the light through the shutters

For years and years I thought about the light through the window, the light through the shutters. It seemed a pity not to reveal how it was. That light and the noises of the city outside. Although I was in complete privacy, no one in the street knew I was there. I was in bed with a man, my lover, yet at the same time I was also in the street. It felt like being in front of an audience. I was in public but at the same time totally private, completely hidden. I saw the street, but they didn’t know I was there. It’s a bit like the process of writing. The writer’s viewpoint is lost and taken over by the work itself.

— Duras, The Lover