Robert Antelme coming back from
the camps, as described by Duras,
is shocking and moving. how
he shat green shit that bubbled.
could only eat gruel for 3 weeks,
had a series of fevers, then finally
said, I’m hungry.

they would put him in a room and
let him eat lamb chop after lamb chop
eating alone in the room. he said,
no one understands me. get angry
when the food wasn’t ready on time.

he’d weighed 88 pounds when he
arrived, on a 5’10” frame, the
doctor paused in the doorway as
if afraid to come in.

at first Antelme had to lay on 7 pillows,
one for his head, one for each arm, leg,
foot. it hurt to have a blanket on top
of him.

at the end of her description, Duras
curses the reader if they have been
nauseated or winced “at this moment”
when she wonders what was coming out
in the bubbly green shit, whether it
was his spleen or heart. “Because after
all, what was it?”

to those who have looked away from
what she describes, she shits
on them, wishes “the same kind
of devastation on them.”