Par le chemin des souvenances
Along the Path of Remembrance
Rene Salome
Which he had placed there to spare it, no doubt, And to have a lighter brow upon the road.
At our table, he abounded in fine talk; At least I strongly suspected so, for on his skin, Tanned by the years, the cold, the biting winds, The sun, furrows were dug and crossed, Furrows that resembled lips split open By the outbursts of a well-understood gaiety; And all upon his skin, then, was laughter.
We talked. We reminded him of memories, Of the old days when, not yet a Faun, He walked stoutly from Paris to Epone To bring jasmine blossoms to the child dear to his heart; Of the old days when he was a restaurateur On the Place Saint-Georges edged with fine old mansions And prepared the sacramental snails With the meticulous, slow art of cooks, And knew the private life of Monsieur Thiers; Of the old days when one moved through streets Of shadow and stagnant water, now vanished, But where one was neither boorish nor surly; Of the old days when one raised barricades To die upon them with gestures worthy of Talma.
Old uncle of long ago, whom my childhood loved For his deep-rooted gaiety and his rustic speech, You were not a despotic master in your house, That is quite certain; yet you had inherited From bygone centuries that air of authority Which betrayed your militant bourgeoisie; So that the effaced, the humble and modest aunt, Held no great place in her own home, And her speech had the murmur of a prayer; But, notwithstanding her mild bearing, her contrite voice, A pride sustained her, for she was a spiritualist.
Monique, Agnes, and you, Sylvie, sisters of old, Powdered, tight-laced, spreading out all three From waist to heel thanks to your creaking panniers, In this discreet and deserted convent of the provinces, Your shadows accompanied me along the cloister walk, And in the old garden where you came at evening To hear the fountain that clucked softly. Monique, Agnes, and you, Sylvie, libertine sisters Whom the songs of Vade did not frighten, And who hid in your drawers the means to paint Your pretty under-eyes and your haughty lips, Along with racy almanacs and mittens Of silk thread that the rules prohibited, You still slip beneath the Romanesque arches Of the pillared dormitory you called Gothic.
Your silver voices are well versed in canticles. And the Lady Abbess with her harpsichord Accompanies you, raising to the heavens her saintly eyes That the fire of covetousness never reddened, Though in her art of preparing sweetmeats, None surpasses her and few are her rivals. So you flatter her with a virginal chatter That delights the innocent and pious creature, And sometimes you may taste the preserves And the fruit pastes and the fine caramels And the soft fondant bonbons of jujube and honey That are highly esteemed by the canons.
Monique, Agnes, and you, Sylvie, nothing more veils From my heart the past that was yours in the convent. Sister Marthe, whom one saw weeping so often (For she had left the vain world and its pomps In her sorrow at having lost a certain viscount) Has raised your bearing, your gestures, your voice To the impassioned delivery of Phedre or Roxane; And when the Bishop with his nonchalance Of a marquis came to smile upon you in the parlor, You honored him with Racine’s sighs, And he, fixing your eyes of mauve or wisteria That modestly lowered beneath his great nose, Paid you compliments very neatly turned; Then said that to the great glory of his diocese, He was a member of the French Academy, For having composed little verses when an abbe.
Monique, Agnes, and you, Sylvie, the winged Scarabs, the sphinx moths, the bumblebees pass and repass Along the avenues where you played at graces And which the flood of plantains and brambles now invades Between the green trellises that close the groves. And the bell has ceased to mingle its laments, Which marked the moments of folly or of fear, With the gentle crackling of foliage and waters. No more joy; the aviary has lost the birds That a traveling uncle brought you from the Islands, The uncle who had seen crocodiles swimming And who wore gold rings beneath his ears, And whose skin, tanned by air and sun, Resembled a parchment from the library, In the smoky tower where from evening to morning The convent chaplain turned his Latin verses Following the delicate art of Propertius and Ovid.
Monique, Agnes, and you, Sylvie, time unwinds Ceaselessly, and never more, in the days, in the months, Do the threads it has drawn again meet its fingers. Here is your old stone bench where, on Sundays, Tall, heads high, showing your white teeth, You sometimes received noble visitors Who called you: my beauty, or my soul, or my heart, And found you wise of air and fine of figure; And declared that on a certain evening, at the Dauphine’s, They had with solicitude and kindness Inquired much after your age and your health; You were in favor, to all appearances, And all three of you then made your curtsey, And you deemed it proper to blush a little. Sylvie, Monique, Agnes, the moment of farewells Came on a dark morning of mud and drizzle. They loaded your light coffers onto the carriage, And your boxes stuffed with hats and scarves, And your copybooks of writing and your great harp And the drawings traced in colored pencil Representing shepherds and flowers. The tender Abbess was very sad, and you, artful girls, Assumed the air of little frizzled lambs, So as to prove well that you were sensitive. And the chaplain sifted your innocence And blessed you with elegant words. They gave you fruit pastes and ointments For the ailments of the Lady Canoness, Your aunt. There were sighs, there were promises. Then away you rolled upon the King’s highway, Monique, Agnes, and you, Sylvie, sisters of old.
You made me think of the romantic dandies, Handsome, brooding figures such as one sees in the print Shops, in the drawings of Tony Johannot. They were called Gaspard, Ildefonse, or Renaud; They knew how to imitate the gestures of Werther. Their fathers had sent men to the guillotine, seized lands, Nimbly stripped their fallen masters While pronouncing grand discourses on Virtue.
But they, the sons, embarrassed by their new-found strength, Finding nothing, and less than nothing, in their brains, To serve as past, as belief, and as faith, So, incurably bourgeois, sons of the bourgeois, Affected to feel the dread of destinies That drove them toward the undreamed-of tasks Of a Hamlet who has not yet met a ghost.
They hid their chins under high yellow scarves, They wore waistcoats shaped like doublets, Around a cane with a golden pommel they clenched their gloved Fist, laced themselves tight to be more gaunt --- You made me think of the romantic dandies.
Here, the sky is transparent. All takes shape within it, All spreads and all moves with an easy air. The hillsides are drawn with a firm and sure pencil That knows well where it goes and fears the cracks Or the hooks that other places are accustomed to; Their fine flanks are pricked with clumps of apple trees Whose blue shadows round themselves into domes Over the coppery plowed fields, the meadows, and the stubble. And the plain, at their feet, extends, then rises again With the undulations of a Nymph or a Fauness Awakening from a long and even sleep.
Here, the sky is transparent. All feasts there On the light that falls in fineness and candor, Without scorching the chestnut trees too much with its ardor, And without troubling in the lovely wood, beneath the beeches, The flowers that seek the shade and touch it with their lips.
And it is against the lovely wood that the houses lean, Whose long roofs with their correct inclinations Are cut out in rust and velvet among the leaves Of the old walnut trees, guardians of the coolness of doorsteps. Now, it is in this country so pure that my church stands. I do not know at all if I scandalize you, Charming friend, who from childhood have tasted The water, the salt, and the bread of secularism. But the past that reigns in my poor village Has not taught me the lessons of your sages, And my little church, surrounded by lindens, Has remained for me the nurse and the grandmother, Even after my childhood faith dissolved.
For in its arches, its pillars, and its vaults; In the rising of its ogival windows; In its thin, long roof that nimbly slopes, But without anything abrupt or sudden; In its square tower where a brazen song rings; In its stained-glass windows blooming with lilies and hyacinths; In its oval apse and its masks of saints That one sees melting and smiling on the lintel of the portal; In this firm body, with its clear design, where the work Of craftsmen still applies itself and spreads, My eyes see again the simple and linear image Of the hillocks, the slopes, the trees, the houses, The softened profiles that form the horizon, The regular gait and the broad shoulders And the mischievous eyes and the sly lip Of the people here --- at least those of the old days, For today their sons and the sons of their sons, Are gentlemen in black who do their paperwork. For me as a child, it is there that nature dwells, And not in the meadows or the woods or the fields; It is there, on the old bench, cracked and unsteady, That I see blooming in the perfumes of the Mass, In the blue half-light, the world and its promises. The flowers of the capitals, their vine branches and their clusters, The delicate carnations embroidered on the gold of the copes, And the scrollwork that are laurels and ivy, And the miraculous rosebushes on the windows Show me the secret of the vegetable curves. Everywhere, animals of stone or metal Are busy at some useful and pious task: The dove in flight supports the sanctuary lamp; The golden eagle holds the parchment book Where the old cantor, nearsighted and deaf, finds a path For his voice, threatened with lasting errors; The horse of the soldier Martin stops and weeps On seeing a poor man shiver, stripped naked; A sheep of the manger looks intimidated Before the great bejeweled cloaks of the three kings. Here is an ox --- Our Lord carved in wood, Which has been varnished and painted in colors that flake --- Rides upon the donkey, and this donkey is very contrite, Very gentle and very modest and very wise and very honest; They have painted zebra stripes on her coat, So that they made of her a strange animal. The nave has the perfumes of forests and barns, And the people one sees there seem to take root And become immobile in the divine torpor Of the vine stocks in their fine long rows. The old priest who stretches his arms toward the firmament, The old priest, gnarled, wrinkled, solid, and twisted, Seems a trunk clothed in branches and bark, And all thus vegetates and flowers and grows green And takes root in the venerable soil where he must Rejoin the ancestors who built this church.
The child goes out. The country brightens and comes into focus; The trees, the groves, the houses, the gardens, The profile of the hillsides which, without sudden break, Without pointing, without yielding, without hollows or rough edges, Gently curved, go with the noble gait Of a great sailing ship cutting the sea, wind astern, And the little hedges and the lacing of the roads And the stream that sings in the heart of the pasture, All is drawn there with a firm and sure pencil, And the illuminated soul finds, without analysis, The tapered outlines of the little church.
We climbed the streets
We climbed the streets in the twilight Among the fine rain and the blustering winds, Among the fogs of wool or tulle.
Our elbows brushed in the narrow streets The walls of dwellings set askew, The walls, peeling, cracked, and damp.
Casement windows yawned at our passage, Suddenly revealing the lamp and the evenings Of worthy married couples gathered together.
Breath was lacking in your breast, And we stopped, both of us, in the breeze, At the languishing lights of some shop window.
You showed me an old cemetery That the giant walls of new buildings Had enclosed in a circle of stone. And you said to me: “Few people come here. It was used in the time of the abbesses; The dead are too far gone for anyone to care.
I went there one morning; I was very small; I was afraid of pricking myself on the nettles, But I saw ivy and clematis.
It was a sister from the convent above Who guided my steps along the tombs Whose moss had covered over the words. The convent above is itself deserted; But they will put there, come next season, No doubt a caretaker and some tenants.”
You spoke thus with your thin lips Before walking along the ancient hovels Of the lane where one feels oneself in the provinces;
These are the oldest hovels on the hill. We could hear clocks chiming in them And by accident flutes whimpering.
And you said to me: “Can people live there?” A shiver passed through some old tree; Your arm had nestled under mine.
You said: “There now, we must part. Look over there at those lights in the night. Don’t kiss me again, I’m going in quickly.”
We made our farewells last a long time. Under the streetlamp a gentle old dog Watched us with his sad eyes.
The old gentleman returns
The old gentleman returns from the far end of the years When our wan, shrunken contemporaries, While putting on the brutal airs of businessmen, Make me flee to the past, ever virile and green, Which turns toward us its mischievous little eyes. The old gentleman lived in the country to be quiet And nibble in peace his retirement pension. He returns --- Those are indeed his cane and his spectacles, His little silvered goatee, his gray coat, His tall silk hat, his canvas gaiters, And, though he be rheumatic, his even step Of an old soldier for whom it is a capital point Never to dawdle or stumble on the road. This is all very old, so that I doubt Whether I really saw him pass, converse, and live, Or if it is some image escaped from an old book Illustrated with characters of bygone days.
He returns --- It is at the house. I see him again. He sits in the mahogany parlor, among the things That like him have the look of another age, and he talks With chosen words, well articulated, And everyone takes pleasure in his charming speech. One studies. One is edified. One feasts. On the mantel clock one sees Hannibal parading, A Hannibal resembling Lord Palmerston, In a casket festooned with laurels, And this warrior seems to prize the visitor, For he himself is worldly, courteous, complimentary, Which earned him his victory at Cannes.
The visitor is most gallant. He offers the ladies Bonbons and candied fruits that he went to fetch Expressly in Paris, at the Fidele Berger; And to offer them he has exquisite words, Hand-kissings, salutations such as one made to marquises Whose white furbelows snowed at Trianon. He was once at court and bears a noble name.
He returns. I find him amusing and a good fellow. On leaving the house he carries off the album From the parlor to inscribe a madrigal. For he rhymes in spring and has no equal At the acrostic. He has wit and sap. The schoolmistress has sometimes read to her pupils (To the great annoyance of two radical town councilors) Verses he composed for his late parrot Jacquot. And when the prizes were given out in the great hall (To the brassy sounds of the Municipal Band) Upon the platform where the mayor and the priest were seated, There appeared, with her gilded shoes, Her muslin dress, her white Sunday gloves That labored upward past her sleeves, Her pomaded hair, and her lace collar, A child they called Mademoiselle Estelle, Whose father was steward at the chateau. Her eyes were soft, deep, sentimental. She had learned the old-fashioned art of curtseys And gave her family reason to hope, For she had a great deal of spelling and style.
And on that day, in a modest and civil manner, She smiled at the looks trained upon her And recited without fear the death of the parrot With her coaxing voice and her stiff little gestures That appeared decent to the parish priest (A priest wrinkled, gnarled, branching like an old beech). And everyone was moved without wanting to show it, But there was much blowing of noses in the great blue handkerchiefs. He is no more. The white cat, the fire-colored dog Whose news he never failed to ask after, Although he never attempted to make them immortal In some fine poem imitated from Parny, Have also slipped out of my infinite dream; And my feet sought them in vain beneath the table. In the evening they were both very respectable folk, And I understand the old gentleman’s fondness for them.
O village clad in walnut trees, under skies That make me evoke the pure skies of Attica, You were a charming museum of antique beings.
Our clock is not frivolous
Our clock is not frivolous or fickle. I speak here of the one you see in the great room, Which knows the theory and the practice Of its trade, which it exercises as a moral being, Knowing well that it has responsibilities.
Here, time lets itself with docility Be placed in little squares of enamel by the hands; It is a time of gardens enclosed by walls and grilles, And such times are rarely rebels. The pendulum, never hurried, a copper disk, Seems to cut into the present and the future With a movement easy to understand and follow, Like the breath of a cat when you hear it sleeping. The clock is of black marble veined with gray. Its base is set square on the tile stove That insists on rumbling without breath or rhythm When autumn is sullen and the wind blows at night. This stove is quite narrow-minded. It has never understood The even comings and goings of the faithful pendulum. Let us say it is not wise and took its model From the revolutions they make in Paris. Knitting, darning, talking, reading a newspaper, All the acts of the people who sit in the room Observe the constant counsels of the clock. One always has measure and scruples. When one grows a little heated speaking of the present, One causes a scandal. One recovers by discoursing At leisure about what happened in the past, And about the Uhlans who came during the war To demand horses, oats, and hay.
The clock has felt that all that was long ago, And its commandments, always well in time, Have grown more discreet. Near the tile stove That rumbled like a Cyclops and ate like a glutton, I sat and listened. Monsieur Mouton, A white cat, closed his eyes in some vague expectation. And I thought that the clock was content.
The donor and his family
The donor and his family, kneeling Devoutly on both sides of Our Lady, The men on the right side and the women on the other, Joining hands palm to palm in order to pray For their salvation in heaven or their business at the Halles, Are lords of an opulent and blissful life. The father, somewhat portly in his scarlet robe, Rosy of complexion, with a satisfied eye, a double chin, An old patrician merchant whose great vessels roll On distant seas, and who, around his counter, Sees the Byzantines flock in, the Turks, the Blacks Come from Ophir, and the Kalmyks of Tartary, And the Englishmen whose hair looks like hemp, And the fair Venetian who never smiles But speaks with gentleness and perfumes himself with ambergris, The father is an old magistrate of the city Whose ancient charter he upholds with pride, With a slow, peaceful, stubborn will that ruminates. Heaps of gold are hidden in his pointed house, And jewels, fox and ermine skins, Passions carved in ivory, and statues Of Flemish saints whose good counsel illuminates. His guild consults him and entrusts to his hands The banner where one sees, all in gold, the patroness Of merchants, who smiles in the sky and forgives (The good lady!) the possessor of a dishonest gain. He carries it high when Christmas or Easter shines.
In the evening he reads some legend by the hearth Where the resinous trunk of a pine tree hisses and cries; And His Lordship the Duke would envy him the wine He drinks from a golden goblet, a work of exquisite craft By an inimitable goldsmith, master of his trade, For on it one sees three Seraphim playing the viol. Before falling asleep, he repeats the words Of a prayer handed down through his lineage Against contrary winds and clipped coins, Against the highwaymen who depopulate the roads, Against the artisans of trades that he fears And that make him clench his already gouty fists. He has five sons, all five red-haired, and God-fearing, Who devoutly pray to the most blessed Virgin. They are in black velvet, their bearing is grave and quiet, Their faces of ivory and their eyes without emotion. No doubt they are fair enough clerks, knowing the laws Of commerce, and how to speak in Romance, Flemish, and Saxon. They are happy to live and to be what they are, To have dogs, to be able to excel at dances, And that they were coiffed as one is in Florence, Which the eldest, to learn to count, had visited. Their mother, as befits one keeping high estate, Wears a cloak bordered with sable, And her open-work coif is in Malines lace. She has full cheeks and fleshy lips, Bovine eyes, the color of ponds, never stirred, And the rested complexion one finds in beguines. One would say she was there to brood over hens Or guinea fowl. Her task in her calm house Was to lay and brood throughout the seasons; But the labor of childbearing was easy for her, For she made gifts to the convents of the city, To the hospice, to the lepers, to the nuns roundabout, And she fashioned into castles and towers Many a properly spiced pate for the chapter, And had jewels set into the miter Of the bishop, and planted crosses on the roads. On the ground lies her missal dressed in parchment Which bears in escutcheon her motto and her arms. Behind her, her seven daughters, of whom the eldest are women And wear bonnets of lace or silk; Then the little ones who smile, and of whom one sees Only the head, rising above their elders. And one would say a flock of chicks that have just Stopped before some oxen at the watering trough, Nearly smothering and raising to the sky, to see better, Their inquisitive beaks and their blinking eyes. Now the youngest, instead of joining her little hands, Holds up toward the top of the frame a pink Ghent carnation, To attract the gaze of the little Infant-King, Quite naked, fair, curly, chubby, nose in the air, Seated on a knee of the Virgin his mother, Pointing one finger at the sky for these fragile humans And indicating, with the other finger, his Gospel That lies open, a white book, on the other knee.
The donor and his family, as we are, Are people of flesh and bone who drink and eat. But they have met with saints and angels, And here they are quite near to Mary and Jesus, Without being intimidated or surprised or moved, For they do not see there any fearsome judges, But two good inhabitants of the city of Bruges, Of which, through the open door on the right, one glimpses Two towers, a small stone bridge, and a few roofs Whose gables make stairways that face each other. And, among these pointed dwellings, the fair-haired Virgin With her humble eyes almost flush with her head, with fine features That the Bruges craftsman has lovingly painted, Although the nose is a little fleshy at the wings, In her brick house where they sing with her On May evenings, the children and the young ladies Who came to see her walking along the canals. It is there, in small caskets plated with gold and enamel, That she keeps her veils, her blue robes, and great combs To wave her chestnut-colored hair. Everyone is her friend, speaks to her, and asks Her grace, murmuring Flemish prayers. And she smiles and does not wish to cross anyone, And appears to enjoy the carillons that ring And the little gifts placed at her feet. The donor is her particular friend.
1906-1907
RENE SALOME