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Sleeping fit

First hypnotic sleeping fits

Manuscript

Author

Author Benjamin Péret
Notes by André Breton

Description

Undated sleeping fit, probably by Benjamin Péret, made up of three pages.

Over three pages, and no doubt hardly more than a few minutes, here is a striking illustration of the power of sleeping fits, notably their ability to provoke ruptures –ruptures of social behaviour, such as those outbursts of laughter of Bergsonian memories, or that extravagant image, witnessed by the person transcribing it, of Péret swimming on the table (this scene is related in Les Pas perdus, at the end of ‘Entrée des médiums’); but also ruptures in tone, with this hilarity being followed by a sudden eruption of mortal fear, ending in a fully-fledged malediction: ‘You don’t know what would happen if I died. It would be a disaster for you all. My spell is cast.’ Here Péret, who would be the most faithful to Breton of all the first generation of surrealists, confesses his fear of being excluded, of no longer belonging to the group: the fear of death is shadowed by a fear of being alone. Finally, from the mortuary ‘candelabras’, Péret ends up with automobiles, by a play on the words ‘allumer’ (‘to light up’) and ‘mobility’, an automobile of the mind in the waking dream.

- 2 in-4° pages on headed notepaper for the Congrès de Paris:
‘Why are you il? – because I have tuberculosis…” 
- 1 in-12 page on headed notepaper for the journal Aventure.

Translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski