on growing up and growing stale (aragon)

Everything is fine until the age of twenty. After that, it’s finished: curiosity, mystery, temptation, rapture, adventure are done for, done for. They do exercises to stay slim, but would they exert themselves to keep the color fast in their lives and the itch in their days? None of that; after twenty they give no more thought to the gymnastics of love. They’ve learned their little parts. They’ve got a technique down pat and won’t let go of it: you clasp the woman in your arms and say to her… whereupon she falls on the sofa exclaiming, “Oh, Charles!” You have only to see what happens in the slick films. Do they ever by any chance show a woman, who, upon noticing some guy, walks straight up to him, without words but with flashing eyes, and suddenly places her hand on his crotch? A film like that would never succeed; it wouldn’t seem realistic enough, and what the public clamors for is realities, RE-AL-I-TIES:

REALITIES

A FABLE

Once upon a time

There was a reality

With its sheep of real wool

The king’s son happened by

The sheep bleat How pretty

Is re re reality

Once upon a time

It came to pass at night

A reality could not fall asleep

Its fairy godmother

Really took it by the hand

Re re reality

Once upon a time

An aged king was bored

His mantle slipped off

In the evening

So he was given a queen named

Re re reality

CODA: Ity, ity rea

ity ity reality

Rea rea

ty ty rea

ty ty rea

li

ty reality

Once upon a time there was REALITY

- page 43, "The Passage de L'Opera," Le Paysan de Paris, Louis Aragon