Chapter 12 1898

travel.Dinner in Geneva.A gentleman and a lady sat across from us, flushed and furious, because they had come from London on purpose to inherit an inheritance which had failed.Mad said she looked like she had fallen on her head. Madeleine has a stomach ache. The moon was shining brightly over the Rhone. Arrived in Marseilles and didn't realize it: we fell asleep a little longer. Tea at the Terminus Hotel—then we sped down the Prado, just in time for the glorious sunrise—revisiting the old Villa Waves, etc. So many beautiful scenery, really unimaginable.The long sloping olive grove, a miserable place in the beautiful scenery——January is the season when acacia, eucalyptus, and rose bloom.The large villa has a sweeping view without overlooking the whole place.The corridors never end, there are always steps and new stairs.The room was extraordinarily large (a lot of space), with a fireplace, and small, low windows on either side of the fireplace, with latches at the top and bottom, opening onto a lovely garden.Facing us, a straight flower path goes down the slope, the end of which cannot be seen at a glance, broken into steps, even and gentle steps, gradually descending, hidden under the branches and leaves of trees.On the left side there is a cypress tree, lentas inter rosas cupressi; on the right side there is a kind of building, which looks like a tomb, which reminds me of Menalc who said that he sometimes prefers a cemetery to a garden. The most beautiful place, he did not always love statues, but sometimes a simple tomb, like the one in the Alleyway.The path is very beautiful, like the road in the Royal Palace of Seville, and some sections of the road are decorated with uniform patterns made of black and white stones. ——It is night, and the city in the distance is brightly lit; through the fog, you can imagine the sea. ——I can't help but think, tomorrow, let's go down and stroll in the garden; tomorrow, we will taste... fun; the moon will soon be full.

The room was cold and there was a little smoke in the room from the pine fire that had been lighted with difficulty.Two beds side by side, covered by a mosquito net - the headboard is huge.Room charges are nine francs per night. Take a trip to the gloomy valley. Muddy, wet little valleys, ferns, boulders.At the confluence of two streams, the garden house may be too wet.We went upstream along a small stream, and what we didn't expect to walk happened to be the stream in a small valley. Encrusted with eucalyptus.Umbrella pine, cypress, olive trees. A little boy handed us oranges on top of the wall.We ate a few in the small valley.Then, we climbed the left rock wall and returned to the sun. There are several villas in the valley above, in the shape of steps, and a lot of roses are planted in the garden.It seemed to be very hot here in August last year. The old lady who folded roses for us said that "the flowers were in full bloom at that time"--it is better to fold flowers for us than to fold them for us--because she can't choose, the net Pick the biggest.

Now, the flowers get rusty when it rains, and the petals fall off quickly; besides, roses and oranges are so cheap that it is not worth going to Nice to buy them. We folded too many flowers!When we saw a little white goat, we threw it a few branches—red roses. One night, I gave her chloral, which made her feel very drowsy, and her cough was about to be suppressed, but the mosquito woke her up again.It was a stupid thing I did - I left the mosquito net open for a while under the pretext of letting her breathe more. It was windy at night—the sky was cloudy and the ground was raining—the warm weather was languid—the flowers were in bloom.This is January 10, 1998.

Twenty francs for a ride to Asplemont.As it got dark, the journey seemed a bit long.cool.Olive trees give people a sense of intimacy.I read Goethe's travel notes and read the most important passages aloud.It is wrong to praise him blindly; it must be constantly updated. Several children ran after the car.We let them get in the car, and only the two youngest were willing to come up.Other children also ran after the car.The older boy said, "No! If you go up, you'll send me back to Nice." Marcel's excellent letter - on Zola's open letter to the President of the Republic.

Monte Carlo, lunch, the salmon scales under the ice are particularly bright; half a bottle of La Roz Castle red wine.See on the card, Bordeaux red wine, fifty and sixty francs a bottle (Cha·teau-Yquem brand in 1869)... The waiters look hideous.Gorgonzola top-quality Roquefort cheese, with red skin on the outside and soft fermented bean curd heart on the inside, is not as good as Roquefort cheese.What does this cheese compare to? Anemone: There is no happy spring—the fragrance is elusive.I will remember all this. The weather is not suitable for traveling by car.We stay at the playground.

I lost a hundred francs.Made won three hundred francs and lost them all, and I gambled again and lost fifty-five francs. The Dreyfus case grew more and more worrisome. Looking at Bordighere at night under the stars.The white edge of the dark waves, almost level with the road. A quarter of the excitement of such a day is enough to recall a boring year. Our harvest has been too bountiful, and it wears me down.I hope to work at my leisure, on the basis of a rather respectable result, without embarrassment in every way. The days are long and the nights are short.Madeleine recovered. "Saul" was finished one scene after another, slowly.I don't write, hardly ever write to anyone.I don't write anything but a little maybe not good poetry but Saul.I always read too many books at the same time, and I can't finish reading any kind of book. I drag it day by day, including Boissier's weighty study of religion under Caesar, Massa's "Roman Archaeology" ( I finished Corrignon's "Greek Archaeology", Croizet's "Greek Literature", Zola's "Paris", and "Henri E. Smond")...

Anyway, I'm still reading Hafiz's and Goethe's poems.Practicing the piano also took up a lot of my time, playing passages by Schumann and Chopin at the same time, and as for Bach, it was a much slower practice. Not much travel.The visit to Villa Pamphili last Friday was very pleasant, and the people went to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary.Green young oaks fringed a meadow of anemones. Today, visit the villages of Frascati, Albano and more. I was about to give a copper to a beggar, but he thought I was going to beat him.I am still suffering from this. Meet Octave at the theater (Pagliazzi).Be selfish and superficial, and put on a passionless cloak.

At night, stay by Madeleine's side.For Octave, pity is chiefly because we feel that he is still sick and frail—but, Madeleine adds, "others do not appreciate the pity he arouses." Return from Alençon. Read Schopenhauer with Mader, then Macbeth (Shakespeare). Read alone (Dostoevsky), the first hundred and thirty pages of Michelet's History of Rome. "The Poor" (Dostoevsky), "Berenice" (Racine), "The Barrier" (Bourget). For the first time I really felt pain. In all of France, I don't have twelve well-understood readers.And Valery has already reproached me for "casting the net too low."

Seeing one after another become famous, and those people are simple and superficial, and they easily express the only things that can be expressed, and I am not even willing to accept them as a reader. Like Druane, he respected me, but not much for what I did, and I felt that clearly.He thinks (he doesn't admit it himself) that it is not a successful work if it is not successful in front of a broad audience. However, he almost liked my "Letter to Angel". I think that a work written exactly according to my intention cannot be regarded as a failure.My fault was to overestimate the reader; now my fault is to despise the reader too much.Whether yesterday or today, I really don't know who to write for.

Saul is different: I do write for an audience... Even so, the theme can be kept secret, like almost all themes.Besides, I still see today that Faguet regards "Ghosts" only as an ordinary incest story! ! On the moon-watching night last month, I went to Etretat for dinner and walked back.I think that was the best moment of my year.There was not a single cloud in the sky.On the way there, the weather was extremely hot, which was very exciting.It is hard to imagine that there is such a sunset view on the sea waves.The sea is very calm, with almost no broken reflections.The boats approached the shore.I had dinner in a hurry near the seashore, and when I got back to the water, I saw the setting sun was still red, slowly sinking into the sea, and I didn't leave that place until it completely disappeared.It was nearly eight o'clock at night.On the other side of the sky, the rising moon shines brightly; I am walking towards the moon.The wheat had not yet been harvested; the oat-fields lay flat as far as the eye could see; there was no movement around them, so strangely still that I could scarcely recognize the place; only a few large cows frightened for a moment in my pass; but Not a single wild animal was seen, nor was there a human being.I returned by a canyon called "Fortune", which led to a hillside with woods until it reached the road, and I always brushed the branches when I passed.There was a slight fog, which made the night gradually cool and made the air a little cloudy, but the moonlight was still very bright, and I was able to write down the poems I chanted while walking.That's how I wrote, almost without hesitation, a long fragment of a scene in which Proserpina tells Ceres her first mourning.Wonderful night.I was even displeased to meet Madeleine and Georges at the foot of the hill: they were a little apprehensive at my delay in returning.Madeleine had had a migraine for a while and was very tired now.We talked a few words, and I asked permission to walk for a little distance.I tried to regain my composure and catch up with my thoughts on poetry, but my thoughts were interrupted and I couldn't write any more.

Read at La Roque this summer: "The Bastard" ( Dumas fils), "Madame Aubrey's Views" ( Dumas fils). I finished reading it aloud, and recently I finished reading Tolstoy's "Memoirs" aloud. Finish reading "The Birds Fly and the Flowers Fall" in a low voice (Bourget). "Little Citizen" (Balzac), unfinished. Travels of Laputa (Swift). However, almost all of my time is spent in this way, or I go to the countryside with my friends, and I can't leave the countryside.Sometimes I write behind closed doors, but as soon as I hear someone singing on the road, I grab my hat and run after them.I thought I could finish Philoctetes and Prometheus.otherwise.