The Taxi

by Violette Leduc

A brief and poetic story of love told entirely in dialogue, and dialogue of the most elliptical nature. Gradually the story emerges of an adolescent brother and sister who have discovered their classic, eternal, old-fashioned love for each other and who decide to spend one day, and one day only, making love. And where will this take place? In a taxi, the driver of which they will bribe to convey them, with drawn blinds and a hamper full of champagne and exotic foods, from one Paris landmark to another, while they make love in the back of his cab. They will not commit heroic suicide afterward, but return to their adjoining rooms in their parents' flat and carry on their lives as before. Such is the plan of the story, and in writing it, Violette Leduc shows an unexpected versatility. She has interrupted her autobiography (La Bdtarde, Mad in Pursuit) to produce a modern myth, a work of pure poetic imagination. The story creates its own atmosphere, the reader is gently conditioned into accepting it. It is touching and it is believable, and Helen Weaver's translation matches the flashing lyricism of Leduc's text in masterly fashion.

Genres: France

87 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Violette Leduc was born in Arras, Pas de Calais, France, the illegitimate daughter of a servant girl, Berthe. In Valenciennes, the young Violette spent most of her childhood suffering from an ugly self-image and from her mother's hostility and overprotectiveness.

Her formal education, begun in 1913, was interrupted by World War I. After the war, she went to a boarding school, the Collège de Douai, where she experienced lesbian affairs with a classmate and a music instructor who was fired over the incident.

In 1926, Leduc moved to Paris and enrolled in the Lycée Racine. That same year, she failed her baccalaureate exam and began working as a telephone operator and secretary at Plon publishers.

In 1932 she met Maurice Sachs and Simone de Beauvoir, who encouraged her to write. Her first novel L'Asphyxie (In the Prison of Her Skin) was published by Albert Camus for Éditions Gallimard and earned her praise from Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet.

Leduc's best-known book, the memoir La Bâtarde, was published in 1964. It nearly won the Prix Goncourt and quickly became a bestseller. She went on to write eight more books, including La Folie en tête (Mad in Pursuit), the second part of her literary autobiography.

Reviews

[PirateSteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well .... they did it.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leduc sits with Duras and Nin. Adore.

[Mary Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story deals with the taboo of incest, in this case brother and sisater. The book is written entorely in dialogue and takes place in a cab as it travels the streets of Paris. Told in an innocence that is refreshingly human, it is a tour de force by a forceful writer.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my introduction to Leduc's work and it's a pretty confronting one: a brother and a sister having sex in the back of a taxi as it drives around Paris, told only in dialogue between the two. It becomes like an extended poem and can easily be read in one sitting. There's a fable-like aspect to the story that I found very appealing. I will be reading more by her.

[Distress Strauss · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm down with Leduc's program in her final book published in English, which is about the constraints time puts upon love (and how love can obliterate linear time even as it renders it a more primal force than passion). But teen siblings fucking in a taxi cab? Been there, done that.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this 6 years ago according to the handy dandy GR. My memories? Great fun, a brother and sister fucking in a cab. Leduc has an inimitable way that can look deceptively simple. It’s not. I cannot imagine this being any different here, the only fault being the 6 years of accumulated haze on the lens of my camera obscura.

[Jack Rousseau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Come inside me!
...
Hurry up...
I am inside you.
All the way!
I don't dare.
This isn't the first time. With Cytise...
But you're so delicate.
Harder!
I don't want to hurt you. That would be serious.
Nothing is serious except getting sick.
Exactly, you might get sick.
You exaggerate. Put it in. Deeper...
...
Yes!
A perfect fit.
Locked together.
Be careful.
Why?
We'll get stuck. They'll have to carry us away.
That's impossible.
It's not impossible. They'd have to separate us.
We're inseparable.
The great day. Our day. Remember?
The great day is here.
I've been waiting for it for five years.
It belongs to us.
You were cracking almonds with a hammer.
You were shooting at birds, you were killing them.
We were waiting, we were having our revenge.
Are you leaving?
Am I?
Don't leave..
Like this?
Yes, like that.
Look at yourself. Look at me.
I'd rather not.
It's black on the outside, and sepia in the middle.
Don't tell me about it.
Your tuft of hair...
Perhaps it's too much for you.
Too much for me? You can't be serious.
I am serious. I'm thinking of you.
You have nothing to fear.
Cytise taught you.
She taught me to stay inside her so that I could stay inside you.
Dane was incredible too.
What did he do?
He showed me how to hold you. How to keep you in.
Keep me in for hours.
I'd like to. "Gentle contractions," he used to say.
Cytise didn't talk.
Dane talked. It was for you.
Cytise spoke with her eyelids.
Dane kept time.
Why?
For the contractions. He used a ruler.
Funny noise!
Hardly any noise.
But it was funny.
It was not funny.
What else?
I just told you. "Gentle, oh so gentle contractions."
Those were his words?
That was his advice.
He dared.
Without a trace of shame?
Not a trace. I'm contracting.
Stop.
I'm contracting...
Stop. I'm dying.
I'm drawing you in.
Stop, I'll have to come out.
I'm holding you. I'm pulling you.
Hold me. Pull me.
What a fantastic idea we had as we got off the merry-go-round...
What a crowd, on boulevard de Clichy!
What a funeral, in Pigalle!
If we hadn't followed her...
If we hadn't spoken to her...
You would never have met Dane.
That bright red dress!
Her dress intimidated me.
She smiled immediately.
It was really easy.
Easy? You're forgetting we had to make conversation for two hours.
"Have another beer, Mademoiselle Cytise... Why not have another beer, Mademoiselle Cytise..."
She had at least six.
In brandy snifters!
It's an optimistic shape.
She puffed out her cheeks.
I wonder where she puts all that beer, she's so thin...
Aunt Marie could afford to pay for it.
Aunt Marie paid for nothing that afternoon.
If I hadn't sold my books...
Move. You're not moving.
Imitable Aunt Marie.
Not so fast. Not so hahrd.
It's too much. You ask too much.
Don't move.
I'm not moving.
It feels like you are.
Imitate Aunt Marie.
"Felix, my pendant is nowhere to be found, look for it."
Shall I answer?
Answer in a falsetto.
"Madame, I have looked everywhere. My eyes are strained from looking."
"Felix, you must look until you find it."
Old idiot! Old whore!
If she suspected what kind of lessons she brought us with her sapphires and her emeralds...
We got screwed.
We look to young.
They took advantage of it!
We got rid of the stones, that's the main thing.
We needed money, we got money!
Move.
Is this too fast?
You're starting to...
I am not.
Harder.
I wish I could eat your nose, your fingers.
That Cytise... what a pro.
She taught me what I wanted to learn.
To control yourself? To outdo yourself?
Not to forget you.
The pile of saucers.
What are you talking about?
I was encouraged when the waiter put another saucer under her glass.
It took her long enough to make up her mind!
She was suspicious. She underestimated herself.
"Give lessons? I'm not a teacher, my dears."
"I'm a woman of easy virtue."
What a teacher...
What I have from you is ours because of her.
I cheered up when the waiter skimmed the foam off the beer.
The poor dear! She was worried about her makeup.
"Initiate you? Don't make me laugh."
Cigarette, Mademoiselle Cytise?
Light, Mademoiselle Cytise?
"Are you sure you're not related? I've never seen a resemblance..."
"It's incredible, such a resemblance... Your resemblance makes me uncomfortable."
Hours passed.
Finally she took us to Dane's.
Those cascades of ribbons, those masses of artificial flowers... It's not a man's apartment!
It's the apartment of a man who sells things.
Blond as an Englishman.
Skinny as a Swede.
We're talking about them too much.
Don't leave.
Make more room. Raise your hips.
Your extraordinary too.
Don't talk!
I'm not talking.

- pg. 3-9

[Desollado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refrescante, es basicamente una colección de frases poderosas, hermosas que crean narrativa

[Zack]

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