I​
 

Going to the Hôtel Pasteur always means looking forward to the unexpected, to encountering the unknown.

 

Imposing, massive, the building sees its broad silhouette reflected in the Vilaine.

On its intimidating facade with dry edges adorned with friezes, one can read the inscription “FACULTÉ DES SCIENCES” on the pediment. In the white stone, an opening emerges. It is the front door through which one passes not without experiencing the feeling of defying a taboo.

 

We hesitate for a moment, before climbing the wooden staircase soaring lightly over three levels.

It has eighty-eight steps, and the thirty-fifth opens onto the first floor.

 

The PVC slabs found in the corridor are succeeded by the slats of a centuries-old parquet floor, on which we rest our steps while crossing a parade of rooms with evocative, strange, or incongruous names.

At the very end, three small rooms. The last of them, room 238, will be my studio for a term.

 

My name is Alexandre LEQUŒUR, and I would like to tell you about the Hôtel Pasteur seen from the inside.

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II

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Nowhere to lay your head.

 

A “room of one's own” for three months is infinity reduced to the essentials.

 

Between these four walls, a chair, a table, a large window through which the light enters while casting shadows. Looking closely, it's a sundial at the heart of what I am, where the hours are told in an intimate yet inflexible language.

 

The first rays of day caress the back of my hand, as if to drive away the remnants of sleep. The last lights, meanwhile, press the door for a long time and invite me to go out. Here, every moment is counted without time running out.

We stay at the Hotel for a thousand reasons except one, rest.

 

But then, what do I do by following my routine and very exactly the plan I had set myself?

If I come full of ideas to implement, and my score unfolds mechanically, what place do I give to the experience of the place? Am I even able to hear the melody?

 

If the habit is a kind of night, I will ensure, it is promised, to live the unexpected.

 

​III

 

These thoughts might be wise that they would still be just thoughts.

Life is responsible for blowing on my aspirations as a monk, and that's good.

 

Even though the thick walls of Pasteur give it the appearance of an impregnable fortress, no one within it is protected against the course of things...

 

Suddenly: go towards Paris. Exposure. Return to Rennes. Again Paris. Reward. Return to Rennes. Hooking. Printing/Immersion. Interview. Opening. End.

 

Out of breath, I leave this period, ignoring whether what I have earned is to be withdrawn by counting the hours. Conversion is unlikely, and I think of it less than of the shadows that danced without me in what I affectionately call "my cell."

 

It doesn't matter in the end, because at the beginning of October, I observe an unexpected phenomenon. Room 238 is kind of starting to feel like a part of me.

Is it reciprocal? Not yet…

 

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IV

 

Seen from the sky, the body of the building forms what looks like a huge eight. Eight which in turn evokes the lemniscate, symbol of infinity.

 

At first we get lost in the maze of corridors, and the long parades of rooms that we sometimes cross lead us to who knows where, which of course is the opposite of the place we were looking for.

It was by chance during my wanderings that I met most of the other guests.

 

The new resident differs from the visitor in that he never seems lost, even if he does not know where he is going. It is that he has been entrusted with the key, the sesame that opens the doors and frees him from any fear of being locked away from his curiosity.

 

​V

 

Hundred steps.

 

I often leave my cell to better feel the pulse of the great organization that is the Hôtel Pasteur, to soak up the special atmosphere that emanates from this space where one hundred and twenty years of history embrace everyday life. .

For anyone who is sensitive to it, it is the flair before the eyes that is seized by the mixture of the scent of the patinas with which the woodwork is gorged, and the smells of plaster, of freshly sawn pine, testifying to the recent construction site.

 

A mineral scent emanates from the old cement of the mattresses polished by thousands of hands.

These are more than remnants of when the building was dedicated to science. Participating in the general atmosphere, they update the idea that the place is conducive to all experiments. Of which act.

 

 

​VI

 

To the Socratic “I know that I know nothing”, I add an “I do what I know that I know nothing”. 

 

Encouraged by the interminable wait left me by the glass supplier from whom I ordered the raw material for my research, I try to have a clear enough mind to read my most secret motivations.

 

Meditating on this, I realize that never in the thirty-five years of my existence have I had what is called "a room of my own", a place where everything remains intact once the door is closed. When it is open, it sometimes happens that whispers and footsteps approach each other. Someone comes who crosses the line between the intimate and the common.

 

The time of the meeting is precious like silence.

 

We exchange words, glances while the shadows move and mingle in the conversation.

 

​VII

 

One does not come to Pasteur without noticing the multitude of inscriptions on the walls, on the doors, and even on some ceilings.

 

Among these marks of passage, the illustrated frieze that the artist left before me in room 238. She recounts her stay there in terms that are familiar to me. Enthusiasm, doubt, stubbornness, joy, everything is there.

 

" Last day ". These words that she traced in blue pencil come to sting my heart. They bring the inevitable end to the present.

CONTINUATION AND ENDSHORTLY