Seda

This is not a novel. It's not even a tale. This is a story. It begins with a man crossing the world and ends in a lake that remains motionless on a windy day. The man's name is Hervé Joncour. The lake, it is not known. You could say it's a love story. But if it were just that, it wouldn't have been worth explaining. They mix desires, and pains, which are well known for what they are, but which do not have an exact name to designate them. And in any case, that name is not love. (It's something very old. When we can't name things, we turn to words.) All stories have their own music. This one is white music. Needless to say, because white music is weird music, which sometimes baffles you: it's played softly and danced slowly. When performed well, it's like listening to silence, and those who know how to dance it are like they're not moving. No need to add much to it. Perhaps it should be clarified that it is a nineteenth-century story: that no one should expect to find planes, washing machines or psychoanalysts there.