Published November 2008 | Updated December 2008
27
1
1a I dream again of the book manufacturing. To supervise the printing, I have an appointment in a school.
1b The printer has installed its machines in a class room.
3
2a I inspect the pages with the printer…
2b The students are attentively looking at us.
1
3a Freshly printed, the pages are brought in another room. Blank notebooks are piled up on the tables.
1
3b A trainee attends me. We must cut the pictures, one by one, to stick them in the notebooks, like a Pannini album.
4a Our first copy is a disaster. All is messed up. We say : it’s like pancakes, the first one is always spoiled.
4b My colleague arrives in the school.
2
5a I tell him: the carrier arrives in three days. Our distributor to Paris must begin his work. We are very late. My colleague seems faraway. He doesn’t realize or he doesn’t care. I hurry him. We still have to make thousand copies !
4
5b His detachment frightens me. I reproach him his offhand manner. I scold him. He remains calm and stoic. It’s getting on my nerves. I make an appointment with him in two days, to finish all these books.
6a I tell him to wait for me, that he doesn’t realize, that he has to see at least the first copy, made with the trainee. I return in the school, to the research of this first book.
5
6b If I show him this copy, my colleague should at last share my anguish and to put himself to work. But it’s hopeless, I think. I lose myself in the labyrinth of the school.
7a I finally find the book.
7b I still see my colleague in the school.
8a A teacher crudely shouts at me. He’s speaking English. He tells me that I have humiliated him in front of his students. As I don’t know what he’s talking about, he insults me. I rush off.
9
8b My colleague has disappeared. I’ve no longer reason to stay. I go with the unique spoiled copy under the arm. I awaken.