TRADING CITIES 2
In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers.
At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings
which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites.
But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other
eyes, never stopping.
A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on her shoulder, and twirling
slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full
age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling. A tattooed giant
comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins,
dressed in coral. Something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines
that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all
combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene: a
blind man with a cheetah on a leash, a courtesan with an ostrich-plume fan, an
ephebe, a Fat Woman. And thus, when some people happen to find themselves
together, taking shelter from the rain under an arcade, or crowding beneath an
awning of the bazaar, or stopping to listen to the band in the square, meetings,
seductions, copulations, orgies are consummated among them without a word
exchanged, without a finger touching anything, almost without an eye raised.
A voluptuous vibration constantly stirs Chloe, the most chaste of cities. If
men and women began to live their ephemeral dreams, every phantom would become a
person with whom to begin a story of pursuits, pretences, misunderstandings,
clashes, oppressions, and the carousel of fantasies would stop.
