Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

It was here that he saw the sun come up, very slowly, behind a mountainous rampart of clouds. At first, for an hour or more, there was the gradual retreat of darkness, as that great black vertical plane ceased, little by little, to be a hole, a nothingness, and objects began to fill it, one after the other, materializing imperceptibly, blocking in the void. The horizon became visible towards the east, a stretch of coastline, the surface of the sea. Far out from shore the white glint of the wave-crests became increasingly visible. Then, as the growing light continued to dilute that inky expanse, the water became progressively dirtier, its surface showed up harsh and wrinkled. The various points of light — yellow from the street-lamps, red from the light-house beacons — lost their former blinding intensity. Deep patches of shadow, till now so impenetrable and terrifying, gradually shrank in on themselves, retreated, like pools of water drying in the sun. Above the sea the clouds suddenly swam into view, rising palely from the darkness like troops of elephants or buffaloes. Minute by minute their outlines acquired more solidity and depth. Great balls of cottonwool hung motionless in the vault of heaven, and through their ragged edges shone glimpses of clear sky, midway between pink and grey, empty, limitless. With ebbing strength the night swung westward, in retreat now, so that more and more objects which had been limed in its viscous blackness were released, almost without one noticing. The blackness lost its intensity, became merely sombre, then grey; paler still now, the colour of milk, then skim-milk, till even this pallor began to fade, retreated beyond the visible limits of whiteness. It was as though the earth, stripped of the membrane that rendered it invisible, had nevertheless not, as yet, recovered its pigmentation, and was floating between these two violent extremes, undecided, ghostly-pale, almost non-existent. On the opposite side of the horizon, above the town and the mountains, there was a sort of dark funnel-shaped gulf into which the shadows were slowly absorbed.

After a while the landscape emerged in every detail, but still lit by that unearthly pallor. Then the true light began to appear. It climbed the sky like rose-tinted smoke, with the majestic movements of some great bird taking flight, a great pear-shaped mass that slowly spread out above the clouds. Everything, on land and sea alike, began to glitter as though dusted with thousands of tiny nacreous crystals. The concrete surface of the pavement, the balustrade, the pebbles on the beach, the troughs of the waves, the windows of houses and the topmost branches of trees — all lit up in a moment, and glowed peacefully, each with its delicate crust of pink icing-sugar.

The boundaries of the sky receded further and further: everything seemed to expand, grow deeper, stretch out into vast and distant perspectives. Like a desert. For a quarter of an hour or so everything was tinged with pink. Then, one by one, the other colours returned — on chunks of scrap-metal, on rocks, in the middle of cloud-formations, at the bottom of clumps of grass. Shoe-polish brown, mahogany, straw-yellow, periwinkle blue, mauves, blacks, mouse-grey, Veronese green. Imperceptibly, as the minutes passed, these variegated dots of colour began to glow and expand. Pink was still the dominant motif, but a close scrutiny revealed the presence of these other colours, all jostling and struggling for precedence, streaming out in wild confusion. For a little while earth sky and sea resembled a gigantic confectioner’s counter. Then the sun came up over the horizon, transforming the landscape from sweetshop to abattoir.

Behind a blood-red cloud, and haloed with garish radiance, the sun’s disc slowly swung up: Besson did not actually see it, but he could sense the circular shape, and felt the first rays of direct light strike home on his eyelids. The brightness spread swiftly over the earth’s visible surface, flushing the last shadow-bound objects from their hiding places: match-ends lying on the pavement, scratches in the paintwork of the iron balustrade, folds in clothes, hairs on the back of the hand, the reticulating branches of shrubs, the skeletal nerve-pattern on dead leaves. Though still hidden behind a curtain of mist, the sun was none the less there , huge and terrifying, pursuing its solitary course through a sea of radiant air. All darkness had vanished now. Despite the occasional fitful breeze, a kind of warmth began to disseminate itself everywhere, spreading over the earth and penetrating the substance of things.

Eyes wide open, Besson gazed at the area dominated by the sun: it was like an abyss, a silent maelstrom sunk into the heavens. Everything, absolutely everything moved centripetally towards it: even the mind, with its caravans of thoughts and ideas, was irresistibly attracted by this dazzling focal point. To struggle against it was out of the question: you had no time to put up any defence, before you knew what had happened you were its slave. Down, down you went, deaf to all sounds, quite helpless, caught on the earth’s lift-platform, sinking to some unknown destination, while behind its screen of scarlet clouds that colourless sphere mounted royally towards the zenith.

Little by little, as the sun gradually detached itself from the barrier of the horizon, each large patch of red was reabsorbed, gave place to the ordinary light of day. Blues became permanent, orange and yellow elements darkened, and one by one the sparks of reflected light went out till they were all gone. Finally, these colour-changes more or less came to a halt, except for the brief occasional appearance of violet and purple streaks drifting over the sea, or when some cloud parted asunder and a great cone of yellow light gleamed through the torn gap, its base picking out a chain of mountains, its whole length laced with rainbow spume and a scribble of slanting rain.

By now there were plenty of people hurrying along the pavement behind Besson. The town was waking up. Men’s footsteps clacked noisily past, then faded in the distance. There was a muted hum of car-engines, and seagulls swooped overhead, with their shrill yap-yap-yap . At one point all the street-lamps were suddenly extinguished but this made no difference to the general picture. The rows of blue star-points went out, one after the other, till the entire town was visible, solid, opaque, an integral part of the day now beginning.

Besson lit a cigarette at this point, and then set off through the back streets, away from the sea. In a leisurely fashion he began to make his way up towards the centre of town again. In one corner by a shop he came on an automatic vending machine. He put in a coin, pressed a button, and got a small waxed-paper cup full of scalding coffee, which he drank in two or three mouthfuls.

Further on, he passed a big covered-in square, where the market was held. Besson walked in down the nearest alley, and let himself drift with the general movement of the crowd. On either side were stalls laden with crates of fruit and vegetables, and at each a big fat woman, greasy hair tied up under a headscarf, bawling her wares at the top of her voice. Despite the early hour, the place was a hive of activity. People kept elbowing each other aside, shoving through the crowd, shouting interruptions. From every corner of the market came the stallkeepers’ unremitting sales-talk, and the tinkle of coins being dropped into tin mugs. Bare, fat, heavily muscled arms plunged into the crates, shovelling up runner beans, potatoes, endives, tomatoes, peppers. Oranges sat each in their little nest of crumpled paper, apples tumbled down on top of one another, their green skins often marked with big rotten bruises. Over everything there hung a faint yet rich odour of earth, leaves, pulp, juice. About a yard and a half off the ground every smell, whether from vegetables or fruit, merged into one indistinguishable whole, a composite smell that permeated the entire place. Through all this movement and bustle Besson advanced like an automaton. Several times fat women stallkeepers, standing behind their piles of merchandise, hailed him in high screeching tones, like so many squawking chickens: ‘Lovely potatoes, lovely potatoes, this way, this way …’ ‘Come on, mister, try the runners, fresh this morning …’ ‘Fine apples, specially picked, beautiful apples, fresh every one of ’em, two hundred the kilo, lovely fresh apples …’ ‘Come on now, walk up, walk up, walk up….’