Nausea

Antoine learns that Fasquelle has fallen ill with the flu, which is why he was not present in the café. To pass time while waiting for Anny’s arrival in Paris, Antoine visits the museum of Bouville. He spends his time in the art gallery where there are dozens of portraits of the city’s elites: Current and past city officials, investors, and entrepreneurs are all represented by portraits painted by various famous artists. Antoine recounts the history of the city of Bouville through the portraits, from the serious investment of the higher classes into lumber and shipping through Bouville to the elite’s strikebreaking of dock workers. The paintings cause Antoine’s nausea to return as he realizes the paintings cannot convey the past existences they are meant to represent.

Antoine believes the paintings are an enslavement of nature, filtered through each artist’s personal style. The elite in the paintings, Antoine believes, felt they had the right to exist and the right to control others. Antoine believes he and everybody else are the soldiers that enforce that right to exist for the elite. Antoine leaves the museum, upset by the exaggeration of real people that once existed in the paintings.