It can be said that what happens in this Hotel, the only true thing — if anything can be called true in Klossowski’s stories — are the first moments of this little story: the Lobby of a big Hotel where Roberte goes to her room 122, for a new adventure as part of the Censorship Committee.
After a short conversation between Roberte and the Bellboy, an anonymous (cavernous) voice expresses the intentions to which Klossowski wants to expose us in this new story, this “anonymous” and “cavernous” voice speaks to us from an almost silent whisper inside room 122: “rest now and, if you cannot sleep because you are too tired, close your eyes: everything you hear you will see for yourself and you will see more clearly what is being said about you, what you are waiting for tonight…”. This anonymous voice is none other than the voice of the author himself. After this, Roberte says to herself: “Ah, the ability to finally be able to think of something else at last”. To which the anonymous voice then mentions perversely: “not for long”.
A silence takes over the scene; then the voice of an announcer alias “Faffner” begins to speak: “It is no longer the time to change your posture, madam “keep your arm bent”, “hand open near the pillow”, “head down”, “left hand on your navel”, “don’t hide anything”.
Could it be that “Speaker Faffner” is once again what Klossowski has already shown us in his famous trilogy The Laws of Hospitality? A double identity: Klossowski–Octave, Klossowski–Théodore, Klossowski–Yggdrasil in which this time it is a Klossowski–Faffner, where the Announcer [Klossowski–Faffner] narrates the actions to which Roberte is imprisoned: “It is no longer time to change position madam” mentions Faffner’s whisper as an omnipresent entity through the inner voice of Roberte’s room.
Suddenly several footsteps are heard outside the room, and the whispers are getting louder and louder, the pupils—anxious for a new lesson—are waiting for the arrival of the founder of the place: Gulliver who has “appeared [created]” by a: chanting in unison. At this moment the space has changed from a hotel room to a classroom where a lesson will take place. “Come closer, my children, gently I beg you, stand there, at the end of this bed the audio–visual falls to innocence”. Mentions Gulliver settling the students for a lesson, to this he continues, “As impressive as this spectacle will be, hold your tongues, no personal comments! you will be here to witness all that is meant by a woman’s nap”.
It is clear that at this point Gulliver is Roberte’s inner voice, showing himself as a teacher who exposes what Roberte has to close: The pornographic–erotic vision of a Tableaux Vivant created by a dream. Roberte is the inspector of the Censorship Committee, and it is Gulliver who creates a whole spectacle around Roberte’s naked and sleeping body.
After Gulliver’s appearance, there is silence, to which Klossowski takes advantage of this space — without giving life or movement to any character, other than the author’s own voice —; breaking the existing narrative barrier [so far established in the text] to write in the style of the Marquis de Sade a manifesto where he briefly explains to us about our fellow man: “[…] among humans we will always find our inevitable neighbour, our fellow man, […] Since we can never run away from them, whether we love them or hate them, how can we put up with them? […] to put it into practice, we must know how to distinguish the true from the false, otherwise tragic situations can arise!” At this point Klossowski explains to us (in relation to the other) why Gulliver’s size has shrunk in comparison to the Gulliver of Lilliput where he was a giant: “To suffer one’s neighbour only from afar is to reduce him to almost nothing […] to tolerate one’s neighbour, to approach him out of sympathy, curiosity or interest, […] is to dwarf myself to the point where, in the blink of an eye, I can pick his pocket without him noticing and help him in his needs.”
In Sade my neighbour, Klossowski explains Sade’s thought in which he writes: “if I receive evil from others, I enjoy the right to return it to them, even the facility to do it to them first: from then on evil is a good for me”. Gulliver is Roberte’s neighbour, but at the same time his double. This play of multiplicity fulfils Bataille’s perfect erotic vision: where Roberte embodies prohibition (as part of the Censorship Committee) and Gulliver transgression (an “infiltrator” in the Hotel, exposing the body of a naked woman). The holy trinity of modern–day authors: prohibition–eroticism–transgression.
Second part of the story:
“(There is a knock at the door. The manager of the palace enters)”.
It is up to this point in the story that new characters appear, some of them already known to Klossowski’s reader, making it clear that this Hotel and its guests are part of a cordial Hospitality. To this the voice of the manager mentions:
“Is this how we observe the rules of our Hotel? Who could have introduced you into the flats reserved for my respectable client? Regrettable mistake of my staff, Mr. Dean! It is on the ground floor where your meeting was to take place, in the billiard room. Madam, I’m confused, oh! but of course, she’s sleeping! Come, come, gentlemen, tiptoe quietly out of this room. How, Mr Dean, are you going to avoid a scandal?”
This is a brief form of what Klossowski has described in the plays Roberte Tonight and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in which the female character Roberte is harassed by mere spiritual and ghostly manifestations which are the entities she is sworn to censor as part of the Committee and in turn fulfil a traditional woman’s task of “good” manners.
Shortly after the arrival of the manager; a noise sounds in the distance; it is the Colossus! In the company of the Santa–Sede, who issues an “ultimatum”. While Roberte is still in her sleep.
(Could it be that this woman, throughout history, has remained in a deep sleep? We are soon to find out).
After the invasion of the Santa–Sede, the mayor addresses Gulliver with an interesting dialogue: “Every time the inspector comes to our house, Santa–Sede comes to make a fuss…”. To which Gulliver replies: “Then why does he invite the lady to inspect his city? Finally, the mayor replies: “Fraud… pornography… drugs… in all this it is good that she exonerates us”. Which gives meaning to the end of the play where the following is revealed to us through the voice of the mayor: “Oh, now I understand, she wasn’t sleeping, she listened to us”.
What, it was all just a farce, in which we believed that everything that was happening was the product of a dream. It was all part of a plot organised by Roberte to be able to close the Hotel, pretending to be in a dream to give time for the arrival of the Santa–Sede and thus imprison all those present in the Hotel in a show where they would appreciate the dream of a naked woman.
A theatre organised by Roberte, who needed an Accomplice [Gulliver] who is also his neighbour to carry out this show.
The play ends with the following text: “perfidy gradually merges with the cry of the sparrows, which is soon covered by the screeching of the cranes”. In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception in which one party promises to act in good faith with the intention of breaking that promise once the enemy has exposed themselves to them.
The writer, through words and duplication, believes he has found the path to his identity, when in reality he is merely tracing false etymologies and multiplying signposts on a route that lead nowhere.
Everything happens as if the woman were self–satisfied; as if the woman had no need of the phallus to exist and as if she had found in herself the higher possibility of ecstasy whose flowering man is only invited to witness.
