now is the words these voices conveyed . . . and not exactly the words even, I don't remember them . . . but that doesn't matter either, I can easily invent other words of the same order, the most banal imaginable . . . the kind that two strang-

ers are likely to exchange in the course of any ordinarymeeting, at a cafe table . . . whether they are about the taste of what they are drinking . . . orangeade, or maybe tea? or about the advantages or disadvantages of
travelling by train, by plane . . . or about anything you like, I'll leave it to

you, if you like, to imagine others . . . but what I cannot leave to you, what for a few moments belongs to me in these words, what attracts me,
what tantalizes me . .. is . . . I don't know . .. perhaps it's the impression. . . of lightness . . . they make ... they seem fluttering, ethereal . . . it's as if what they convey . .. the taste of the grenadine, the fatigue of train journeys . . . the most banal, the most modest, the most unob-

trusive things imaginable, doesn't completely fill them, leaves voids in them in which something that can find its place nowhere, in no word,
none has been provided to receive it ... something invisible, impondera-

ble, impalpable, has come to take refuge ... These scarcely ballasted, dilated words rise, float, bob about gently, then softly alight, barely skim . . . When we observe these platitude-carryingwords, and the lightness with which they touch down, skim, rebound,we could compare them to thin, flat stones flying through the air, ricocheting. But this fascinating image, which at first sight seems accurate, is one of those you have to force yourself to efface, which it would be better to abandon before they lead you astray. It would inevitably result in the appearanceof the person by whom the stones are thrown, and the savoirfaire and skill of his movement . . . it would have made you forget what it is in these words that attracts me, what it is that returns to haunt me ... those voids in which, sheltered by modest, unpretentious things,
there vacillates . . . trembles . . . where has it come from?
*The Use of Speech (New York:Braziller,1986),65-69. Translatedby Barbara Wright in consultation with the author. This passage is reprintedwith the kind permission of Braziller.

NATHALIE

SARRAUTE

17

Those people from whom this is exhaled just as naturally, just as irresistibly, as the air they breathe out, wouldn't be able to enlighten us. The place within them from which it emanates has never been described, it's a region that no one, no matter how well equippedhe may be with the most perfectly sharpened,the most penetratingwords, can ever reach . no word has managed to come here to prospect, to search, to seize, to extract, to show ...
From one side of the table to the other, words circulate
. ..

they are

like rays which identical mirrors placed opposite one another would
reflect at the same angle, like waves . . . "Isn't this lighting nice . . .

These days you see nothing but neon ... Trains, for short journeys . . ." Words, barely ballasted, permeated by vibrations, by radiations,
spurt out . . . coming from an intact place where for the first time, for the first and unique time . . . there wells up, quivers . . . at the very source, at the birth ...

But yes, of course, it had to happen, I can hear you, you said that, we
said it together . .. that's what it is to have the presumption to insinuate

oneself into these forbidden places, to shatter their silence if only by murmurs, by babblings ... with the most timid, prudent words ... Let
them once penetrate and they are certain to introduce others . . . This one: "birth" . . . brought in its wake . . . too late to stop in entering, it's

coming, it's here ... from the word: "birth"the word "of" immediately emerged, stretched itself out like an arm and pulled towards it, enormous, making a terrific din, the word "love" . . . "The birth of love . . ."