http://www.pinyinplaces.com/

China
Anhui Capital: Hefei

安徽
Ānhuī
Fujian Capital: Fuzhou

福建
Fújiàn
Gansu Capital: Lanzhou

甘肃
Gānsù
Guangdong Capital: Guangzhou

广东
Guǎngdóng
Guangxi Capital: Nanning

广西
Guǎngxī
Guizhou Capital: Guiyang

贵州
Guìzhōu
Hainan Capital: Haikou

海南
Hǎinán
Hebei Capital: Shijiazhuang

河北
Héběi
Heilongjiang Capital: Harbin

黑龙江
Hēilóngjiāng
Henan Capital: Zhengzhou

河南
Hénán
Hubei Capital: Wuhan

湖北
Húběi
Hunan Capital: Changsha

湖南
Húnán
Inner Mongolia Capital: Hohhot

内蒙古
Nèi Měnggù
Jiangsu Capital: Nanjing

江苏
Jiāngsū
Jiangxi Capital: Nanchang

江西
Jiāngxī
Jilin Capital: Changchun

吉林
Jílín
Liaoning Capital: Shenyang

辽宁
Liáoníng
Ningxia Capital: Yinchuan

宁夏回族
Níngxià Huízú
Qinghai Capital: Xining

青海
Qīnghǎi
Shaanxi Capital: Xi'an

陕西
Shǎnxī
Shandong Capital: Jinan

山东
Shāndōng
Shanxi Capital: Taiyuan

山西
Shānxī
Sichuan Capital: Chengdu

四川
Sìchuān
Taiwan Capital: Taipei

台湾
Táiwān
Tibet Capital: Lhasa

西藏
Xīzàng
Xinjiang Uygur Capital: Urumqi

新疆维吾尔
Xīnjiāng Wéiwú'ěr
Yunnan Capital: Kunming

云南
Yúnnán
Zhejiang Capital: Hangzhou

浙江
Zhèjiāng

http://www.pinyinplaces.com/states-f.cfm

Japanese grammatical terms

http://thejapanesepage.com/w/index.php?title=Grammatical_terms

Parts of speech
名詞 meishi -　noun (猫 neko cat, 本 hon book, 飛行機 hikouki plane)

動詞 doushi - verb (食べる taberu to eat, 考える kangaeru to think, 話す hanasu to speak)

形容詞 keiyoushi - i-adjective (青い aoi blue, 可愛い kawaii cute)

形容動詞 keiyoudoushi - na-adjective (きれい kirei beautiful, 歴史的 rekishiteki historical)

副詞 fukushi - adverb (脱兎の如く　dattou no gotoku quick[as fast as lightening], 早く　hayaku quickly, きれいに　kirei ni cleanly, ゆっくり　yukkuri slowly)

代名詞 daimeishi -pronoun (私 watashi I, 我が　waga my, 此処　koko here, 其れ　sore that, ああ　aa that way, 誰　dare who, 何処も　dokomo everywhere)

人称代名詞 ninshou daimeishi - personal pronoun (彼 kare he, 彼ら karera they, 貴方 anata you, わ (old)　wa I)

助詞 joshi - particle

助数詞 josuushi - counter

Different types of verbs
自動詞 jidoushi - intransitive verb (始まる hajimaru sth. starts,　開く aku sth. opens)

他動詞 tadoushi - transitive verb (始める　hajimeru to start sth., 開ける akeru to open sth.)

可能動詞 kanou doushi - potential verb (~rareru, ~reru, ~eru, ~reru, 出来る　dekiru can, 行かれる ikareru to be able to go,　行ける ikeru can go,　食べられる taberareru to be able to eat,　食べれる (colloq.) tabereru can eat)

状態動詞 joutai doushi - stative verbu

使役 shieki - causative (~seru, ~saseru, ~su (old), ~sasu (old), eg 開かせる　開けさせる　咲かす 食べさす)

受け身 ukemi - passive (~reru or ~rareru, eg 下さられる　kudasarareru to be given, 搾られる　shiborareru to be squeezed)

助動詞 jodoushi - auxiliary verb (ず/ぬ　negation, つ　affirmative, き/し past, む/ん future, 得る　eru/uru passive/potenital/honorific, ます　polite)

指定詞　shiteishi - copula (なり　である　だ　です...) 　

Inflection
活用語 katsuyougo - inflected form (verbs, adjectives...)

無活用語 mukatsuyougo - uninflected form (nouns, pronouns, conjunctions...)

複数形　fukusuukei plural

シク活用 shiki katsuyou - shiku inflection of i-adjectives (美味し [終止形] oishi 美味しく oishiku [連用形] delicious )

ク活用 ku katsuyou - ku inflection of i-adjectives (無し nashi [終止形] 無く [連用形] naku [shuushikei] not)

NOTE: The only difference is that shiku inflecting adjectives do not gain an additional し in their 終止形 predicative form.

規則動詞 kisokudoushi - regular verb

不規則動詞 fukisokudoushi - irregular verb (する くる くださる ござる いらっしゃる おっしゃる なさる ある だ です いく)

五段(活用動詞) godan (katsuyou doushi) - five row inflecting verb (modern 四段, 著ろう ikou let's wear)

四段(活用動詞) yodan (katsuyou doushi) - four row inflecting verb

上一段 kamiichidan - upper one row inflecting verb (似る niru to resemble, 見る miru to see ...)

下一段 shimoichidan - lower one row inflecting verb (蹴る keru to kick)

上二段 kaminidan - upper two rows inflecting verb

下二段 shimonidan - lower two rows inflecting verb

ラ変 rahen - ra column irregularly inflecting verb (有り ari to be)

サ変 sahen - sa column irregularly inflecting verb (為 su to do)

ナ変 nahen - na column irregularly inflecting verb (死ぬ shinu to die)

カ変 kahen - ka column irregularly inflecting verb (来 ku to come)

~形 ~kei - ~form 　


The examples below include usages of the verbal form, which is marked in bold.

未然形 mizenkei - imperfective form (~a, -ru, 行かない ikanai not go, 消えられる　kierareru to be able to disappear)

連用形 renyoukei - conjunctive/continuative form (~i, -ru, 歩きやすい arukiyasui to be easy to walk, 信じます shinjimasu to believe (polite))

連体形 rentaikei - attributative form (~u, ~ru, 死なぬ男 shinanu otoko man who does not die, 落つる石 otsuru ishi stone that falls)

終止形 shuushikei - predicative form (~u, ~uru, ~eru,　九性有り　kyuusei ari to have nine lives, 勉強す　benkyou su to do study)

已然形 izenkei (old name) - perfective form (~e, ~re, 読めば yomeba when I read, 水飲めば midzu nomeba had I drunken water )

仮定形 kateikei - hypothetical form (same as above 已然形)

命令形 meireikei - commanding form (~e, -ru, 生きろ/よ ikiro/yo Live!,　行け　ike Go!, 来い koi Come!) Note that 命令形 refers to both the grammatical inflected form of a verb (生き） and the final commanding form of the verb as used in speech（生きろ/生きよ）.

テ形　te kei (1) also te-stem, same as 連用形　 (2) て　affixed to the 連用形, which may cause sound changes, conjunctive/continuative form (行って来ます ittekimasu Go and come back!、　食べて tabete Please eat!)

マス形 (1) also masu-stem, same as 連用形　 (2) ます　affixed to the 連用形, polite form

ナイ形 (1) also nai-stem, same as 未然形　 (2) 無い　affixed to the 未然形, negation, negative form

Politeness
敬語 keigo - polite language, as opposed to neutral language (multiple levels, see below for examples)

丁寧語 teineigo - (simple-,neutral-) polite language (本を買います hon wo kaimasu someone buys a book, 寒いです samui desu it's cold [outside])

謙譲語 kenjougo - humble language (呼び致す yobi itasu to call, 居(お)る oru be/exist)

尊敬語 sonkeigo - honorific language (呼びに成る yobi ni naru to call, 亡く成りに成る naku nari ni naru to die)

美化語 bikago - beautified language (御 prefixing, change of vocabulary) (御茶 ocha tea, 飯 meshi -> 御飯 gohan cooked rice/meal)

呼捨て yobisute - speech ommitting honorific suffixes

Kanji
Forming Kanji
形声 keisei - (lit. "form-sound")　character formed of meaning-indicating and pronunciation-indicating element, most characters fall under this category

象形 shoukei - (lit. "image-form") pictograph, representing an actual object (日,目,月)

指事 shiji - (lit. "finger-thing") logogramm, using lines and dots to represent and abstract idea (一,二,上,下)

会意 kaii - (lit. "assembled-meaning") combining the meanings of two characters to one character (eg 林,姦)

転注 tenchuu - using the character with an extended meaning (and different pronunciation)

仮借 kasha - (lit. provisionally-borrowing) phonetic loan character, using it for its sound with no respect to its meaning

(Note: The last two are rare.)

Reading Kanji
音読 onyomi - Japanese reading

訓読 kunyomi - Chinese reading

呉音 goon - Chinese reading borrowed during the 5th/6th centuries

漢音 kanon - Chinese reading borrowed during the 7th/8th centuries

唐音 touon - Chinese reading borrowed during later centuries

慣用音 kanyouon - "wrong" Chinese reading commonly accepted and used

Kana
平仮名 - hiragana (いろはにほへとちりぬるをわかよたれそつねならむ[ん])

片仮名 - katakana (ウヰノオクヤマケフコエテアサキユメミシヱヒモセ ス )

振仮名 - furigana (small kana above or next to kanji indicating pronunciation)

送仮名 - okurigana (kana used for indicating inflection, particles &c.)

万葉仮名 - manyougana (chinese characters used purely phonetically as an early syllabic "alphabet")

Chinese Language and Script
Mandarin Language and Script

Mandarin originally refers to the language spoken by Chinese officials who were mainly from Beijing. This language was called Guan-Yu 官語 Official-Language. The Sanskrit word Mandari comes through Portuguese and means commander related to English Mand-ate The early Portuguese referred to these people and their language as Mandarin. The BeiJingHua 北京話 Beijing-Talk Spoken in Beijing PuTongHua 普通話 Common Talk spoken in Canton, the HuaYu 華語 Chinese Language spoken in South East Asia and the GuoYu 國語 National Language spoken in Taipei are the same language with only very minor differences.

PoTongHua is spoken by almost all Chinese although 80% of them will speak some other dialect at home. When speaking of Chinese Dialects we usually mean different languages. Often although the dialects will be closely related, If you have not had experience with it, you will understand almost nothing.

Modern written Chinese is a direct rendition of spoken Mandarin. In English we always refer to it as Chinese.In Chinese it is usually called HanYu 漢語 Chinese Language This is Mandarin as defined in the dictionary. Almost No one speaks exactly like the Dictionary. But most well educated Chinese have studied tones, and pinying and can pronounce correctly if reading from the dictionary. See Cantonese, Taiwanese.

Taiwanese Language and Script

Taiwanese is an important language as far as Chinese Etymology is concerned and as far as China is concerned.

In Chinese it is referred to technically as MinNanHua 閩南話 Southern Min Language It is spoken in Southern FuJian 福建 province and in Taiwan. It is often referred to as TaiWanHua 台灣話 Taiwanese Language or XiaMenHua 厦門話 Amoy Language. Amoy (XiaMen) is the main Chinese costal city in FuJian where this language is spoken. It is also called TaiYu 台語 Taiwanese. It is not understandable by Mandarin speakers who have never been exposed to it. I estimates that about 80% of Taiwanese has the same etymology as Mandarin, but with very significant phonetic shifts. Written Mandarin can be read in Taiwanese, but it is a very stilted and does not reflect the grammatical structure of real spoken Taiwanese. Unlike Cantonese, Taiwanese in most cases did not invent new characters. When there is a Taiwanese word which has no Mandarin equivalent, they usually took Mandarin characters which when pronounced in Taiwanese would sounded like the Taiwanese word in question. Some characters will be used in places with the usual Mandarin meaning and other characters will be used for the sound. The average Mandarin will not understand written Taiwanese. MinBeiHua 閩北話 Northern Min Language is the other dialect spoken in FuJian, and is quite different from MinNan. FuZhouHua 福州話 is spoken in FuZhou and is also very different. Many of the Chinese emigrants to South east Asia came from ChaoZhou in southern Fukin and speak a language called ChaoJouHua 潮州話 CaoJou is similar to and for the most part understandable by Taiwanese.

Taiwanese is important etymologically because when we compare the pronunciation of character phonetics in Taiwanese we sometimes find that they are closer than in Mandarin.

Taiwanese has 7 tones. The teaching materials say 8, but this is so that the saying of all the tones will sound more fluent. There are 2337 unique syllabic utterances in Taiwanese. The database of syllabic utterances was done by Sharry Wu

Book References:

台灣話大詞典 閩南話漳泉二腔系部份 by ChenShou 陳修 主編
Probably the most extensive Taiwanese to Chinese dictionary
used for my Taiwanese syllabic database.

Cantonese Language and Characters

GuangDongHua (GongDongWa) 廣東話 Cantonese is the most common dialect spoken by over-seas Chinese. Its formal name is YehYu (YutYu) 粤語 It is in fact a different language from Manderin, although closely related to it. A person who has grown up in BeiJing and has never heard Cantonese, would understand almost nothing. About 80% of Cantonese words have the same root as Mandarin although the pronunciation may be shifted quite drastically. The other 20 percent is strictly Cantonese and has no Mandarin equivalent. These words are called JukJi Cantonese is spoken in GuangDong province, HongKong, Macao and all around the world. The TaiShanHua (HoiSanWa) 台山話 TaiShan dialect of Cantonese is spoken in SanFrancisco the largest collection of JukJi is a set of about 4500 characters published by the city government of HongKong, The average Cantonese probably only uses a few hundred. These characters can not be found in a HanYuDaZiDian dictionary.

Book References:

A Practical Cantonese-English Dictionary 實用粤英詞典 by Sidney Lao 劉緆祥
The Cantonese to English dictionary which I used for my Cantonese syllabic database.

Shanghaiese Language and Script

Japanese Language and Script

The Chinese word HanZi 漢字 means “Chinese Character”. When borrowed by the Japanese the pronunciation became KanJi. 漢字 The Japanese borrowed the Chinese writing system starting in the Tang dynasty about 1400 years ago. Japanese grammar is quite different from Chinese. Japanese is a Ural Altaic language more closely related to Turkish than to Chinese, The Chinese writing did not fit well with Japanese. As a result, several things happened. (1) They borrowed the Chinese characters and used them to represent Japanese words and gave them the Japanese pronunciations called Kunyomi 訓読, (2) In many cases they borrowed the Chinese pronunciation too in this case they used the Onyomi 音読 pronunciation which corresponds to the original Chinese pronunciation. (3) Some Chinese characters were used as phonetics for Japanese words. Originally these phonetics were used mainly by women and other semi literate Japanese. Ultimately the cursive form of these phonetics developed into two precise phonetic alphabets. One called Hiragana ひうがな which is used to write the Japanese words which have no Chinese or other foreign etymology. The Kai forms of these phonetics developed into a precise phonetic alphabet called Katakana カタカナ which was used to write the words in Japanese which are derived from languages other than Japanese or Chinese, mostly English. (4) Since the kanji was borrowed so long ago, in many cases the written form has changed somewhat, the meaning has changed, sometimes a lot. One example is the 読 in Onyomi which in Chinese is 讀 (5) In modern Japanese there has been a move to reduce the number of Chinese characters to around 2200 and some of those characters are rare or non existent in modern Chinese. As a rough eye ball estimate, I would say 80% of kanji is pronounced similar to and has a similar meaning to the Chinese.

Korean Language and Script

Korean is also Ural Altaic and originally borrowed Chinese characters like the Japanese. Korean never derived special Hiragana and Katakana type alphabets. Instead in 1426 King SeJong 宗 invented an alphabet for initial central and final sounds of the Korean syllables. The letters of this alphabet are called Hangul 한글 and do not appear to have any connection to Chinese characters. The way these letters are stacked into square boxes that correspond to syllabic utterances and in Korean was obviously influenced by Chinese. These spellings were used for several hundred years for syllables of strictly Korean origin and syllables of Chinese etymology were written in Chinese called Hanja 漢字. In the past 30 years Korean news papers at least have gone completely Hangul.

VietnameseLanguage and Script

Vietnamese has a similar grammatical and morphological structure to Chinese but percentage wise very few syllables are etymologically related to Chinese. The Vietnamese took an approach similar to the Cantonese starting in about the 10th century, but they had to design a large number of new characters. These characters are called ChuNom. When you see old Vietnamese written it is obviously derived from Chinese type characters, but a Chinese literate person will understand almost none of the characters.

http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterASP/mandarin.aspx

1: 一 2: 丿 3: 乙 4: 丨 5: 丶 2 6: 亻 7: 讠 8: ⻏ 9: 阝 10: 刂
11: 亠 12: 人入 13: 八 14: 力 15: 冫 16: 十 17: 厂 18: 又 19: 刀 20: 勹 21: 匚 22: 儿
23: 二 24: 卜 25: 卩 26: 凵 27: 厶 28: 几 29: 冖 30: 冂 31: 廴 3 32: 氵 33: 口
34: 艹 35: 扌 36: 土 37: 纟 38: 女 39: 忄 40: 山 41: 辶 42: 犭 43: 宀 44: 马 45: 饣
46: 门 47: 巾 48: 广 49: 彳 50: 大 51: 尸 52: 囗 53: 弓 54: 孑子孓 55: 小 56: 士 57: 彡
58: 工 59: 寸 60: 廾 61: 彐 62: 夂 63: 己巳已 64: 夕 65: 丬 66: 弋 67: 乡幺 68: 尢 70: 屮
4 71: 木 72: 月 73: 王 74: 火 75: 日 76: 心 77: 车 78: 贝 79: 礻 80: 戈 81: 见
82: 牛 83: 攵 84: 欠 85: 灬 86: 歹 87: 水 88: 毛 89: 手 90: 方 91: 气 92: 殳 93: 爪
94: 户 95: 瓦 96: 曰 97: 斤 98: 文 99: 风 101: 犬 103: 止 104: 母毋 105: 片 107: 比 108: 父
110: 攴 5 111: 钅 112: 石 113: 疒 114: 鸟 115: 禾 116: 衤 117: 目 118: 田 119: 穴 120: ⺫
121: 皿 122: 白 123: 立 124: 矢 126: 示 127: 疋 128: 瓜 129: 用甩 130: 业 131: 皮 132: 矛 6
133: 虫 134: 竹 135: 页 136: 米 137: 糸 138: 舟 139: 耳 140: 羽 141: 羊 142: 衣 144: 虍 146: 西
147: 舌 148: 艮 150: 老 151: 自 152: 血 153: 臣 7 154: 足 155: 酉 156: 言 157: 走 158: 角
161: 豆 162: 辛 164: 谷 165: 身 166: 里 169: 采 8 171: 鱼 172: 雨 173: 隹 175: 金 176: 其
177: 青 9 179: 革 180: 骨 182: 食 183: 音 10 185: 斗 187: 麻 188: 黑 190: 鼻

http://www.zhongwenweb.com/diyping.html

Racial Anger or careerism?
by L.C.Nunes

"The independent man, the man who decides autonomously according to his own conscience, gave way to an organization man who gives and takes orders."
E. Fromm


Anger is never a good argument, but it is difficult to judge the anger of my ancestors when they fled from countries where the pogroms was made by people who considered themselves as 'progressive' or 'futuristic' in the Europe of the most fearful years of the twentieth century. Today with so many postmodern arguments people who have similar views take up the pogroms as an example of targeted advertising that has had a devastating effect on a population not very informed about freedoms and rights. What I miss is a fair trial, based on criteria. What I see is the very lack of integrity, gang mentality, that ruthlessly defend their leader, whatever the cost. The tribe, the group, the band became more important than the mere idea of humanity in the world today.
Through a manipulated and censored information they mobilize the bias in social and political imaginary of the people, transforming class hatred on racial intolerance. In order to make the same in the present days of South America they take for granted whatver is said about Simon Bolivar, and we must remember the character of the caudillo dictators who were under his wake. Little is reflected on his true history. He is considered a hero, not a aristocrat who had a lot in common with D.Pedro I, the first brazilian emperor.
Indeed, all these people who considered him a here are copycats and inconsciently their model is the ancient kings of Spain.
One must remember that the persecution of Jews reached its peak in the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. So it is written in the history of the colonies the racial hatred, intensified by slavery and immigrants' exploitation.
It's almost a miracle that there are no outbursts of racial hatred in Brazil. One of the reasons (but not only) it not happens in Brazil is possibly the miscegenation process.
But that does not mean racial clashes can not happen in the future.
Especially when there are political groups running a campaign in which people seek to use the people who are newly integrated in political scene under the Lula government.
This new integrated people, for not having had previous political involvement, are led to believe in the sense of opportunism to ascend socially in public office or receiving scholarships abroad, under the claim of racial discrimination, for a racially-oriented policy.
So just by mimicking the behavior which they condemn in other ethnic groups.
Under the label of political correctness there is an enourmous north-american interference in brazilian political scene, that comes to Brazil with some years of delay.
In fact, Clinton did the same claiming to be politically correct just for acting like a fascist to attack Somalia, Afghanistan and occupy Bosnia.
The so-called "political correctness" was just the effect of the fall of the Berlin wall and the single thought, originating in the unipolar world of American hegemony and military ordnance.
Thus, what is seen as a rescue of the people subjected to slavery 100 years ago, is nothing but a well-financed operation funded by U.S. foundations (Fulbright?) With the aim of exporting to Brazil the political correctness, in a moment he starts losing strength in the United States. The strength of such ideas is lost exactly because their intentions are not sincere. Actually it is also crossed as Bush and conservatives, use only one set of ideas, prejudices and begin to mobilize climb the ranks to earn his careerism means.
That explains why Bush, Clinton and Obama are in hand in Haiti.
This also serves as a warning and an appeal that does not start in Brazil, a campaign of racial hatred.
After all showed well as the experience in Haiti is not the breed that makes a government is good or bad. Anger can not be inspiring to good policies. We can fall in the pogroms, or even inter-racial inter-ethnical that occurred and still occur frequently in Zimbabwe and other African countries.
We've seen too many expressions of racial hatred in this coming century. I hope you think the problem in a deeper way. My skin, my family, my farm, that is the root of all problems. It would be better we thought how we can evolve together. What was done more than 100 years ago (slavery) or more than 50 years ago (holocaust) by human ignorance, nothing will add to our wisdom.
Living among humans always make us learn a lot, because if we stay only at the computer all the time we do not learn much. Our argument in favor of rights is successful to the extent of our moderation and balance with which we conduct actions in defending the common good. We must always think that are the acts that define us.

The websites listed below aim to provide both the scholar, student, and general reader with tools to explore JOSEPH CONRAD on the World Wide Web and beyond.


http://victorian.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/concordance/conrad/

http://www.josephconradsociety.org/links.htm

http://www.conradfirst.net/index/serialisations


http://conrad-centre.w.interia.pl/pages/chronology_en.html

http://conrad-centre.w.interia.pl/pages/conrad_life_en.htm

"Mieux : les actes douteux de la vie de Sartre me sont généreusement collés sur le dos. Ordure à part ça."
Albert Camus, in Carnets III


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Camus, lecteur des Mandarins

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Une note des Carnets III (p.147) indique la réaction de Camus à la publication des Mandarins de S. de Beauvoir. Il note une "ordure" dans le fait que lui, Camus, s'y voit attribuer une bassesse, que Sartre avait en fait commise. Il y aurait donc une insinuation calomnieuse et une vraie trahison de la part de S. de Beauvoir.

En relisant Les Mandarins (1954), on voit tout de suite quel est l'épisode qui a indigné Camus. Au chapitre IX (coll. Folio, T. II, p. 309-333), Henri Perron, pour protéger sa maîtresse (par ailleurs actrice dans sa pièce de théâtre) commet un faux témoignage, face à deux jeunes déportées qui ont identifié un certain Mercier comme les ayant dénoncées et livrées aux Allemands. Perron donne un alibi à Mercier, et le juge le croit en raison de ses hauts faits de Résistance. Le mobile du faux témoignage est sentimental: Mercier menaçait de révéler les actes de collaboration de la jeune Josette Belhomme, amante d'un officier allemand, et aussi de sa mère Lucie Belhomme, propriétaire d'une maison de couture et productrice de théâtre (elle s'occupe au moins des costumes de la pièce d'Henri Perron sur la Résistance, intitulée Les Survivants, et qui en 1946 paraît tout à fait "resistantialist".

Simone de Beauvoir s'est toujours défendu d'avoir fait avec Les Mandarins un roman à clés. Mais aucun lecteur de 1954, familier des journaux de l'époque, ne pouvait s'empêcher d'opérer les identifications suivantes: Perron=Camus, Dubreuilh=Sartre, Anne=Simone de Beauvoir, sans parler des deuxièmes rôles, reconnaissables dès leurs premières interventions dans le cours du récit. Un héros de la Résistance, brillant écrivain, romancier et dramaturge, beau et séduisant, directeur d'un journal nommé L'Espoir, dont il sera amené à partir, ne peut être qu'Albert Camus qui, s'il dirigeait un journal nommé Combat, animait, aux éditions Gallimard, une prestigieuse collection intitulée Espoir. Comme Perron et Dubreuilh ont, sur le problème du Communisme en France, les mêmes divergences que celles qui ont séparé Camus et Sartre, il faut convenir que Simone de Beauvoir n'a pas su ou n'a pas voulu transposer la référence historique en fiction romanesque. Et c'est bien un échec de la romancière, particulièrement sensible dans l'épilogue, qui voit Perron épouser la fille de Dubreuilh, comme si l'on pouvait toujours rêver d'une réconciliation des intellectuels brouillés.

Comme Simone de Beauvoir n'a prêté qu'à Perron une production théâtrale, elle lui fait écrire et jouer la pièce Les Survivants, laquelle correspond dans les moindres détails à Morts sans sépulture (1946) de Sartre. Celui-ci monta cette pièce, comme celles qui suivirent, au Théâtre Antoine, que dirigeait Simone Berriau. Or, Simone Berriau, dans son allure comme dans sa carrière, a bien évidemment inspiré le personnage de Lucie Belhomme dans Les Mandarins. Ce n'est pas offenser la mémoire de Sartre que de rappeler qu'il a toujours porté un intérêt sentimental à ses actrices. Qu'il ait été amené à protéger et à dédouaner un ancien collaborateur dans l'entourage de Simone Berriau, n'a rien d'invraisemblable ni de scandaleux, à notre sens. Nous n'avons aucune preuve d'une telle démarche, mais on a la trace de vigoureuses plaidoiries de Sartre en faveur de hautes figures qui avaient fait preuve au moins de duplicité sous l'Occupation, tels Gaston Gallimard ou Henri-Georges Clouzot. En revanche, le lecteur des Mandarins trouvera très choquant que Simone de Beauvoir avoue un acte délictueux immoral de Sartre, mais en l'attribuant à Albert Camus. L'aveu voilé aboutit à une dénégation, et à une calomnie intolérable. Car une telle défaillance est inconcevable chez un Camus, qui observait, vis à vis de son action dans la Résistance, une double règle de silence et de fidélité. On peut rappeler qu'au moment de la polémique et de la rupture de 1952, Sartre porte aux nues Jean Genet, et Camus met à son zénith René Char. Des devoirs de mémoire à l'égard de la Résistance, ils ne se font manifestement pas la même idée.

Naturellement, Simone de Beauvoir eût été révoltée par la réaction de Camus, et par la justification que nous lui apportons; naturellement, par solidarité quasi-conjugale, Sartre eût invoqué les droits du romancier et dénoncé la bêtise des lecteurs naïfs. Mais, précisément, le tort littéraire de Simone de Beauvoir est de n'avoir pas agencé une fiction assez élaborée pour qu'on pût la lire comme une fiction. D'autres bons esprits ont réagi aussi mal à la lecture des Mandarins, et n'ont pas eu tort de le faire. Les biographes nous disent que la réaction de Nelson Algren devant le roman qui le mettait en scène sous le pseudonyme de Lewis Brogan fut terrifiante - et la politique n'avait là aucune place !

« Un homme moral dans un monde immoral »

Albert Camus, ou l’inconscient colonial

Après L’Age des extrêmes, d’Eric Hobsbawm, Le Monde diplomatique publie - cette fois avec Fayard - Culture et impérialisme, d’Edward W. Said. Dans ce livre, également inédit en français, le grand intellectuel américano-palestinien démontre comment l’œuvre majeure de grands écrivains occidentaux n’échappe pas à la mentalité coloniale de leur temps. Exemple : Albert Camus.
Albert Camus est le seul auteur de l’Algérie française qui peut, avec quelque justification, être considéré comme d’envergure mondiale. Comme Jane Austen (1) un siècle plus tôt, c’est un romancier dont les œuvres ont laissé échapper les réalités impériales qui s’offraient si clairement à son attention. (...)

Camus joue un rôle particulièrement important dans les sinistres sursauts colonialistes qui accompagnent l’enfantement douloureux de la décolonisation française du XXe siècle. C’est une figure impérialiste très tardive : non seulement il a survécu à l’apogée de l’empire, mais il survit comme auteur « universaliste », qui plonge ses racines dans un colonialisme à présent oublié. (...)

Le parallèle frappant entre Camus et George Orwell (2), c’est qu’ils sont tous deux devenus dans leur culture respective des figures exemplaires dont l’importance découle de la puissance de leur contexte indigène immédiat qu’ils paraissent transcender. C’est dit à la perfection dans un jugement sur Camus qui survient presque à la fin de l’habile démystification du personnage à laquelle se livre Conor Cruise O’Brien, dans un livre qui ressemble beaucoup à l’étude de Raymond Williams sur Orwell (et paru dans la même collection, les « Modern Masters » (3).

O’Brien écrit : « Il est probable qu’aucun auteur européen de son temps n’a si profondément marqué l’imaginaire et aussi la conscience morale et politique de sa propre génération et de la suivante. Il était intensément européen parce qu’il appartenait à la frontière de l’Europe et était conscient d’une menace. La menace lui faisait aussi les yeux doux. Il a refusé, mais non sans lutte. Aucun autre écrivain, pas même Conrad, n’est plus représentatif de l’attention et de la conscience occidentale à l’égard du monde non occidental. Le drame interne de son œuvre est le développement de cette relation, sous la montée de la pression et de l’angoisse. »

(...) De plus, Joseph Conrad et Camus ne sont pas les représentants d’une réalité aussi impondérable que la « conscience occidentale », mais bien de la domination occidentale sur le monde non européen. Conrad exprime cette abstraction avec une force qui ne trompe pas, dans son essai Geography and Some Explorers (4). Il y célèbre l’exploration de l’Arctique par les Britanniques puis conclut sur un exemple de sa propre « géographie militante » : « J’ai posé le doigt au beau milieu de la tache, alors toute blanche, qu’était l’Afrique, et j’ai déclaré : “Un jour j’irai là-bas.” » Il y est allé, bien sûr, et il reprend le geste dans Au cœur des ténèbres.

Le colonialisme occidental, qu’O’Brien et Conrad se donnent tant de mal pour décrire, est, premièrement, une pénétration hors des frontières européennes et dans une autre entité géographique. Deuxièmement, il ne renvoie nullement à une « conscience occidentale » anhistorique « à l’égard du monde non occidental » : l’écrasante majorité des indigènes africains et indiens ne rapportaient pas leurs malheurs à la « conscience occidentale », mais à des pratiques coloniales très précises comme l’esclavage, l’expropriation, la violence des armes. C’est une relation laborieusement construite où la France et la Grande-Bretagne s’autoproclamaient l’« Occident » face aux peuples inférieurs et soumis du « non-Occident », pour l’essentiel inerte et sous-développé. (...)

O’Brien use aussi d’un autre moyen pour tirer Camus de l’embarras où il l’a mis : il souligne que son expérience personnelle est privilégiée. Tactique propre à nous inspirer pour lui quelque sympathie, car, si regrettable qu’ait été le comportement collectif des colons français en Algérie, il n’y a aucune raison d’en accabler Camus. L’éducation entièrement française qu’il a reçue là-bas - bien décrite dans la biographie de Herbert Lottman (5) - ne l’a pas empêché de rédiger, avant-guerre, un célèbre rapport sur les malheurs locaux, dus pour la plupart au colonialisme français. Voici donc un homme moral dans un contexte immoral. Et le centre d’intérêt de Camus, c’est l’individu dans un cadre social : c’est aussi vrai de L’Etranger que de La Peste et de La Chute. Ses valeurs, ce sont la conscience de soi, la maturité sans illusion, la fermeté morale quand tout va mal. Mais, sur le plan méthodologique, trois opérations s’imposent.

La première, c’est d’interroger et de déconstruire le cadre géographique que retient Camus pour L’Etranger (1942), La Peste (1947) et son recueil de nouvelles (du plus haut intérêt) L’Exil et le Royaume (1957). Pourquoi l’Algérie, alors qu’on a toujours considéré que les deux premières œuvres citées renvoyaient surtout à la France, et plus particulièrement à son occupation par les nazis ?

Allant plus loin que la plupart des critiques, O’Brien observe que le choix n’est pas innocent : bien des éléments de ces récits (par exemple le procès de Meursault [dans L’Etranger]) constituent une justification furtive ou inconsciente de la domination française, ou une tentative idéologique de l’enjoliver. Mais chercher à établir une continuité entre l’auteur Camus, pris individuellement, et le colonialisme français en Algérie, c’est d’abord nous demander si ses textes sont liés à des récits français antérieurs ouvertement impérialistes. (...)

La seconde opération méthodologique porte sur le type de données nécessaires à cet élargissement de perspective, et sur une question voisine : qui interprète ?

Un critique européen intéressé par l’histoire dira probablement que Camus représente l’impuissance tragique de la conscience française face à la crise de l’Europe, à l’approche d’une de ses grandes fractures. Si Camus semble avoir considéré qu’on pouvait maintenir et développer les populations de colons au-delà de 1960 (l’année de sa mort), il avait tout simplement tort historiquement puisque les Français ont abandonné l’Algérie et toute revendication sur elle deux ans plus tard seulement.

Lorsque son œuvre évoque en clair l’Algérie contemporaine, Camus s’intéresse en général aux relations franco-algériennes telles qu’elles sont, et non aux vicissitudes historiques spectaculaires qui constituent leur destin dans la durée. Sauf exception, il ignore ou néglige l’histoire, ce qu’un Algérien, ressentant la présence française comme un abus de pouvoir quotidien, n’aurait pas fait. Pour un Algérien, 1962 représentera probablement la fin d’une longue et malheureuse époque inaugurée par l’arrivée des Français en 1830, et l’ouverture triomphale d’une ère nouvelle. Interpréter du même point de vue les romans de Camus, ce serait voir en eux, non des textes qui nous informent sur les états d’âme de l’auteur, mais des éléments de l’histoire de l’effort français pour rendre et garder l’Algérie française.

Il faut donc comparer les assertions et présupposés de Camus sur l’histoire algérienne avec les histoires écrites par des Algériens après l’indépendance, afin d’appréhender pleinement la controverse entre le nationalisme algérien et le colonialisme français. Et il serait juste de rattacher son œuvre à deux phénomènes historiques : l’aventure coloniale française (puisqu’il la postule immuable) et la lutte acharnée contre l’indépendance de l’Algérie. Cette perspective algérienne pourrait bien « débloquer » ce que l’œuvre de Camus dissimule, nie ou tient implicitement pour évident.

Enfin, étant donné l’extrême densité des textes de Camus, l’attention au détail, la patience, l’insistance sont méthodologiquement cruciales. Les lecteurs associent d’emblée ses romans aux romans français sur la France, non seulement en raison de leur langue et des formes qu’ils semblent hériter d’aussi illustres prédécesseurs qu’Adolphe et Trois contes (6), mais aussi parce que leur cadre algérien paraît fortuit, sans rapport avec les graves problèmes moraux qu’ils posent. Près d’un demi-siècle après leur publication, ils sont lus comme des paraboles de la condition humaine.

C’est vrai, Meursault tue un Arabe, mais cet Arabe n’est pas nommé et paraît sans histoire, et bien sûr sans père ni mère. Certes, ce sont aussi des Arabes qui meurent de la peste à Oran, mais ils ne sont pas nommés non plus, tandis que Rieux et Tarrou sont mis en avant. Et l’on doit lire les textes pour la richesse de ce qui s’y trouve, non pour ce qui en a été éventuellement exclu. Mais justement. Je voudrais souligner qu’on trouve dans les romans de Camus ce qu’on en croyait autrefois évacué : des allusions à cette conquête impériale spécifiquement française, commencée en 1830, poursuivie de son vivant, et qui se projette dans la composition de ses textes.

Cette entreprise n’est pas inspirée par la vengeance. Je n’entends pas reprocher rétrospectivement à Camus d’avoir caché dans ses romans certaines choses sur l’Algérie qu’il s’efforce longuement d’expliquer, par exemple, dans les divers textes des Chroniques algériennes. Mon objectif est d’examiner son œuvre littéraire en tant qu’élément de la géographie politique de l’Algérie méthodiquement construite par la France sur plusieurs générations. Cela pour mieux y voir un reflet saisissant du conflit politique et théorique dont l’enjeu est de représenter, d’habiter et de posséder ce territoire - au moment précis où les Britanniques quittaient l’Inde. L’écriture de Camus est animée par une sensibilité coloniale extraordinairement tardive et en fait sans force, qui refait le geste impérial en usant d’un genre, le roman réaliste, dont la grande période en Europe est depuis longtemps passée. (...)

Souvenons-nous. La révolution algérienne a été officiellement annoncée et déclenchée le 1er novembre 1954. Le massacre de Sétif, grande tuerie de civils algériens par des soldats français, est de mai 1945. Et les années précédentes, celles où Camus écrivait L’Etranger, ont été riches en événements ponctuant la longue et sanglante histoire de la résistance algérienne. Même si, selon tous ses biographes, Camus a grandi en Algérie en jeune Français, il a toujours été environné des signes de la lutte franco-algérienne. Il semble en général les avoir esquivés, ou, dans les dernières années, traduits ouvertement dans la langue, l’imagerie et la vision géographique d’une volonté française singulière de disputer l’Algérie à ses habitants indigènes musulmans. En 1957, François Mitterrand déclarait sans ambages, dans son livre Présence française et abandon (7) : « Sans Afrique, il n’y aura pas d’histoire de France au XXe siècle. »

Pour situer Camus en contrepoint sur l’essentiel (et non sur une petite partie) de son histoire réelle, il faut connaître ses vrais prédécesseurs français, ainsi que l’œuvre des romanciers, historiens, sociologues et politologues algériens d’après l’indépendance. Aujourd’hui, une tradition eurocentrique parfaitement déchiffrable et persistante refoule toujours dans l’interprétation ce qui, sur l’Algérie, était refoulé par Camus (et Mitterrand), et refoulé par les personnages de ses romans. Quand, dans les dernières années de sa vie, Camus s’oppose publiquement, et même violemment, à la revendication nationaliste d’indépendance algérienne, il le fait dans le droit-fil de la représentation qu’il a donnée de l’Algérie depuis le début de sa carrière littéraire, même si ses propos font alors tristement écho à la rhétorique officielle anglo-française de Suez.

Ses commentaires sur le « colonel Nasser », sur l’impérialisme arabe et musulman, nous sont familiers, mais le seul énoncé politique, d’une intransigeance totale, qu’il consacre à l’Algérie dans ce texte apparaît comme un résumé sans nuance de tout ce qu’il a écrit antérieurement : « En ce qui concerne l’Algérie, l’indépendance nationale est une formule purement passionnelle. Il n’y a jamais eu encore de nation algérienne. Les juifs, les Turcs, les Grecs, les Italiens, les Berbères auraient autant de droit à réclamer la direction de cette nation virtuelle. Actuellement, les Arabes ne forment pas à eux seuls toute l’Algérie. L’importance et l’ancienneté du peuplement français en particulier suffisent à créer un problème qui ne peut se comparer à rien dans l’histoire. Les Français d’Algérie sont eux aussi et au sens fort du terme des indigènes. Il faut ajouter qu’une Algérie purement arabe ne pourrait accéder à l’indépendance économique sans laquelle l’indépendance politique n’est qu’un leurre. (...) »

Le paradoxe est que partout où, dans ses romans et descriptions, Camus en parle, la présence française en Algérie est rendue soit comme un thème narratif extérieur, une essence échappant au temps et à l’interprétation, soit comme la seule histoire qui mérite d’être racontée en tant qu’histoire. Quelle différence d’attitude et de ton dans le livre de Pierre Bourdieu, Sociologie de l’Algérie (8), publié, comme L’Exil et Le Royaume, en 1958 : ses analyses réfutent les formules à l’emporte-pièce de Camus et présentent franchement la guerre coloniale comme l’effet d’un conflit entre deux sociétés. C’est cet entêtement de Camus qui explique l’absence totale de densité et de famille de l’Arabe tué par Meursault ; et voilà pourquoi la dévastation d’Oran est implicitement destinée à exprimer non les morts arabes (qui, après tout, sont celles qui comptent démographiquement), mais la conscience française. (...)

On dispose d’une excellente recension des nombreux postulats sur les colonies françaises que partagent les lecteurs et critiques de Camus. Une étude remarquable de Manuela Semidei sur les livres scolaires français, de la première guerre mondiale au lendemain de la seconde (9), note que ces manuels comparent favorablement l’administration coloniale de la France à celle de la Grande-Bretagne : ils laissent entendre que les possessions françaises sont gouvernées sans les préjugés et le racisme des Britanniques. Dans les années 30, ce thème est inlassablement répété.

Quand il est fait allusion à l’usage de la violence en Algérie, par exemple, la formulation donne à croire que les forces françaises ont été obligées de prendre des mesures déplaisantes pour répondre à des agressions de la part des indigènes « poussés par leur ardeur religieuse et par l’attrait du pillage ». L’Algérie est toutefois devenue « une nouvelle France », prospère, dotée d’excellentes écoles, d’hôpitaux, de routes. Même après l’indépendance, l’image de l’histoire coloniale de la France reste essentiellement constructive : on pense qu’elle a posé les bases de liens « fraternels » avec les anciennes colonies.

Mais ce n’est pas parce qu’un seul point de vue paraît pertinent à un public français, ou parce que la dynamique complète de l’implantation coloniale et de la résistance indigène flétrit regrettablement le séduisant humanisme d’une grande tradition européenne, qu’il faut suivre ce courant d’interprétation et accepter les constructions et images idéologiques.

J’irai jusqu’à dire que, si les plus célèbres romans de Camus intègrent, récapitulent sans compromis et, à bien des égards, supposent un discours français massif sur l’Algérie qui appartient au langage des attitudes et références géographiques impériales de la France, cela rend son œuvre plus intéressante, et non le contraire. La sobriété de son style, les angoissants dilemmes moraux qu’il met à nu, les destins personnels poignants de ses personnages, qu’il traite avec tant de finesse et d’ironie contrôlée - tout cela se nourrit de l’histoire de la domination française en Algérie et la ressuscite, avec une précision soigneuse et une absence remarquable de remords ou de compassion.

Une fois de plus, la relation entre géographie et lutte politique doit être réanimée à l’endroit précis où, dans les romans, Camus la recouvre d’une superstructure qui, écrit élogieusement Sartre, nous plonge dans le « climat de l’absurde ». Tant L’Etranger que La Peste portent sur des morts d’Arabes, des morts qui mettent en lumière et alimentent silencieusement les problèmes de conscience et les réflexions des personnages français.

Municipalités, système judiciaire, hôpitaux, restaurants, clubs, lieux de loisirs, écoles - toute la structure de la société civile, présentée avec tant de vie, est française, bien qu’elle administre surtout une population non française. L’homologie de ce qu’écrivent à ce sujet Camus et les livres scolaires est frappante. Ses romans et nouvelles racontent les effets d’une victoire remportée sur une population musulmane, pacifiée et décimée, dont les droits à la terre ont été durement restreints. Camus confirme donc et raffermit la priorité française, il ne condamne pas la guerre pour la souveraineté livrée aux musulmans algériens depuis plus d’un siècle, il ne s’en désolidarise pas.

Au centre de l’affrontement, il y a la lutte armée, dont les premiers grands protagonistes sont le maréchal Théodore Bugeaud et l’émir Abd El-Kader. Le premier est un militaire intraitable qui, dans sa sévérité patriarcale envers les indigènes, commence en 1836 par un effort pour les discipliner et finit une dizaine d’années plus tard par une politique de génocide et d’expropriation massive. Le second est un mystique soufi et guérillero infatigable, qui ne cesse de regrouper, reformer, remobiliser ses troupes contre un envahisseur plus fort et plus moderne.

Quand on lit les documents de l’époque - les lettres, proclamations et dépêches de Bugeaud (réunies et publiées à peu près au même moment que L’Etranger), ou une édition des poèmes soufis d’Abd ElKader (...), ou encore la remarquable reconstruction de la psychologie de la conquête par Mostafa Lacheraf, dirigeant du Front de libération nationale (FLN) et professeur à l’université d’Alger après l’indépendance, à partir des journaux et lettres français des années 1830 et 1840 (10) -, on perçoit la dynamique qui rend inévitable l’amoindrissement de la présence arabe chez Camus.

Le cœur de la politique militaire française telle que l’avaient mise au point Bugeaud et ses officiers, c’était la razzia, le raid punitif sur les villages, maisons, récoltes, femmes et enfants des Algériens. « Il faut empêcher les Arabes de semer, de récolter, de pâturer », avait ordonné Bugeaud. Lacheraf donne un échantillon de l’état d’ivresse poétique que ne cessent d’exprimer les officiers français à l’œuvre : enfin ils avaient l’occasion de faire la « guerre à outrance », sans morale, sans nécessité. Le général Changarnier décrit l’agréable distraction qu’il octroie à ses soldats en les laissant razzier de paisibles villages ; ce type d’activité est enseigné par les Ecritures, dit-il, Josué et d’autres grands chefs dirigeaient « de bien terribles razzias » et étaient bénis par Dieu. La ruine, la destruction totale, l’implacable brutalité sont admises non seulement parce qu’elles sont légitimées par Dieu, mais aussi parce que - formule inlassablement répétée de Bugeaud à Salan - « les Arabes ne comprennent que la force brutale ».

Certains, comme Tocqueville, qui par ailleurs critiquait sévèrement la politique américaine à l’égard des Noirs et des Indiens, estimaient que le progrès de la civilisation européenne nécessitait de faire subir des cruautés aux musulmans. Dans la pensée de Tocqueville, « conquête totale » devient synonyme de « grandeur française ». L’islam, c’est « la polygamie, la séquestration des femmes, l’absence de toute vie publique, un gouvernement tyrannique et ombrageux qui force de cacher sa vie et rejette toutes les affections du cœur du côté de l’intérieur de la famille ». Et, croyant que les indigènes sont des nomades, il estime que « tous les moyens de désoler les tribus doivent être employés. Je n’excepte que ceux que l’humanité et le droit des nations réprouvent (11) ». (...)

Les romans et nouvelles de Camus distillent très précisément les traditions, langages et stratégies discursives de l’appropriation française de l’Algérie. Ils donnent son expression ultime et la plus raffinée à cette « structure de sentiments » massive. Mais, pour discerner celle-ci, il nous faut considérer l’œuvre de Camus comme une transfiguration métropolitaine du dilemme colonial : c’est le colon écrivant pour un public français, dont l’histoire personnelle est irrévocablement liée à ce département français du Sud ; dans tout autre cadre, ce qui se passe est inintelligible.

Mais les cérémonies de noces avec le territoire - célébrées par Meursault à Alger, par Tarrou et Rieux enfermés dans les murs d’Oran, par Janine une nuit de veille au Sahara - incitent paradoxalement le lecteur à s’interroger sur la nécessité de ces réaffirmations. Quand la violence du passé français est ainsi rappelée par inadvertance, ces cérémonies deviennent, en raccourci extrêmement condensé, des commémorations de la survie d’une communauté sans perspective qui n’a nulle part où aller.

L’impasse de Meursault est plus radicale que celle des autres. Car, même si nous supposons que ce tribunal qui sonne faux continue d’exister (curieux endroit pour juger un Français meurtrier d’un Arabe, note à juste titre Conor Cruise O’Brien), Meursault lui-même comprend que tout est fini ; c’est enfin le soulagement - dans la bravade : « J’avais eu raison, j’avais encore raison, j’avais toujours raison. J’avais vécu de telle façon et j’aurais pu vivre de telle autre. J’avais fait ceci et je n’avais pas fait cela. Je n’avais pas fait telle chose alors que j’avais fait cette autre. Et après ? C’était comme si j’avais attendu pendant tout le temps cette minute et cette petite aube où je serais justifié. »

Plus de choix ici, plus d’alternative. La voie de la compassion est barrée. Le colon incarne à la fois l’effort humain très réel auquel sa communauté a contribué et le refus paralysant de renoncer à un système structurellement injuste. La conscience de soi suicidaire de Meursault, sa force, sa conflictualité ne pouvaient venir que de cette histoire et de cette communauté-là. A la fin, il s’accepte tel qu’il est - et il comprend aussi pourquoi sa mère, enfermée dans un asile de vieillards, a décidé de se remarier. « Elle avait joué à recommencer (...) si près de la mort, maman devait s’y sentir libérée et prête à tout revivre. » Nous avons fait ici ce que nous avons fait, donc refaisons-le. Cette obstination froide et tragique se mue en faculté humaine de se reproduire sans faiblir. Pour les lecteurs de Camus, L’Etranger exprime l’universalité d’une humanité existentiellement libre, qui oppose un insolent stoïcisme à l’indifférence du cosmos et à la cruauté des hommes.

Resituer L’Etranger dans le nœud géographique où prend naissance sa trajectoire narrative, c’est voir en ce roman une forme épurée de l’expérience historique. Tout comme l’œuvre et le statut d’Orwell en Angleterre, le style dépouillé de Camus et sa sobre description des situations sociales dissimulent des contradictions d’une complexité redoutable, et qui deviennent insolubles si, comme tant de ses critiques, on fait de sa fidélité à l’Algérie française une parabole de la condition humaine. Tel est encore le fondement de sa renommée sociale et littéraire.

Pourtant, il n’a cessé d’exister une autre voie, plus difficile et stimulante : juger, puis refuser la mainmise territoriale et la souveraineté politique de la France, qui interdisaient de porter sur le nationalisme algérien un regard compréhensif. Dans ces conditions, il est clair que les limites de Camus étaient paralysantes, inacceptables. Comparés à la littérature de décolonisation de l’époque, française ou arabe - Germaine Tillion, Kateb Yacine, Frantz Fanon, Jean Genet -, ses récits ont une vitalité négative, où la tragique densité humaine de l’entre prise coloniale accomplit sa dernière grande clarification avant de sombrer. En émane un sentiment de gâchis et de tristesse que nous n’avons pas encore entièrement compris. Et dont nous ne sommes pas tout à fait remis.


http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2000/11/SAID/14483

(1) Ecrivain britannique (1775-1817). Ses œuvres complètes viennent de paraître dans la « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade », Gallimard, Paris, 1 112 pages, 325 F.

(2) Lire François Brune, « Rebelle à Big Brother », Le Monde diplomatique, octobre 2000.

(3) Conor Cruise O’Brien, Albert Camus, Viking, New York, 1971.

(4) Joseph Conrad, Last Essays, Geography and some Explorers, J. M. Dent, Londres, 1926.

(5) Herbert Lottman, Camus, Seuil, Paris, 1985.

(6) Benjamin Constant, Adolphe, Gallimard, Paris, 1973 ; Gustave Flaubert, Trois contes, Seuil, Paris, 1993.

(7) François Mitterrand, Présence française et abandon, Plon, Paris, 1957.

(8) Pierre Bourdieu, Sociologie de l’Algérie, PUF, Paris, 1985, rééd.

(9) Manuela Semidei, « De l’Empire à la décolonisation à travers les manuels scolaires », Revue française de sciences politiques, vol. 16, n° 1, février 1966.

(10) Mostepha Lacheraf, L’Algérie : nation et société, Maspero, Paris, 1965.

(11) Alexis de Tocqueville, Œuvres complètes, t. V, Voyages en Angleterre, Irlande, Suisse et Algérie, Gallimard, Paris, 1958.


Edward W. SaidDécédé en septembre 2003, Edward W. Said était professeur de littérature comparée à l’université Columbia (Etats-Unis), auteur notamment de Culture et impérialisme, Fayard-Le Monde diplomatique, Paris, 2000. Il a publié son autobiographie, A contre-voie, au Serpent à plumes (Paris) en 2002.

The document below, signed by more than two thousand Chinese citizens, was conceived and written in conscious admiration of the founding of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, where, in January 1977, more than two hundred Czech and Slovak intellectuals formed a loose, informal, and open association of people…united by the will to strive individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in our country and throughout the world.

The Chinese document calls not for ameliorative reform of the current political system but for an end to some of its essential features, including one-party rule, and their replacement with a system based on human rights and democracy.

The prominent citizens who have signed the document are from both outside and inside the government, and include not only well-known dissidents and intellectuals, but also middle-level officials and rural leaders. They chose December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the day on which to express their political ideas and to outline their vision of a constitutional, democratic China. They want Charter 08 to serve as a blueprint for fundamental political change in China in the years to come. The signers of the document will form an informal group, open-ended in size but united by a determination to promote democratization and protection of human rights in China and beyond.

Following the text is a postscript describing some of the regime’s recent reactions to it.

—Perry Link

I. Foreword
A hundred years have passed since the writing of China’s first constitution. 2008 also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of the Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China’s signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy student protesters. The Chinese people, who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values.


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By departing from these values, the Chinese government’s approach to “modernization” has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So we ask: Where is China headed in the twenty-first century? Will it continue with “modernization” under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions.

The shock of the Western impact upon China in the nineteenth century laid bare a decadent authoritarian system and marked the beginning of what is often called “the greatest changes in thousands of years” for China. A “self-strengthening movement” followed, but this aimed simply at appropriating the technology to build gunboats and other Western material objects. China’s humiliating naval defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895 only confirmed the obsolescence of China’s system of government. The first attempts at modern political change came with the ill-fated summer of reforms in 1898, but these were cruelly crushed by ultraconservatives at China’s imperial court. With the revolution of 1911, which inaugurated Asia’s first republic, the authoritarian imperial system that had lasted for centuries was finally supposed to have been laid to rest. But social conflict inside our country and external pressures were to prevent it; China fell into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms and the new republic became a fleeting dream.

The failure of both “self- strengthening” and political renovation caused many of our forebears to reflect deeply on whether a “cultural illness” was afflicting our country. This mood gave rise, during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s, to the championing of “science and democracy.” Yet that effort, too, foundered as warlord chaos persisted and the Japanese invasion [beginning in Manchuria in 1931] brought national crisis.


Victory over Japan in 1945 offered one more chance for China to move toward modern government, but the Communist defeat of the Nationalists in the civil war thrust the nation into the abyss of totalitarianism. The “new China” that emerged in 1949 proclaimed that “the people are sovereign” but in fact set up a system in which “the Party is all-powerful.” The Communist Party of China seized control of all organs of the state and all political, economic, and social resources, and, using these, has produced a long trail of human rights disasters, including, among many others, the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957), the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1969), the June Fourth [Tiananmen Square] Massacre (1989), and the current repression of all unauthorized religions and the suppression of the weiquan rights movement [a movement that aims to defend citizens’ rights promulgated in the Chinese Constitution and to fight for human rights recognized by international conventions that the Chinese government has signed]. During all this, the Chinese people have paid a gargantuan price. Tens of millions have lost their lives, and several generations have seen their freedom, their happiness, and their human dignity cruelly trampled.

During the last two decades of the twentieth century the government policy of “Reform and Opening” gave the Chinese people relief from the pervasive poverty and totalitarianism of the Mao Zedong era, and brought substantial increases in the wealth and living standards of many Chinese as well as a partial restoration of economic freedom and economic rights. Civil society began to grow, and popular calls for more rights and more political freedom have grown apace. As the ruling elite itself moved toward private ownership and the market economy, it began to shift from an outright rejection of “rights” to a partial acknowledgment of them.

In 1998 the Chinese government signed two important international human rights conventions; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the phrase “respect and protect human rights”; and this year, 2008, it has promised to promote a “national human rights action plan.” Unfortunately most of this political progress has extended no further than the paper on which it is written. The political reality, which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues to cling to its authoritarian power and fights off any move toward political change.

The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of the rule of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and the poor, pillage of the natural environment as well as of the human and historical environments, and the exacerbation of a long list of social conflicts, especially, in recent times, a sharpening animosity between officials and ordinary people.

As these conflicts and crises grow ever more intense, and as the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society—the vulnerable groups, the people who have been suppressed and monitored, who have suffered cruelty and even torture, and who have had no adequate avenues for their protests, no courts to hear their pleas—becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional.

II. Our Fundamental Principles
This is a historic moment for China, and our future hangs in the balance. In reviewing the political modernization process of the past hundred years or more, we reiterate and endorse basic universal values as follows:

Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.

Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights.

Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person—regardless of social station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color, religion, or political belief—are the same as those of any other. Principles of equality before the law and equality of social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights must be upheld.

Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced among different branches of government and competing interests should be served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of “fairness in all under heaven.” It allows different interest groups and social assemblies, and people with a variety of cultures and beliefs, to exercise democratic self-government and to deliberate in order to reach peaceful resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to government and free and fair competition.

Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people are sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these characteristics: (1) Political power begins with the people and the legitimacy of a regime derives from the people. (2) Political power is exercised through choices that the people make. (3) The holders of major official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic competitive elections. (4) While honoring the will of the majority, the fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected. In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and legal regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a constitution. It means protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens, limiting and defining the scope of legitimate government power, and providing the administrative apparatus necessary to serve these ends.

III. What We Advocate
Authoritarianism is in general decline throughout the world; in China, too, the era of emperors and overlords is on the way out. The time is arriving everywhere for citizens to be masters of states. For China the path that leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the authoritarian notion of reliance on an “enlightened overlord” or an “honest official” and to turn instead toward a system of liberties, democracy, and the rule of law, and toward fostering the consciousness of modern citizens who see rights as fundamental and participation as a duty. Accordingly, and in a spirit of this duty as responsible and constructive citizens, we offer the following recommendations on national governance, citizens’ rights, and social development:



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The Democracy Wall in Beijing, just before it was shut down by the government, December 6, 1979; photograph by Liu Heungshing

1.A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding its provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with the people and turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human rights, authorizes the exercise of public power, and serves as the legal underpinning of China’s democratization. The constitution must be the highest law in the land, beyond violation by any individual, group, or political party.

2.Separation of Powers. We should construct a modern government in which the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive power is guaranteed. We need an Administrative Law that defines the scope of government responsibility and prevents abuse of administrative power. Government should be responsible to taxpayers. Division of power between provincial governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that central powers are only those specifically granted by the constitution and all other powers belong to the local governments.

3.Legislative Democracy. Members of legislative bodies at all levels should be chosen by direct election, and legislative democracy should observe just and impartial principles.

4.An Independent Judiciary. The rule of law must be above the interests of any particular political party and judges must be independent. We need to establish a constitutional supreme court and institute procedures for constitutional review. As soon as possible, we should abolish all of the Committees on Political and Legal Affairs that now allow Communist Party officials at every level to decide politically sensitive cases in advance and out of court. We should strictly forbid the use of public offices for private purposes.

5.Public Control of Public Servants. The military should be made answerable to the national government, not to a political party, and should be made more professional. Military personnel should swear allegiance to the constitution and remain nonpartisan. Political party organizations must be prohibited in the military. All public officials including police should serve as nonpartisans, and the current practice of favoring one political party in the hiring of public servants must end.

6.Guarantee of Human Rights. There must be strict guarantees of human rights and respect for human dignity. There should be a Human Rights Committee, responsible to the highest legislative body, that will prevent the government from abusing public power in violation of human rights. A democratic and constitutional China especially must guarantee the personal freedom of citizens. No one should suffer illegal arrest, detention, arraignment, interrogation, or punishment. The system of “Reeducation through Labor” must be abolished.

7.Election of Public Officials. There should be a comprehensive system of democratic elections based on “one person, one vote.” The direct election of administrative heads at the levels of county, city, province, and nation should be systematically implemented. The rights to hold periodic free elections and to participate in them as a citizen are inalienable.

8.Rural–Urban Equality. The two-tier household registry system must be abolished. This system favors urban residents and harms rural residents. We should establish instead a system that gives every citizen the same constitutional rights and the same freedom to choose where to live.

9.Freedom to Form Groups. The right of citizens to form groups must be guaranteed. The current system for registering nongovernment groups, which requires a group to be “approved,” should be replaced by a system in which a group simply registers itself. The formation of political parties should be governed by the constitution and the laws, which means that we must abolish the special privilege of one party to monopolize power and must guarantee principles of free and fair competition among political parties.

10.Freedom to Assemble. The constitution provides that peaceful assembly, demonstration, protest, and freedom of expression are fundamental rights of a citizen. The ruling party and the government must not be permitted to subject these to illegal interference or unconstitutional obstruction.

11.Freedom of Expression. We should make freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom universal, thereby guaranteeing that citizens can be informed and can exercise their right of political supervision. These freedoms should be upheld by a Press Law that abolishes political restrictions on the press. The provision in the current Criminal Law that refers to “the crime of incitement to subvert state power” must be abolished. We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes.

12.Freedom of Religion. We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief, and institute a separation of religion and state. There must be no governmental interference in peaceful religious activities. We should abolish any laws, regulations, or local rules that limit or suppress the religious freedom of citizens. We should abolish the current system that requires religious groups (and their places of worship) to get official approval in advance and substitute for it a system in which registry is optional and, for those who choose to register, automatic.

13.Civic Education. In our schools we should abolish political curriculums and examinations that are designed to indoctrinate students in state ideology and to instill support for the rule of one party. We should replace them with civic education that advances universal values and citizens’ rights, fosters civic consciousness, and promotes civic virtues that serve society.

14.Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market.

15.Financial and Tax Reform. We should establish a democratically regulated and accountable system of public finance that ensures the protection of taxpayer rights and that operates through legal procedures. We need a system by which public revenues that belong to a certain level of government—central, provincial, county or local—are controlled at that level. We need major tax reform that will abolish any unfair taxes, simplify the tax system, and spread the tax burden fairly. Government officials should not be able to raise taxes, or institute new ones, without public deliberation and the approval of a democratic assembly. We should reform the ownership system in order to encourage competition among a wider variety of market participants.

16.Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security system that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education, health care, retirement security, and employment.

17.Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural environment and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and responsible to our descendants and to the rest of humanity. This means insisting that the state and its officials at all levels not only do what they must do to achieve these goals, but also accept the supervision and participation of nongovernmental organizations.

18.A Federated Republic. A democratic China should seek to act as a responsible major power contributing toward peace and development in the Asian Pacific region by approaching others in a spirit of equality and fairness. In Hong Kong and Macao, we should support the freedoms that already exist. With respect to Taiwan, we should declare our commitment to the principles of freedom and democracy and then, negotiating as equals and ready to compromise, seek a formula for peaceful unification. We should approach disputes in the national-minority areas of China with an open mind, seeking ways to find a workable framework within which all ethnic and religious groups can flourish. We should aim ultimately at a federation of democratic communities of China.

19.Truth in Reconciliation. We should restore the reputations of all people, including their family members, who suffered political stigma in the political campaigns of the past or who have been labeled as criminals because of their thought, speech, or faith. The state should pay reparations to these people. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be released. There should be a Truth Investigation Commission charged with finding the facts about past injustices and atrocities, determining responsibility for them, upholding justice, and, on these bases, seeking social reconciliation.


China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among the major nations that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China’s own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer.

Accordingly, we dare to put civic spirit into practice by announcing Charter 08. We hope that our fellow citizens who feel a similar sense of crisis, responsibility, and mission, whether they are inside the government or not, and regardless of their social status, will set aside small differences to embrace the broad goals of this citizens’ movement. Together we can work for major changes in Chinese society and for the rapid establishment of a free, democratic, and constitutional country. We can bring to reality the goals and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking for more than a hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese civilization.

—Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link

Postscript
The planning and drafting of Charter 08 began in the late spring of 2008, but Chinese authorities were apparently unaware of it or unconcerned by it until several days before it was announced on December 10. On December 6, Wen Kejian, a writer who signed the charter, was detained in the city of Hangzhou in eastern China and questioned for about an hour. Police told Wen that Charter 08 was “different” from earlier dissident statements, and “a fairly grave matter.” They said there would be a coordinated investigation in all cities and provinces to “root out the organizers,” and they advised Wen to remove his name from the charter. Wen declined, telling the authorities that he saw the charter as a fundamental turning point in history.

Meanwhile, on December 8, in Shenzhen in the far south of China, police called on Zhao Dagong, a writer and signer of the charter, for a “chat.” They told Zhao that the central authorities were concerned about the charter and asked if he was the organizer in the Shenzhen area.

Later on December 8, at 11 PM in Beijing, about twenty police entered the home of Zhang Zuhua, one of the charter’s main drafters. A few of the police took Zhang with them to the local police station while the rest stayed and, as Zhang’s wife watched, searched the home and confiscated books, notebooks, Zhang’s passport, all four of the family’s computers, and all of their cash and credit cards. (Later Zhang learned that his family’s bank accounts, including those of both his and his wife’s parents, had been emptied.) Meanwhile, at the police station, Zhang was detained for twelve hours, where he was questioned in detail about Charter 08 and the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders in which he is active.

It was also late on December 8 that another of the charter’s signers, the literary critic and prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo, was taken away by police. His telephone in Beijing went unanswered, as did e-mail and Skype messages sent to him. As of the present writing, he’s believed to be in police custody, although the details of his detention are not known.

On the morning of December 9, Beijing lawyer Pu Zhiqiang was called in for a police “chat,” and in the evening the physicist and philosopher Jiang Qisheng was called in as well. Both had signed the charter and were friends of the drafters. On December 10—the day the charter was formally announced—the Hangzhou police returned to the home of Wen Kejian, the writer they had questioned four days earlier. This time they were more threatening. They told Wen he would face severe punishment if he wrote about the charter or about Liu Xiaobo’s detention. “Do you want three years in prison?” they asked. “Or four?”

On December 11 the journalist Gao Yu and the writer Liu Di, both well-known in Beijing, were interrogated about their signing of the Charter. The rights lawyer, Teng Biao, was approached by the police but declined, on principle, to meet with them. On December 12 and 13 there were reports of interrogations in many provinces—Shaanxi, Hunan, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and others—of people who had seen the charter on the Internet, found that they agreed with it, and signed. With these people the police focused on two questions: “How did you get involved?” and “What do you know about the drafters and organizers?”

The Chinese authorities seem unaware of the irony of their actions. Their efforts to quash Charter 08 only serve to underscore China’s failure to uphold the very principles that the charter advances. The charter calls for “free expression” but the regime says, by its actions, that it has once again denied such expression. The charter calls for freedom to form groups, but the nationwide police actions that have accompanied the charter’s release have specifically aimed at blocking the formation of a group. The charter says “we should end the practice of viewing words as crimes,” and the regime says (literally, to Wen Kejian) “we can send you to prison for these words.” The charter calls for the rule of law and the regime sends police in the middle of the night to act outside the law; the charter says “police should serve as nonpartisans,” and here the police are plainly partisan.

Charter 08 is signed only by citizens of the People’s Republic of China who are living inside China. But Chinese living outside China are signing a letter of strong support for the charter. The eminent historian Yu Ying-shih, the astrophysicist Fang Lizhi, writers Ha Jin and Zheng Yi, and more than 160 others have so far signed.

On December 12, the Dalai Lama issued his own letter in support of the charter, writing that “a harmonious society can only come into being when there is trust among the people, freedom from fear, freedom of expression, rule of law, justice, and equality.” He called on the Chinese government to release prisoners “who have been detained for exercising their freedom of expression.”

—Perry Link, December 18, 2008

The Eagle's Gift. ©1982 by Carlos Castaneda.
Part 1: Chapter 01 - The Fixation of the Second Attention.


It was midafternoon when I got to where la Gorda and the little sisters lived. La Gorda was alone, sitting outside by the door, gazing into the distant mountains. She was shocked to see me. She explained that she had been completely absorbed in a memory, and for a moment she had been on the verge of remembering something very vague that had to do with me.

Later that night, after dinner, la Gorda, the three little sisters, the three Genaros, and I sat on the floor of la Gorda's room. The women sat together.

For some reason, although I had been with each one of them an equal length of time, I had isolated la Gorda as the recipient of all my concern. It was as if the others did not exist for me. I speculated that perhaps it was because la Gorda reminded me of don Juan while the others did not. There was something very easy about her. Yet that easiness was not so much in her actions as it was in my feelings for her.

They wanted to know what I had been doing. I told them that I had just been in the city of Tula, Hidalgo, where I had visited some archaeological ruins. I had been most impressed with a row of four colossal, columnlike figures of stone, called the Atlanteans," which stand on the flat top of a pyramid.

Each one of the almost cylindrical figures, measuring fifteen feet in height and three feet across, is made of four separate pieces of basalt carved to represent what archaeologists think are Toltec warriors carrying their war paraphernalia. Twenty feet behind each of the front figures on the top of the pyramid, there is another row of four rectangular columns of the same height and width as the first, also made of four separate pieces of stone.

The awe-inspiring setting of the Atlanteans was enhanced by what a friend, who had guided me through the site, had told me about them. He said that a custodian of the ruins had revealed to him that he had heard the Atlanteans walking at night; making the ground underneath them shake.

I asked the Genaros for comments on what my friend had said. They acted shy and giggled. I turned to la Gorda who was sitting beside me, and asked her directly for her opinions.

"I've never seen those figures," she said. "I've never been in Tula. Just the idea of going to that town scares me."

"Why does it scare you, Gorda?" I asked.

"Something happened to me in the ruins of Monte Alban in Oaxaca," she said. "I used to go to roam around those ruins even after the Nagual Juan Matus told me not to set foot in them. I don't know why but I loved that place. Every time I was in Oaxaca I would go there. Because women alone are always harassed, I would usually go with Pablito, who is very daring. But once I went there with Nestor. He saw a glitter on the ground. We dug a little and found a strange rock that fit in the palm of my hand. A hole had been neatly drilled into the rock. I wanted to put my finger through it, but Nestor stopped me. The rock was smooth and made my hand very hot. We didn't know what to do with it. Nestor put it inside his hat and we carried it as if it were a live animal."

All of them started to laugh. There seemed to be a concealed joke in what la Gorda was telling me.

"Where did you take it?" I asked her.

"We brought it here to this house," she replied, and that statement elicited uncontainable laughter from the others. They coughed and choked laughing,

"The joke is on la Gorda," Nestor said. "You've got to understand that she's muleheaded like no one else. The Nagual had already told her not to fool around with rocks, or bones, or any other thing she might find buried in the ground. But she used to sneak behind his back and get all kinds of crap.

"That day in Oaxaca she insisted on carrying that god-awful thing. We got on the bus with it and brought it all the way to this town, and then right into this room."

"The Nagual and Genaro had gone on a trip," la Gorda said. "I got daring and put my finger through the hole and realized that the rock had been cut to be held in the hand. Right away I could feel the feeling of whoever had held that rock. It was a power rock. My mood changed. I became frightened. Something awesome began to lurk in the dark; something that had no shape or color. I couldn't be alone. I would wake up screaming and after a couple of days I couldn't sleep any more. Everybody took turns keeping me company, day and night."

"When the Nagual and Genaro came back," Nestor said, "the Nagual sent me with Genaro to put the rock back in the exact place where it had been buried. Genaro worked for three days to pinpoint the spot. And he did it."

"What happened to you, Gorda, after that?" I asked her.

"The Nagual buried me," she said. "For nine days I was naked inside a dirt coffin."

There was another explosion of laughter among them.

"The Nagual told her that she couldn't get out of it," Nestor explained. "Poor Gorda had to piss and shit inside her coffin. The Nagual pushed her inside a box that he made with branches and mud. There was a little door on the side for her food and water. The rest of it was sealed."

"Why did he bury her?" I asked.

"That's the only way to protect anyone," Nestor said. "She had to be placed under the ground so the earth would heal her. There is no better healer than the earth. Besides, the Nagual had to fend off the feeling of that rock which was focused on la Gorda. The dirt is a screen. It doesn't allow anything to go through either way. The Nagual knew that she couldn't get worse by being buried for nine days. She could only get better. Which she did."

"How did it feel to be buried like that, Gorda?" I asked.

"I nearly went crazy," she said. "But that was just my indulging. If the Nagual hadn't put me in there, I would have died. The power of that rock was too great for me. Its owner had been a very large man. I could tell that his hand was twice the size of mine. He held on to that rock for dear life, and in the end someone killed him. His fear terrified me. I could feel something coming at me to eat my flesh. That was what the man felt. He was a man of power, but someone even more powerful got him.

"The Nagual said that once you have an object of that kind it brings disaster because its power enters into challenges with other objects of its kind; and the owner becomes either a pursuer or a victim. The Nagual said that it is the nature of such objects to be at war because the part of our attention which focuses on them to give them power is a very dangerous, belligerent part."

"La Gorda is very greedy," Pablito said. "She figured that if she could find something which already had a great deal of power in it, she'd be a winner because nowadays no one is interested in challenging power."

La Gorda assented with a movement of her head.

"I didn't know that one could pick up other things besides the power that the objects have," she said. "When I first put my finger through the hole and held the rock, my hand got hot and my arm began to vibrate. I felt truly strong and big. I'm sneaky so no one knew that I was holding the rock in my hand. After a few days of holding it the real horror began. I could feel that somebody had gone after the owner of the rock. I could feel his fright. He was doubtlessly a very powerful sorcerer and whoever was after him wanted not only to kill him but to eat his flesh. That really scared me. I should've dropped the rock then, but the feeling I was having was so new that I kept the rock clutched in my hand like a damn fool. When I finally dropped it, it was too late. Something in me was hooked. I had visions of men coming at me; men dressed in strange clothes. I felt they were biting me; tearing the flesh of my legs with sharp little knives and with their teeth. I went berserk!"

"How did don Juan explain those visions?" I asked her.

"He said that she no longer had defenses," Nestor said. "And because of that she could pick up that man's fixation; his second attention which had been poured into that rock. When he was being killed he held on to the rock in order to gather all his concentration. The Nagual said that the man's power went out of his body into his rock. He knew what he was doing. He didn't want his enemies to benefit by devouring his flesh. The Nagual also said that the ones who killed him knew this. That's why they were eating him alive; to get whatever power was left. They must have buried the rock to avoid trouble. And la Gorda and I, like two idiots, found it and dug it up."

La Gorda shook her head affirmatively three or four times. She had a very serious expression.

"The Nagual told me that the second attention is the most fierce thing there is," she said. "If it is focused on objects, there is nothing more horrendous."

"What's horrible is that we cling," Nestor said. "The man who owned the rock was clinging to his life and to his power; that's why he was horrified at feeling his flesh eaten away. The Nagual said that if the man would've let go of his possessiveness and abandoned himself to his death, whatever it may have been, there wouldn't have been any fear in him."

The conversation faded. I asked the others if they had anything to say. The little sisters glared at me. Benigno giggled and hid his face with his hat.

"Pablito and I have been in the pyramids of Tula," he finally said. "We've been in all the pyramids there are in Mexico. We like them."

"Why did you go to all the pyramids?" I asked him.

"I really don't know why we went to them," he said. "Perhaps it was because the Nagual Juan Mat us told us not to."

"How about you, Pablito?" I asked.

"I went there to learn," he replied huffily, and laughed. "I used to live in the city of Tula. I know those pyramids like the back of my hand. The Nagual told me that he also used to live there. He knew everything about the pyramids. He was a Toltec himself."

I realized then that it had been more than curiosity that made me go to the archaeological site in Tula. The main reason I had accepted my friend's invitation was because at the time of my first visit to la Gorda, and the others, they had told me something which don Juan had never even mentioned to me; that he considered himself a cultural descendant of the Toltecs. Tula had been the ancient epicenter of the Toltec empire.

"What do you think about the Atlanteans walking around at night?" I asked Pablito.

"Sure, they walk at night," he said. "Those things have been there for ages. No one knows who built the pyramids. The Nagual Juan Matus himself told me that the Spaniards were not the first to discover them. The Nagual said there were others before them. God knows how many."

"What do you think those four figures of stone represent?" I asked.

"They are not men, but women," he said. "That pyramid is the center of order and stability. Those figures are its four corners. They are the four winds, the four directions. They are the foundation, the basis of the pyramid. They have to be women, mannish women, if you want to call them that. As you yourself know, we men are not that hot. We are a good binding, a glue to hold things together, but that's all. The Nagual Juan Matus said that the mystery of the pyramid is its structure. The four corners have been elevated to the top. The pyramid itself is the man supported by his female warriors; a male who has elevated his supporters to the highest place. See what I mean?"

I must have had a look of perplexity on my face. Pablito laughed. It was a polite laughter.

"No. I don't see what you mean, Pablito," I said. "But that's because don Juan never told me anything about it. The topic is completely new to me. Please tell me everything you know."

"The Atlanteans are the nagual. They are dreamers. They represent the order of the second attention brought forward. That's why they're so fearsome and mysterious. They are creatures of war but not of destruction.

"The other row of columns, the rectangular ones, represent the order of the first attention; the tonal. They are stalkers. That's why they are covered with inscriptions. They are very peaceful and wise; the opposite of the front row."

Pablito stopped talking and looked at me almost defiantly, then he broke into a smile.

I thought he was going to go on to explain what he had said, but he remained silent as if waiting for my comments.

I told him how mystified I was and urged him to continue talking. He seemed undecided, stared at me for a moment, and took a deep breath. He had hardly begun to speak when the voices of the rest of them were raised in a clamor of protest.

"The Nagual already explained that to all of us," la Gorda said impatiently. "What's the point of making him repeat it?"

I tried to make them understand that I really had no conception of what Pablito was talking about. I prevailed on him go on with his explanation. There was another wave of voices speaking at the same time. Judging by the way the little sisters glared at me, they were getting very angry; especially Lydia.

"We don't like to talk about those women," la Gorda said to me in a conciliatory tone. "Just the thought of the women of the pyramid makes us very nervous."

"What's the matter with you people?" I asked. "Why are you acting like this?"

"We don't know," la Gorda replied. "It's just a feeling that all of us have; a very disturbing feeling. We were fine until a moment ago when you started to ask questions about those women."

La Gorda's statements were like an alarm signal. All of them stood up and advanced menacingly toward me, talking in loud voices.

It took me a long time to calm them and make them sit down. The little sisters were very upset and their mood seemed to influence la Gorda's. The three men showed more restraint. I faced Nestor and asked him bluntly to explain to me why the women were so agitated. Obviously I was unwittingly doing something to aggravate them.

"I really don't know what it is," Nestor said. "I'm sure none of us here knows what is the matter with us, except that we all feel very sad and nervous."

"Is it because we're talking about the pyramids?" I asked him.

"It must be," Nestor replied somberly. "I myself didn't know that those figures were women."

"Of course you did, you idiot," Lydia snapped.

Nestor seemed to be intimidated by her outburst. He recoiled and smiled sheepishly at me.

"Maybe I did," he conceded. "We're going through a very strange period in our lives. None of us knows anything for sure any more. Since you came into our lives, we are unknown to ourselves."

A very oppressive mood set in. I insisted that the only way to dispel it was to talk about those mysterious columns on the pyramids.

The women protested heatedly. The men remained silent. I had the feeling that the men were affiliated in principle with the women, but secretly wanted to discuss the topic just as I did.

"Did don Juan tell you anything else about the pyramids, Pablito?" I asked.

My intention was to steer the conversation away from the specific topic of the Atlanteans, and yet stay near it.

"He said one specific pyramid there in Tula was a guide," Pablito replied eagerly.

From the tone of his voice I deduced that he really wanted to talk. And the attentiveness of the other apprentices convinced me that covertly all of them wanted to exchange opinions.

"The Nagual said that it was a guide to the second attention," Pablito went on, "but that it was ransacked and everything destroyed. He told me that some of the pyramids were gigantic not-doings. They were not lodgings but places for warriors to do their dreaming and exercise their second attention. Whatever they did was recorded in drawings and figures that were put on the walls.

"Then another kind of warrior must've come along; a kind who didn't approve of what the sorcerers of the pyramid had done with their second attention, and destroyed the pyramid and all that was in it.

"The Nagual believed that the new warriors must've been warriors of the third attention, just as he himself was. Warriors who were appalled by the evilness of the fixation of the second attention. The sorcerers of the pyramids were too busy with their fixation to realize what was going on. When they did, it was too late."

Pablito had an audience. Everyone in the room, myself included, was fascinated with what he was saying. I understood the ideas he was presenting because don Juan had explained them to me.



Don Juan had said that our total being consists of two perceivable segments. The first is the familiar physical body which all of us can perceive. The second is the luminous body which is a cocoon that only seers can perceive; a cocoon that gives us the appearance of giant luminous eggs.

He had also said that one of the most important goals of sorcery is to reach the luminous cocoon; a goal which is fulfilled through the sophisticated use of dreaming, and through a rigorous systematic exertion he called not-doing. He defined not-doing as an unfamiliar act which engages our total being by forcing us to become conscious of its luminous segment.

In order to explain these concepts, don Juan made a threepart, uneven division of our consciousness.

He called the smallest the first attention, and said that it is the consciousness that every normal person has developed in order to deal with the daily world. It encompasses the awareness of the physical body.

Another larger portion he called the second attention, and described it as the awareness we need in order to perceive our luminous cocoon and to act as luminous beings. He said that the second attention remains in the background for the duration of our lives unless it is brought forth through deliberate training or by an accidental trauma. He said the second attention encompasses the awareness of the luminous body.

He called the last portion, which was the largest, the third attention-an immeasurable consciousness which engages undefinable aspects of the awareness of the physical and the luminous bodies.

I asked him if he himself had experienced the third attention. He said that he was on the periphery of it, and that if he ever entered it completely, I would know it instantly because all of him would become what he really was; an outburst of energy.

He added that the battlefield of warriors was the second attention, which was something like a training ground for reaching the third attention. The second attention was a state rather difficult to arrive at, but very fruitful once it was attained.



"The pyramids are harmful," Pablito went on. "Especially to unprotected sorcerers like ourselves. They are worse yet to formless warriors like la Gorda. The Nagual said that there is nothing more dangerous than the evil fixation of the second attention.

"When warriors learn to focus on the weak side of the second attention nothing can stand in their way. They become hunters of men; ghouls. Even if they are no longer alive, they can reach for their prey through time as if they were present here and now.

"And because prey is what we become if we walk into one of those pyramids, the Nagual called them traps of the second attention."

"What exactly did he say would happen?" la Gorda asked.

"The Nagual said that we could stand perhaps one visit to the pyramids," Pablito explained. "On the second visit we would feel a strange sadness. It would be like a cold breeze that would make us listless and fatigued; a fatigue that soon turns into bad luck. In no time at all we'll be jinxed. Everything will happen to us. In fact, the Nagual said that our own streaks of bad luck were due to our willfulness in visiting those ruins against his recommendations.

"Eligio, for instance, never disobeyed the Nagual. You wouldn't catch him dead in there. Neither did this Nagual here, and they were always lucky while the rest of us were jinxed, especially la Gorda and myself. Weren't we even bitten by the same dog? And didn't the same beams of the kitchen roof get rotten twice and fall on us?"

"The Nagual never explained this to me," la Gorda said.

"Of course he did," Pablito insisted,

"If I had known how bad it was, I wouldn't have set foot in those damned places," la Gorda protested.

"The Nagual told every one of us the same things," Nestor said. "The problem is that every one of us was not listening attentively, or rather every one of us listened to him in his own way, and heard what he wanted to hear.

"The Nagual said that the fixation of the second attention has two faces.

"The first and easier face is the evil one. It happens when dreamers use their dreaming to focus their second attention on the items of the world, like money and power over people.[~ the world of the 1st attention]

"The other face is the more difficult to reach and it happens when dreamers focus their second attention on items that are not in or from this world, such as the journey into the unknown. [~ the world of the third attention]

"Warriors need endless impeccability in order to reach this face."

I said to them that I was sure that don Juan had selectively revealed certain things to some of us, and other things to others. I could not, for instance, recall don Juan ever discussing the evil face of the second attention with me.

I told them then what don Juan said to me in reference to the fixation of attention in general.



He stressed to me that all archaeological ruins in Mexico, especially the pyramids, were harmful to modern man. He depicted the pyramids as foreign expressions of thought and action. He said that every item, every design in them, was a calculated effort to record aspects of attention which were thoroughly alien to us. For don Juan, it was not only ruins of past cultures that held a dangerous element in them. Anything which was the object of an obsessive concern had a harmful potential.

We had discussed this in detail once. It was a reaction he had to some comments I had made about my being at a loss as to where to store my field notes safely. I regarded them in a most possessive manner and was obsessed with their security.

"What should I do?" I asked him.

"Genaro once gave you the solution," he replied. "You thought, as you always do, that he was joking. He never jokes. He told you that you should write with the tip of your finger instead of a pencil. You didn't take him up on that because you can't imagine that this is the not-doing of taking notes."

I argued that what he was proposing had to be a joke. My self image was that of a social scientist who needed to 'record everything' that was said and done in order to 'draw verifiable conclusions'. For don Juan, the one thing had nothing to do with the other: To be a serious student had nothing to do with taking notes.

I personally could not see a solution. Don Genaro's suggestion seemed to me humorous; not a real possibility.

Don Juan argued his point further. He said that taking notes was a way of engaging the first attention in the task of remembering; that I took notes in order to remember what was said and done. Don Genaro's recommendation was not a joke because writing with the tip of my finger on a piece of paper, as the not-doing of taking notes, would force my second attention to focus on remembering; and I would not accumulate sheets of paper. Don Juan thought that the end result would be more accurate and more powerful than taking notes. It had never been done as far as he knew, but the principle was sound.

He pressed me to do it for a while. I became disturbed. Taking notes acted not only as a mnemonic device, but soothed me as well. It was my most serviceable crutch. To accumulate sheets of paper gave me a sense of purpose and balance.

"When you worry about what to do with your sheets," don Juan explained, "you are focusing a very dangerous part of yourself on them. All of us have that dangerous side, that fixation. The stronger we become, the more deadly that side is.

"The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material things on which to focus their power, but to focus their power on the spirit; on the true flight into the unknown, not on trivial shields. In your case, your notes are your shield. They won't let you live in peace."

I seriously felt that I had no way on earth to disassociate myself from my notes. Don Juan then conceived of a task for me in lieu of a not-doing proper. He said that for someone who was as possessive as I was, the most appropriate way of freeing myself from my notebooks would be to disclose them; to throw them in the open; to write a book. I thought, at the time, that that was a bigger joke than taking notes with the tip of my finger.

"Your compulsion to possess and hold on to things is not unique," he said. "Everyone who wants to follow the warrior's path, the sorcerer's way, has to rid himself of this fixation.

"My benefactor told me that there was a time when warriors did have material objects on which they placed their obsession; and that gave rise to the question of whose object would be more powerful, or the most powerful of them all. Remnants of those objects still remain in the world; the leftovers of that race for power.

"No one can tell what kind of fixation those objects must have received. Men infinitely more powerful than you poured all the facets of their attention on them. You have merely begun to pour your puny worry on your notes. You haven't gotten yet to other levels of attention.

"Think how horrible it would be if you would find yourself at the end of your trail as a warrior, still carrying your bundles of notes on your back. By that time the notes will be alive, especially if you learn to write with your fingertip and still have to pile up sheets. Under those conditions it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone found your bundles walking around."



"It is easy for me to understand why the Nagual Juan Matus didn't want us to have possessions," Nestor said after I had finished talking. "We are all dreamers. He didn't want us to focus our dreaming body on the weak face of the second attention.

"I didn't understand his maneuvers at the time. I resented the fact that he made me get rid of everything I had. I thought he was being unfair. My belief was that he was trying to keep Pablito and Benigno from envying me because they had nothing themselves. I was well-off in comparison. At the time, I had no idea that he was protecting my dreaming body."



Don Juan had described dreaming to me in various ways. The most obscure of them all now appears to me as being the one that defines it best. He said that dreaming is intrinsically the not-doing of sleep. And as such, dreaming affords practitioners the use of that portion of their lives spent in slumber.

It is as if the dreamers no longer sleep; yet no illness results from it. The dreamers do not lack sleep, and the effect of dreaming seems to be an increase of waking time owing to the use of an alleged extra body; the dreaming body.

Don Juan had explained to me that the dreaming body is sometimes called the "double" or the "other" because it is a perfect replica of the dreamer's body. It is inherently the energy of a luminous being, a whitish, phantomlike emanation which is projected by the fixation of the second attention into a three-dimensional image of the body.

Don Juan explained that the dreaming body is not a ghost, and is as real as anything we deal with in the world. He said that the second attention is unavoidably drawn to focus on our total being as a field of energy, and transforms that energy into anything suitable. The easiest thing is, of course, the image of the physical body with which we are already thoroughly familiar from our daily lives, and our use of our first attention.

And that which channels the energy of our total being to produce anything that might be within the boundaries of possibility is known as 'will'. Don Juan could not say what those boundaries were; except that at the level of luminous beings, the range is so broad that it is futile to try to establish limits.

Thus, the energy of a luminous being can be transformed through will into anything.



"The Nagual said that the dreaming body gets involved and attaches itself to anything," Benigno said. "It doesn't have sense. He told me that men are weaker than women because a man's dreaming body is more possessive."

The little sisters agreed in unison with a movement of their heads. La Gorda looked at me and smiled.

"The Nagual told me that you're the king of possessiveness," she said to me. "Genaro said that you even say goodbye to your turds before you flush them down."

The little sisters rolled down on their sides laughing. The Genaros made obvious efforts to contain themselves. Nestor, who was sitting by my side, patted my knee.

The Nagual and Genaro used to tell great stories about you," he said. "They entertained us for years with tales about a weird guy they knew. We know now that it was you."

I felt a wave of embarrassment. It was as if don Juan and don Genaro had betrayed me; laughing at me in front of the apprentices. Self-pity took over. I began to complain. I said out loud that they had been predisposed to be against me; to think that I was a fool.

"That's not true," Benigno said. "We are delighted that you are with us."

"Are we?" Lydia snapped.

All of them became involved in a heated argument. The men and the women were divided. La Gorda did not join either group. She stayed sitting by my side, while the others had stood up and were shouting.

"We're going through a difficult time," la Gorda said to me in a low voice. "We've done a lot of dreaming and yet it isn't enough for what we need."

"What do you need, Gorda?" I asked.

"We don't know," she said. "We were hoping that you would tell us that."

The little sisters and the Genaros sat down again in order to listen to what la Gorda was saying to me.

"We need a leader," she went on. "You are the Nagual, but you're not a leader."

"It takes time to make a perfect Nagual," Pablito said. "The Nagual Juan Matus told me that he himself was crappy in his youth, until something shook him out of his complacency."

"I don't believe it," Lydia shouted. "He never told me that."

"He said that he was very crummy," la Gorda added in a low voice.

"The Nagual told me that in his youth he was a jinx, just like me," Pablito said. "He was also told by his benefactor not to set foot in those pyramids and because of that he practically lived there until he was driven away by a horde of phantoms."

Apparently no one else knew the story. They perked up.

"I had completely forgotten about that," Pablito explained. "I've only just remembered it now. It was just like what happened to la Gorda. One day after the Nagual had finally become a formless warrior, the evil fixations of those warriors who had done their dreaming and other not-doings in the pyramids came after him.

"They found him while he was working in the field. He told me that he saw a hand coming out of the loose dirt in a fresh furrow to grab the leg of his pants. He thought that it was a fellow worker who had been accidentally buried. He tried to dig him out. Then he realized that he was digging into a dirt coffin: A man was buried there. The Nagual said that the man was very thin and dark and had no hair.

"The Nagual tried frantically to patch up the dirt coffin. He didn't want his fellow workers to see it and he didn't want to injure the man by digging him out against his will. He was working so hard that he didn't even notice that the other workers had gathered around him. By then the Nagual said that the dirt coffin had collapsed and the dark man was sprawled on the ground; naked.

"The Nagual tried to help him up and asked the men to give him a hand. They laughed at him. They thought he was drunk having the d.t.'s because there was no man, or dirt coffin, or anything like that in the field.

"The Nagual said that he was shaken but he didn't dare tell his benefactor about it. It didn't matter because at night a whole flock of phantoms came after him. He went to open the front door after someone knocked and a horde of naked men with glaring yellow eyes burst in.

"They threw him to the floor and piled on top of him. They would have crushed every bone in his body had it not been for the swift actions of his benefactor. He saw the phantoms and pulled the Nagual to safety to a hole in the ground which he always kept conveniently at the back of his house. He buried the Nagual there while the ghosts squatted around waiting for their chance.

The Nagual told me that he had become so frightened that he would voluntarily go back into his dirt coffin every night to sleep long after the phantoms had vanished."

Pablito stopped talking. Everyone seemed to be getting ready to leave. They fretted and changed position as if to show that they were tired of sitting.

I then told them that I had had a very disturbing reaction upon hearing my friend's statements about the Atlanteans walking at night in the pyramids of Tula. I had not recognized the depth at which I had accepted what don Juan and don Genaro had taught me until that day.

I realized that I had completely suspended judgment even though it was clear in my mind that the possibility those colossal figures of stone could walk did not enter into the realm of serious speculation. My reaction was a total surprise to me.

I explained to them at great length that the idea of the Atlanteans walking at night was a clear example of the fixation of the second attention. I had arrived at that conclusion using the following set of premises:

First, that we are not merely whatever our common sense requires us to believe we are. We are in actuality luminous beings capable of becoming aware of our luminosity.

Second, that as luminous beings aware of our luminosity we are capable of unraveling different facets of our awareness, or our attention, as don Juan called it.

Third, that the unraveling could be brought about by a deliberate effort as we were trying to do ourselves, or accidentally, through a bodily trauma.

Fourth, that there had been a time when sorcerers deliberately placed different facets of their attention on material objects.

Fifth, that the Atlanteans, judging by their awe-inspiring setting, must have been objects of fixation for sorcerers of another time.

I said that the custodian who had given my friend the information had undoubtedly unraveled another facet of his attention; he might have unwittingly become, if only for a moment, a receptor for the projections of ancient sorcerers' second attention. It was not so farfetched to me then that the man may have visualized the fixation of those sorcerers.

If those sorcerers were members of don Juan's and don Genaro's tradition, they must have been impeccable practitioners in which case there would have been no limit to what they could accomplish with the fixation of their second attention. If they intended that the Atlanteans should walk at night, then the Atlanteans would walk at night.

As I talked, the three little sisters became very angry and agitated with me. When I finished, Lydia accused me of doing nothing else but talking. Then they got up and left without even saying goodbye. The men followed them, but stopped at the door and shook hands with me. La Gorda and I remained in the room.

"There is something very wrong with those women," I said.

"No. They're just tired of talking," la Gorda said. "They expect some action from you."

"How come the Genaros are not tired of talking?" I asked.

"They are more stupid than the women," she replied dryly.

"How about you, Gorda?" I asked. "Are you also tired of talking?"

"I don't know what I am," she said solemnly. "When I am with you, I'm not tired; but when I am with the little sisters, I'm dead tired just like them."

During the following uneventful days that I stayed with them, it was obvious that the little sisters were thoroughly hostile to me. The Genaros tolerated me in an offhand way. Only la Gorda seemed to be aligned with me. I began to wonder why. I asked her about it before I left for Los Angeles.

"I don't know how it is possible, but I'm used to you," she said. "It's as if you and I are together, while the little sisters the Genaros are in a different world."