N° 990 A rebours., 2016

R. Cavalié  

"What a day!" he said to himself now, wiping his neck, feeling whatever strength he had left dissolve into new sweats; a feverish agitation still prevented him from remaining in place; once more, he wandered through his rooms, trying, one after the other, all the seats. Tired of the struggle, he finally fell down in front of his desk and, leaning on the table, mechanically, without thinking of anything, he handled a astrolabe placed, as a paperweight, on a pile of books and notes.

He had bought this engraved and gilded copper instrument, of German origin and dating from the 17th century, at a second-hand dealer in Paris, after a visit to the Cluny Museum, where he had long swooned in front of a marvelous astrolabe, in chiseled ivory, whose cabalistic allure had delighted him.

This paperweight stirred up a whole swarm of reminiscences in him Determined and moved by the appearance of this jewel, his thought went ... to the bric-a-brac who had sold it, then s backslid ... and, mentally, he saw again the ivory astrolabe, while his eyes continued to consider, but no longer see it, the copper astrolabe, on his table.

Then he went out ...and, without leaving the city, strolled along the way, wandered ..., branched off into the neighboring streets and stopped in front of certain shops... Started about an astrolabe , this spiritual journey ended in the caboulots of the Latin Quarter. [...] Basically, the summary of human wisdom consisted in dragging things out; to say no then finally yes; because one really handled the generations only by lanterning them! "