Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic On a Sunday evening in Montparnasse in Paris in 1979, the French artist Sophie Calle invited two women into her house and asked them to give her eight hours of their sleep. She made the bed up with fresh sheets, cooked them an omelette and served them a glass of cognac. Then they slept. She photographed them every hour, as they descended deeper and deeper into sleep.It was the beginning of an eight-day “experiment”, during which 27 people would come and sleep in Calle’s bed, with the aim of keeping it constantly occupied. To each sleeper who agreed, Calle, who was then 25, asked the same set of questions: do you remember your dreams? Is sleeping a source of pleasure? Why did you agree to come? Is this a job or an artistic act?The photographs became one of Calle’s first artistic pieces. Contained in them are the seeds of ideas around character and intimacy that have defined her work ever since. (In her most famous work, she interviewed every contact in an address book she found on the street in a bid to “discover” who the owner was. In another, she asked 107 women to respond to a break-up email she received.) Now, the photographs of the sleepers have been published alongside short, diary-like texts that Calle wrote about each of them, translated into English for the first time.Each vignette offers a portrait of a person, whether a babysitter, painter, journalist or baker, and the nature of their sleep. For her mother, who fills in when one sleeper fails to show up, and promptly gets into bed naked, requests a whisky and then falls into a sound slumber, sleep is “pleasure, pleasure, pleasure”. Graziella, a young woman who brings smart red pyjamas and is one of the only sleepers to change the sheets before getting into the bed, changes position each time Calle takes a photograph but never opens her eyes, as if uncomfortable with the undefined relationship between sleeper and photographer. Fabrice, an excitable 27-year-old actor who reads something sexual into every question Calle asks him, will only agree to sleep for three hours, rather than the eight she requested, for fear “of being bored”. He is then unable to sleep at all: “I’m too worked up: I would only be able to sleep next to somebody else.” In the photographs, he sits up in bed, beaming at Calle. By insinuating herself into such a private act, and by making her guests feel comfortable, Calle conjures a potent intimacy with each. When asked, they reveal to her their fantasies and their nightmares. They sleep while she photographs the delicate skin of their feet, left uncovered by the sheets. Under her gaze, even the most unremarkable of guests become complex characters, forming part of a strange, ethereal collection of short stories.Below, we have excerpted one of the texts. It gives an account of the time the 12th and 13th sleepers spent in Calle’s bed.twelfth sleeper Betty Couturierthirteenth sleeper Jennie MicheletThey didn’t sleep together but answered my questions at the same time, as Jennie Michelet was taking over for Betty Couturier.Betty Couturier. I know her. She agrees to come after hearing a detailed account of my project. She doesn’t want to stay very long. She will sleep Wednesday, April 4 from 10 p.m. to Thursday, April 5 at 1 a.m.Jennie Michelet. I know her too. She agreed to come on the condition that she could sleep at night. She will sleep Thursday, April 5 from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m.Wednesday, April 4 at 10 p.m., Betty Couturier arrives. She waits for Emile to leave the bedroom before she takes her place in the bed. She lies down without changing the sheets. I serve her a drink and then leave her alone. When I return, a few minutes later, she is asleep. She will stay in the same position throughout the night.At 1 a.m., I wake her up. I am accompanied by Jennie Michelet, tasked with taking the next shift. I make introductions. They shake hands. Betty is lying down, Jennie seated at the edge of the bed. They agree to answer my questions together.Name, age, profession?“I’m a hairdresser. My name is Jennie Michelet. I’m thirty years old. I was born in Ivry-sur-Seine.”“My name is Betty Couturier. I have several professions: student, freelance journalist, sales representative. I’ll be twenty-nine soon.”At that very moment, I receive a telephone call. I still grasp their conversation: Betty asks Jennie if she cuts hair. Yes, the other answers. Betty then tells her about her hairdressing woes. “Well, come and see me,” Jennie says. I hang up.Jennie needs valium to sleep. During the night, she likes for the door to be open, as long as it’s not a door that opens onto the landing. Waking up is always an effort. Betty gets up right away and manages to hide that she is still half-asleep. She can’t read in bed. No matter the book, she falls asleep.Jennie remembers falling asleep standing up when she was young and went to a dance. Leaning against the amplifiers, she slept. Jennie is afraid at night. Betty is not afraid.Having sex helps Betty fall asleep.Jennie needs medication.Neither pees the bed. Not since the age when people stop doing it.They like to sleep alone. Jennie dressed in silk, Betty naked. Betty recalls living with someone who would leave the radio on all night. It distressed her.I ask them to tell me about their dreams.Betty: “I was ten years old, I was on vacation, there were three of us girls, and we were playing with three boys. I liked one of them a lot. I dreamt one night that I was in a cherry tree and the boy said to me, ‘Darling, a cherry.’ The next day I found myself in a cherry tree and he asked me for ‘a cherry, darling.’ I said to myself that I had to be careful, that my dreams could come true.”Jennie recounts her worries, her terrible night-time anxieties. She thinks often of the nightmare that she had as a child: Someone is leaning over her with the intent to harm her. She tries to wake up, speak. Her eyes are wide open, but she is mute. Last winter, she dreamt that she was at a soirée in the countryside. A man whose car was alive, “human,” is taking her home. They go straight. A dead end. They get out of the car and the vehicle leaves on its own, then comes back and parks. The man lies down — all of this happens in slow motion — he takes out a revolver and kills himself. She watches the blood pool. She approaches, stupefied. He turns over, he’s alive, he tries to strangle her. She wakes up.Jennie has also dreamt that she brought an enormous monkey on a leash to a hair salon.Neither has ever participated in a venture of this kind.Are they aware that this is a job?“Absolutely,” says one. “Definitely,” says the other.Why did they agree to come?Betty: “If you had asked me to screw bolts, I would have said no. But you went after my weak point, putting me in a bed.”Jennie came as a favor. She had already slept at my place. She found it pleasant.Jennie speaks in a whisper; I sense that she’s falling asleep. I suggest we end the questionnaire.1:30 a.m. I walk Betty Couturier out. I thank her.I go back up to the bedroom. Jennie is in the bed. Tomorrow morning, for her breakfast, she wants coffee, toast. She adds that she would like to be woken up by a handsome young man.At 2 a.m., she falls asleep. I watch her sleep.At 9 a.m., I wake her up by taking a photo. She protects her eyes from the light and lets out a big cry when she sees me.I serve her breakfast. Before leaving, she wants to take a bath.At 9:30, I walk her to the door. I need sleep; I take her place in the bed, still warm.Excerpt from “The Sleepers”, by Sophie Calle. Translated into English by Emma Ramadan, and published by Siglio Press, 2024 Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram
