La douleur

I found this journal in two notebooks from the blue cabinets of Neauphle-le-Château. I have no memory of having written it. I know that I wrote it, that it is I who wrote it; I recognize my writing and the details of what I recount. I mention the place, the Orsay station, the trains, but I do not see myself writing this journal. When did I write it, in what year, at what hours of the day, in what houses? I no longer know anything. [...] How did I manage to write this thing that I don't know how to name yet and which makes me feel so proud when I read it? How could I abandon this text over the years in this seasonally inundated winter holiday home? The word "written" would not be appropriate. I have found myself in front of pages that are regularly full of an extraordinary small handwriting, regular and calm. I found myself in front of a phenomenal dilemma of thought and sentiment which I had not attempted to touch and which literature has honored me with. Marguerite Duras.