The Vice-Consul Quotes

“Because I have the feeling that if I tried to say what I really want to say to you, everything would crumble into dust–' he is trembling–'for what I want to say...to you... from me to you... there are no words. I should fumble... I should say something different from what I intended... one thing leads to another.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“It is said that in that distant place, almost at the end of the Ganges, where she sleeps in a darkened room with her lover, she is subject to moods of profound melancholy.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“It is seventeen years since she sailed slowly up the Mekong, in a slow boat with canvas awning, to Savannakhet, a large clearing in the virgin forest-land, surrounded by grey rice fields. At night, clusters of mosquitoes on mosquito nets. He cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, picture her at twenty-two, sailing up the Mekong. He cannot picture that face as a young face. He cannot imagine the eyes of an innocent girl seeing what she can see now. He is walking more slowly now. It is already too hot. Gardens everywhere on this side of the town. The funeral scent of oleanders. The land of oleanders. He never wants to see those flowers again. Never. Not anywhere. He had too much to drink last night. He drinks too much. There is a dull ache in the back of his neck. His stomach is queasy. The pink oleanders melt into the pink sky at dawn. The piled-up heaps of lepers scatter and spread. He thinks of her. He tries to think of her, nothing but her: a girlish figure seated on a couch, overlooking a river. She is gazing in front of her, no, he cannot see her, she is lost in the shadows. He can only see her surroundings: the forest, the Mekong river. A crowd of about twenty people has gathered in the metalled road. She is ill. At night she weeps, and it is thought that the best thing would be to send her back to France. Her family are alarmed. They never stop talking. They talk too much, too loudly. Wrought-iron gates in the distance, sentries in khaki uniform. Already they are guarding her, as she will be guarded for the rest of her life. It would be a relief to everyone if she would give vent to her boredom in an angry outburst. It would not surprise them if she were to collapse before their eyes, but no, she is still sitting silently on her couch when Monsieur Stretter arrives, and carries her away in his official launch. He told her: 'I shall leave you in peace. You are free to return to France whenever you wish. You have nothing to fear.' And all this, when he, he, Charles Rossett–he stops in his tracks–oh! he, at this period of Anne-Marie Stretter's life, was no more than a child.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“Her eyes are closed, but she is very far from being asleep. Even the shape of her face is altered, different. Her features are shrunken, aged. She has suddenly become what she, as she is, would be if she were ugly.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“She seems to be in a state of what can only be described as unbearable well-being.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“Talking is no effort, and silence no embarrassment.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“And what if the Vice-Consul of Lahore were no more than one man among the many looking for a woman with whom he hoped to find oblivion?”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“The dance is over.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul

“People are saying: 'Look, there are times when her expression is so severe that it quite alters her. Her beauty changes to... It's hard to interpret. Is it an expression of ferocity or something quite different–compassion?”
― Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul