This is even actually partly
a sort of honest confession,
so it would be best to stop,
while embarrassment might be
minimal. Again I didn't even
pursue Proust. Now it's time
to close up the cottage, and
be grateful for having spent
the season without having to
assess it, ever after. Maybe
I avoid Proust, to avoid the
sacrifice of associating any
span of time with more poig-
nancy than it already bears.
In Peru he had said, Johnny,
you have just graduated from
one of the finest universit-
ies in America, and you are
illiterate.
That, I did happen to read,
this Summer: one classmate,
chiding another, precisely
for not knowing Proust. Dur-
ing endless tramps through
the slums of Lima, no less.
Warned me off redundantly,
that did. Better, I think,
a sting than a splinter as
the prize of Summer's end.
John Hopkins
The White Nile Diaries
I.B. Tauris, 2014©
ii Hervé Guibert
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