A CHILDHOOD MEMORY OF FRANCOIS JACOB, THE GENETICIST

I am seated on a train with my mother and father. We are travelling

to Dijon to spend the Christmas holidays with my grandparents.

I have a place at the seat of the window. Forsaking my book and

colored pencils, I amuse myself watching houses, gardens,

telegraph poles, cars at the level crossing; farmers and their dogs

rush towards me and instantly vanish. A strong impression

comes over me:the conviction that this whole landscape,

with its forests, fields, cows, has no continuity, no permanence;

the feeling in my abscence that it will not be there; that it was

set up as the train approached, and will be taken down once it

has passed. The setting up is done with precision, with an

unremitting fidelity, since from one year to the next I find

everything in place: the same hills, the same little stations, the same

villages hugging the bank of the river. How is it that there is

never a slip? How is it that the arrival at Laroche never changes.

even imperceptibly? That the tunnels are always the same

length? ...Where was all this stored in our abscence?

If the train went faster, would it go too fast for the

stagehands in charge of the countryside? Would it arrive

in still empty places, surprising the nothingness that

must prevail there?...

(from THE STATUE WITHIN by Francois Jacob)