In “Hidden Treasure”, Pascal Quignard watches for happiness in the silence of cats, water games or the taste of iced white wine

Published on January 18, 2025 at 7:26 p.m. / Modified on January 18, 2025 at 7:28 p.m.

4 mins. reading

In a garden by the water, a woman buries her cat. Digging in the ground, she finds treasure – gold coins, jewelry. Little by little trading in these riches, she leaves the house deserted and travels. In Naples, following in Virgil’s footsteps, she meets one last love. A few weeks in the splendor and volcanic violence of the Tyrrhenian Sea and its islands, then in the vigor of the Atlantic Ocean – and already it is the end. In one summer, Louise loses this beloved cat, her lover, the father of her daughter and her own father. So much abandonment for the one whose mother left her without a word at the age of 7.

And yet, Hidden treasure is not a funeral book. It is illuminated by “a luminous pain”, carried by an appetite for life which already emanated from the Happy hourstwelfth volume of Last Kingdom (Albin Michel, 2023). It is a restless quest for beauty, and through it, for an “extremely fierce” happiness, this other “hidden treasure”. Already in Love the sea, the word beauty kept coming back as if, thanks to it, it was necessary to ward off misfortune, degradation, loss.

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