Snuck to French film festival
Today I rose early to read Ben Jonson’s poems and I did in Bowers Library but in the middle of a lecture on Freud I snuck out the back door and ran to the French film festival–now I’ve seen four, and there is one more to go today–I’m starting to want to learn French–and also am learning not to worry about Europe being something inaccessible and incomprehensible. I’m tired of girls now in general though I think of love and a few intensities–like with Oui. I see a future with much travel in the distance–and I notice improvement in my development.
I surprised myself with what I thought then was an uncommon attitude. But it’s all the same; you can’t win in Paris anymore. The days of the gladiators are over. Of course it’s the same. We are born from that slit that Marie showed us and those days which seemed to stretch forever into rich meaning are now vain fantasies, idly remembered. I showed you rocks and trees; the sky was out and clouds were drifting overhead. I knew then it would end; I even said it. Marie, Rosemarie, mon cheri, come back to me. But that will never be; can never be, except in other lovers in the spring, and in my memory’s memories for me.
I liked the South of France; the sky was wonderful and so was the sea. Never again will there be such days as those were then; and yet I have hope for the future, for the present now which someday I’ll also fondly remember in one of those intervals between great times.