Read La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams for Free Online

battery-operated alarm clock makes another appearance here.

No. 49
February 1971
     

M/W
    In a book I’m translating, I find two phrases: the first ends with “wrecking their neck,” the second with “making their naked,” a slang expression that means “to strip naked.”

No. 50
February 1971
     

The intruder
    Someone has managed to enter my home through the thin shower partition. He knocks and calls out to me. There’s nothing hostile in his voice, in any case. It’s a woman, I suppose; I smell her at the foot of my bed, she is whispering something in my ear; I am absolutely convinced I’m not dreaming; I wake with a start, a bit panicked, hearing myself say:
    “What is it?”
    (a few moments later, someone rings at the door. It’s C., who has come to have breakfast with me and has brought croissants)
     

No. 51
February 1971
     

The big courtyard
    A courtyard, a huge space surrounded by houses. I run into Henri C., who tells me he’s going down to Grenoble too and can take me.
    We all have dinner together. I move from table to table. There is nothing to eat except cheese, and in almost all cases the cheese looks fine but turns out to be crawling with worms. I tell P. about this, and she says she knew about it, having gone back up to her place. But she makes me a tart anyway, checking (by opening it all around) that the piece she’s giving me is wormless.
    Several times I get up to leave. I kiss everyone (several girls on the mouth). Z. is there, staying a bit off to the side, but smiling. Except for a girl who is crying and refuses to let me kiss her (though she relents later) everyone is relaxed (even though I’m leaving?). The hugs and kisses goodbye restart several times. Henri C. and his wife are taking the plane from Grenoble to Paris and I the train. He reiterates his offer to drive me. I accept, asking that we leave right away, since Ilike to get my seat on the train fifteen minutes before it leaves. Henri C. answers that we still have time for a cup of coffee (it’s foul but it’s hot). Coffee is served in one of the buildings in the courtyard, the only one with lights on. There are three steps leading up to it. Smoke-filled room, poor people eating, a counter in back. They bring us our coffee outside (we’re crouched on the ground) on a large tray. There are only three large mugs—one black, two very white—and a teacup. I take a sip of black coffee, which was not meant for me (but nothing was meant for me).
    Henri C. is very elegant, very youthful; he is wearing a soft black hat, which I tell him looks terrific on him.

No. 52
February 1971
     

Seaside
    ’Twas a story replete with twists and turns. It took place near Nice, by the sea. Maybe Menton. Alain Delon was involved, or a friend of Alain Delon. I had dinner in a restaurant whose owner knew my uncle. Later, I wanted to go back there; I called, but ultimately I didn’t make a reservation. My uncle, rather dryly as I recall, scolded me; for what I’m not sure, maybe for not telling him about it.
    I returned to Paris in a magnificent machine, ultramodern and very sci-fi. I remember panoramic portholes. Dizzying speed.

No. 53
February 1971
     

The Renshaw
    Exchanges
Pillars for 4
common word I forget
Ren-Shaw
(Shaw-Ren)
Inhibition
     
    (I scratched these words out in the night; I find them in the morning; none of them evokes any particular memory)
    (recurring Renshaw inhibition is, to put it crudely, a loop system controlling muscular contraction)

No. 54
February 1971
     

The masters thesis
    It might have been at Jean Duvignaud’s, or maybe at Paul Virilio’s.
    I notice a mimeographed work on the table and open it. It’s a masters thesis—devoted to stage design, it seems—written by A. while she was in South America. I hadn’t heard about it, but I am at once surprised and pleased that she did something during her long stay.
    There is a particular detail: the title page was composed by (and here some sort of famous