I did not get through Proust this Summer

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