Nathalie Sarraute L Usage de La Parole the Use of Speech

7/30/2019 Nathalie Sarraute L Usage de La Parole the Use of Speech

1/5

L'Usage de la parole / The Use of Speech

Author(s): Nathalie SarrauteSource: Yale French Studies, , Special Issue: After the Age of Suspicion: The French NovelToday (1988), pp. 14-17Published by: Yale University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929338Accessed: 16/11/2010 03:13

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=yale.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Yale University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Yale French

Studies.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=yalehttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2929338?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=yalehttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=yalehttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2929338?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=yale


2/5

NATHALIE SARRAUTE

L'Usage de la parole*

LE MOT AMOURC'etait au fond d'un petit cafe enfume, mal eclaire, probablementd'une buvette de gare ... il me semble qu'on entendait des bruits detrains, des coups de sifflet ... mais peu importe . . . ce qui d'une brumejaunatre ressort, c'est de chaque cote de la table deux visages presqueeffaces et surtout deux voix ... je ne les percois pas non plus avec net-tete, je ne saurais pas les reconnaitre ... ce qui me parvient maintenant

ce sont les paroles que ces voix portent. . . et meme pas les parolesexactement, jene les aipasretenues ... mais cela ne fait riennon plus, jepeux facilement inventer des parolesdumeme ordre, es plus banales quisoient... decelles quedeuxpersonnesetrangeres 'une al'autrepeuventechanger au cours d'une rencontre quelconque, a une table de cafe...est-ce surle gouitde ce qu'elles boivent . . . une orangeadeou bien duthe?ou sur les avantages et les inconvenients des voyages en train, en avi-on ... ou surn'importe quoi, jevous laisse, si vous le voulez, en imaginerd'autres ... mais ce que je ne peux pas vous laisser, ce qui dans cesparoles pour quelques instants m'appartient, ce qui m'attire, me ta-quine ... c'est ... je ne sais pas ... c'est peut-etre cette impressionqu'elles donnent. . . de legerete. . . elles semblent voleter, aeriennes... on diraitque ce qu'elles portent ... le gouitde la grenadine, a fatiguedes voyages en train ... ce qu'on peut trouver de plus banal, de plusmodeste, de plus discret, ne les emplit pas completement, laisse en ellesdesespacesvides ou quelquechose quine peut trouver saplacenulle part,dans aucune parole, aucune n'a ete prevue pour le recevoir ... quelquechose d'invisible, d'imponderable, d'impalpable est venu s'abriter ..*L'Usagede la parole (Paris:Gallimard,1980),67-71. This passageis reprintedwiththe kind permission of Gallimard.

14


3/5

NATHALIE SARRAUTE 15Ces paroles peu lestees, dilatees, s'elevent, flottent, legerement bal-lottees, se posent doucement, effleurent a peine ...On pourrait, en observant ces paroles porteuses de platitudes et lalegerete 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 cellesqu'il faut se contraindre a effacer, auxquelles il vaut mieux renonceravant qu'elles ne vous egarent.Elle aurait immanquablement fait appa-ratre celui par qui ces cailloux sont lances et son geste montrant dusavoir-faire, de l'habilete . . . elle aurait fait oublier ce qui dans ces pa-roles 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'airqu'ils expirent cela s'exhale ne sauraientpas nous renseigner.Le lieu eneux d'ouicela emane n'a jamais ete decrit, il est dans une region quepersonne,si bien muni qu'il soit des mots les plus effiles et penetrants,nepeut 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 sontcomme des rayons que des miroirs identiques places l'un en face del'autre reflechiraient sous un meme angle, comme des ondes . . . e mot >st sorti aussitot, s'est tendu comme unbras,tiranta soi, enorme, faisant un grandvacarme, le mot ..


4/5

16 Yale French StudiesThe Use of Speech*

THE WORD LOVEIt was at the back of a smoky, ill-lit little cafe, probably a stationbuffet . . . I rather think you could hear the sounds of trains, whistlesblowing . .. but that's of no importance . .. what stands out from a yel-lowish haze is, on either side of the table, two blurred aces, and above alltwo voices . . . I can't make them out very clearly either, I wouldn't beable to recognize them . . . what reaches me now is the words thesevoices conveyed . . . and not exactly the words even, I don't rememberthem . . . but that doesn't matter either, I can easily invent other words ofthe same order, the most banal imaginable . . . the kind that two strang-

ers are likely to exchange in the course of any ordinarymeeting, at a cafetable . . . whether they are about the taste of what they are drinking . . .orangeade, or maybe tea? or about the advantages or disadvantages oftravelling by train, by plane . . . or about anything you like, I'll leave it toyou, if you like, to imagine others . . . but what I cannot leave to you,what fora few moments belongs to me in these words, what attracts me,what tantalizes me . .. is . . . I don't know . .. perhaps it's the impres-sion. . . of lightness . . . they make ... they seem fluttering, ethere-al . . . it's as if what they convey . .. the taste of the grenadine, the fatigueof train journeys . . . the most banal, the most modest, the most unob-trusive things imaginable, doesn't completely fill them, leaves voids inthem 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 lightnesswith which they touch down, skim, rebound,we could comparethem tothin, flat stones flying through the air, ricocheting.But this fascinating image,which at first sight seems accurate,is oneof those you have to force yourself to efface,which it would be better toabandon before they lead you astray. It would inevitably result in theappearanceof the person by whom the stones arethrown, and the savoir-faireand skill of his movement . . . it would havemadeyou forgetwhat itis in these words that attracts me, what it is that returns to hauntme ... those voids in which, shelteredby modest, unpretentious things,there vacillates . . . trembles . . . where has it come from?

*The Use of Speech (New York:Braziller,1986),65-69. Translatedby BarbaraWrightin consultation with the author. This passage is reprintedwith the kind permission ofBraziller.


5/5

NATHALIE SARRAUTE 17Those people from whom this is exhaled just as naturally, just asirresistibly, 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, he most penetratingwords, can everreach .no word has managed to come here to prospect, to search, to seize, toextract, to show ...From one side of the table to the other, words circulate . .. they arelike rays which identical mirrors placed opposite one another wouldreflect at the same angle, like waves . . . "Isn't this lighting nice . . .These days you see nothing but neon ... Trains,forshort journeys . . ."Words, barely ballasted, permeated by vibrations, by radiations,spurt out . . . coming from an intact place where for the first time, for thefirst and unique time . . . there wells up, quivers . . . at the very source,at the birth ...But yes, of course, it had to happen,I can hearyou, you said that, wesaid it together . .. that's what it is to have the presumption to insinuateoneself into these forbidden places, to shatter their silence if only bymurmurs, by babblings ... with the most timid, prudentwords ... Letthem once penetrate and they are certain to introduce others . . . Thisone: "birth" . . . brought in its wake . . . too late to stop in entering, it'scoming, it's here ... from the word: "birth"the word "of"immediatelyemerged, stretched itself out like an arm and pulled towards it, enor-mous, making a terrific din, the word "love" . . . "The birth of love . . ."

Nathalie Sarraute L Usage de La Parole the Use of Speech

Documents

Transcript of Nathalie Sarraute L Usage de La Parole the Use of Speech