28
PA R TISAN REVIEW
to the tree8, the sky, the green benches. Absurd, irreducible; nothing–
not even a secret and profound frenzy in nature- could explain it.
Obviously I did not know everything about it, I had not seen the seed
develop nor the tree grow. But neither ignorance nor knowledge was
of any importance in the face of this huge, wrinkled claw: the world
of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle
is
not absurd, it can readily be explained by the rotation of a segment
of a straight line around one of its extremities. But then, a circle does
not exist. That root, on the other hand, existed to the extent that I
was unable to explain it. Gnarled, inert, nameless, it fascinated me,
filled my eyes, never allowed me to forget its own existence. I could
say over and over again : "It is a root" .. . but to no avail. It was
clear that by starting with its function as a root, as a suction pump,
I would not arrive
at that,
at this tough, close-textured seal-like skin,
this oily, callous, obstinate cortex. Its function explained nothing: it
enabled one to understand in general what a root was, but not in the
least
this root .
This root, with its color, its shape, its frozen motion,
was . . . beneath all explanation. A little of each one of its attributes
escaped from it, flowed away from it, becoming half solidified, almost
a thing; each one of them was superfluous in the root and the entire
base of the tree now seemed to overrun itself a little, to belie its own
nature, to lose itself in a strange excess. I scraped my heel against
that black claw: I should have liked to scuff it a little. For no reason,
out of spite, to make the absurd pink of a scratch appear on the
tanned leather, just to
play
with the absurdity of the world. But
when I drew my foot away, I saw that the bark was still black.
Black? I felt the word becoming deflated, empty itself of all
meaning with extraordinary rapidity. Black? The root
was not
black,
it was not blackness that was on that piece of wood . . . it was . . .
something else: black, like the circle, did not exist. I looked at the
root :was it
more than black
or
nearly black?
But soon I stopped
questioning myself because I felt I was in familiar territory. Yes, I had
already anxiously scrutinized unmentionable objects, I had already
tried-vainly-to think something
on them :
I had already felt their
attributes, cold and inert, elude me, slip between my fingers. Adolphe's
suspenders, the other evening, at the Rendezvous des Cheminots.
They
were
not purple. I could still see the two indefinable spots on
the shirt. And the smooth stone, that famous stone, the origin of this
whole affair: it was not-I do not remember quite what it refused to
be. But I had not forgotten its passive resistance. And the Autodidact's
hand; I had taken it and shaken it one day at the Library, and I felt
