Ouvrant rapidement le Quatuor, comme on replonge de temps en temps l'Evangile, les Faits de Marcel Cohen, les Fleurs du Mal, les poèmes de Cavafy:
"How greatly Pursewarden has gained in stature since his death!
It was before as if he stood between his own books and our
understanding of them. I see now that what we found enigmatic about the
man was due to a fault in ourselves. An artist does not live a personal life as we do, he
hides it, forcing us to go to his books if we wish to touch the true
source of his feelings. Underneath all his preoccupations with sex, society, religion, etc. (all
the staple abstractions which allow the forebrain to chatter) there is,
quite simply, a man tortured beyond endurance by the lack of tenderness in the world."
"In the harbour of Alexandria the sirens whoop and wail.
The screws of ships crush and crunch the green oil-coated waters of the
inner bar. Idly bending and inclining, effortlessly breathing as if in
the rhythm of the earth's own systole and diastole, the yachts turn their
spars against the sky. Somewhere in the heart of experience there is an
order and a coherence which we might surprise if we were attentive enough, loving enough, orpatient enough. Will there be time?"
