(…)
INTERVIEWER
When in your life were you happy?
CÉLINE
Bloody well never, I think. Because what you need, getting old . . . I think if I were given a lot of dough to be free from want—I’d love that—it’d give me the chance to retire and go off somewhere, so I’d not have to work, and be able to watch others. Happiness would be to be alone at the seaside, and then be left in peace. And to eat very little; yes. Almost nothing. A candle. I wouldn’t live with electricity and things. A candle! A candle, and then I’d read the newspaper. Others, I see them agitated, above all excited by ambitions; their life’s a show, the rich swapping invitations to keep up with the performance. I’ve seen it, I lived among society people once—“I say, Gontran, hear what he said to you; oh, Gaston, you really were on form yesterday, eh! Told him what was what, eh! He told me about it again last night! His wife was saying, oh, Gaston surprised us!” It’s a comedy. They spend their time at it. Chasing each other round, meeting at the same golf clubs, the same restaurants.
INTERVIEWER
If you could have it all over again, would you pick your joys outside literature?
CÉLINE
Oh, absolutely! I don’t ask for joy. I don’t feel joy. To enjoy life is a question of temperament, of diet. You have to eat well, drink well, then the days pass quickly, don’t they? Eat and drink well, go for a drive in the car, read a few papers, the day’s soon gone. Your paper, some guests, morning coffee, my God, it’s lunchtime when you’ve had your stroll, eh? See a few friends in the afternoon and the day’s gone. In the evening, bed as usual and shut-eye. And there you are. And the more so with age, things go faster, don’t they? A day’s endless when you’re young, whereas when you grow old it’s very soon over. When you’re retired, a day’s a flash; when you’re a kid it’s very slow.
INTERVIEWER
How would you fill your time if you were retired with income?
CÉLINE
I’d read the paper. I’d take a little walk in a place where no one could see me.