Nausea II

I don’t lis­ten to them any­more: they annoy me. They’re going to sleep togeth­er. They know it. Each one knows that the oth­er knows it. But since they are young, chaste and decent, since each one wants to keep his self- respect and that of the oth­er, since love is a great poet­ic thing which you must not fright­en away, sev­er­al times a week they go to dances and restau­rants, offer­ing the spec­ta­cle of their rit­u­al, mechan­i­cal dances.…

After all, you have to kill time. They are young and well built, they have enough to last them anoth­er thir­ty years. So they’re in no hur­ry, they delay and they are not wrong. Once they have slept togeth­er they will have to find some­thing else to veil the enor­mous absur­di­ty of their exis­tence. Still … is it absolute­ly nec­es­sary to lie?

Jean-Paul Sartre, Nau­sea

that about cov­ers it.