Liberated Thoughts — “Nothingness...”

I will not move my hand, and I will not turn to look at my hand,

for on my right hand a fly is droning — black and scrawny, I suppose — and so I have given it a chance to extort a little nourishment from beneath the tepid skin... And suddenly.

The insect fled, and my gaze shifted. The veins of my hand twitched. My attention drifted off and piled itself up on a white spot on the floor. Then the silence thinned, grew transparent, grew fine, until I heard the flutter of the fly's wings against the windowpane, and its alighting on the wood, and its sharp buzzing as it tried to break free of the corner, and its straying flight along the ceiling. And its return to my hand: a freezing shiver ran through my whole arm!

The frost moved slowly up my arm... leaving in my fingers a yellow paralysis, turning the down that the sun had bleached fair — while it darkened the skin — into glittering wires that bloody the flesh and swell it further. I feel a numbness under my fingernails... the numbness seeps in, and seeps... a delicious numbness, bred by the insect's legs as it wanders over my arm... a very delicious numbness... very... For an instant the numbness reached my nose; its nostrils flared, spewing out a dense air that gathers as ash in the fettered space... And behold, my hand is a world belonging to the flies, independent, remote, beyond my feeling!

And behold, I am in another world of my hand's: a young man put out his hand to shake mine — a young man I brush past every day without seeing him — and I put out my hand... Then, catching me off guard, he bent down in haste to press his thick lips to the back of my hand, and to kindle in it a tremendous blaze, and in the whirl of my amazement I rebuked him:

Don't you know that a young man does not kiss a girl's hand in a public place?

And he retorted in his turn, crooning to his wishes: Your hand is a magnificent work of art. That is how I see it. That is how I prize it. That is how I think of it... That is how...

I blushed at the flattery, while my image danced in the pupils of his eyes, now naked... now veiled... And with one quick movement I hid my hand behind my back and rubbed it against the cold wall, putting out the flame in it and scattering smoke... Then I spread it out before me and blew upon it, to efface from it a red color and a violent gleam!

And I withdrew into a corner for a time, savoring the childish thrill of vanity I had tasted, and I began to take care to pamper this hand: I would drown it constantly in cologne, and trim its nails, and paint them a gillyflower color whose sheen tied them to my lips.

And behold, it began to dictate my conduct. And to trace out paths for me. And to deepen my resentment against that one who never understood it, and so never prayed to it alone: no — to the breasts. To the lips, to the legs... to the mind... to creeds. To society. To cowardice. To selfishness...

Until this morning,

I had gone on glorying in it, and it gave me precious proofs that I was becoming nothing more than neglect.

And this morning,

the head of the department summoned me and flung a reprimand in my face, because I had kept to my bed for ten whole days, sick with influenza, so that some of the work fell behind... And he pressed me, wanting an answer:

And who is ever sick with influenza more than two days?

Anger devoured me, and I did not answer!

And nothing escaped my anger but my right hand: a statue turning... and turning, tracing words. Arranging draft laws. And statements of grounds. And committee reports. And telegrams of condolence, or of congratulation. And petitions. And interpellations... And my hand turns, and turns.

And sessions follow one upon another. And laws are drawn up. And a people seethes, lying in wait, behind the threshold of its great house; destinies are flung to it, and it swallows them!

And my hand turns, and turns.
My hand is a small probe, lost in a huge, giant machine! So I muttered:
How did I dare fall ill for ten days, and not two?
And how can the people of France go hungry — the child of biscuit? Or is there not a tie of kinship between the chief's sentence and Marie Antoinette's sentence?
The rulers are the rulers, and the toilers are the toilers, in every state. And in every age.
The veins of my hand stiffened, and it started up, and stretched out at my side, bringing life back to my eyes, that they might defy the presiding officer's savage stares. And to my legs, that they might be strong enough to go on carrying the body. And to my lips, that they might requite the contempt for our asking leave to live — with a mocking smile. And silence. And a brave flight...
And I leaned upon my hand all the way to this place, driven along the road by a choking lump gathered in my throat, my steps hobbled by a black, mad fear!
And I washed the treasure — which influenza had left a mass of bones — with a stream of salt drops; then I tried to rise, to pour iced water over it, to revive it and rid it of the burning of two lips... But a fly hurried to share a little nourishment from it with me.
We too are flies, buzzing at the dirty ears of the chiefs, sharing a little nourishment from them.
We: the simple people, the strugglers, the good.
We are nothing.