Chapter 18 1904

At the banquet given by Edmund Guss, Verhaeren sat between M. and H. de R. and whispered to M.: "... You know, I... I can admit to you... In fact, only things I have written have interested me." Mr. M immediately replied: "Exactly the same as me... Besides, even what I write doesn't interest me much anymore." Hearing this, Verhaeren was startled: "Oh! I'm sorry! It's not the same thing at all. I'm very interested in what I write myself; a strong interest, do you understand . gone." This conversation was narrated by Verhaeren in Theo von Reiselberg's studio the next day.He added:

"After a while, Mr. M said to me again: besides, my creation is completely a habitual behavior." No sooner had the article "Michel Kohlhaas" been written than we began reading "The Marquise Von O".There is no doubt that I have improved.So does Latin.I found it easier this morning when I read some of the letters of Pliny and some of the poems of Catullus.Sallust's work is before me, and I will read it again as soon as I finish the German translation of Philoctetes.I have to prepare the lecture "On Drama", which is really boring.What do I think about dramas, I have no interest in myself! - I don't care about my "ideas" at all!

How pleasantly I read Montaigne again.I'm in great shape.A good sign: yesterday I read the chapter "On Virgil's Poems" and (ridiculously speaking) my German translation of "Philoctetes" with tears in my eyes. Also read it and read it again to Em for the excellent chapter in "The Fate of Poetry" facing Jerusalem, which is undoubtedly the best prose I know of Lamartine, and the preface to "Meditations" about La Fontaine very interesting passages. I went to the offices of the Journal of Ideas and Views to find out the fate of Mr. D's article, and met D and Gourmont there.I haven't seen Gurmont since...(?).I knew it long before I met him, I had a premonition of this uncomfortable feeling in his presence, to put it bluntly, this antagonism.He was always very kind to me.But what's the use?I've read what he's written, and he's sharp, shrewd... I stop to think, I appeal to reason, and my mind tightens.This time I wanted to see him again, so I walked up to him with a smile on my face.But I can't stand it: he's too ugly.I don't mean ugly, no, but a deep ugliness.I'm pretty sure that just looking at what he wrote makes me think he's ugly.

So I tried to figure out why I felt so uncomfortable when I touched him.I think the reason for reading his works is that his thoughts are never a living and painful thing; he always maintains a detached attitude, using thoughts as tools.He was good at expounding reasoning, and his reasoning was never out of control.The minds he touches never bleed, so surgery is easy.He hit hard.What a heartless surgeon!How miserable I was by his side!This abstract matter he grasped was throbbing in me!I make a great effort to have a conversation.As soon as Gantong came, I left. The awkwardness and discomfort I felt hearing them talk was not only due to the difficulty of my mind following them, but also a more important and subtle reason.Thoughts also have a peculiar beauty, a grace, the absence of which must give me discomfort.When I'm with them, I can't help but think of people who lift heavy things with their arms alone.What I like is not very strong thick arms, but the harmony of the whole body.In the same way, thought requires a certain harmony.I know that as I get older, it's harder for me to leave that harmony.

This evening, I read "Lady Lycresia's Desperation" aloud to Em again.It's so boring!There is no characteristic, here, "perfection" seems to be a secondary quality!However, the letters to Panitz were "wonderful". "The greatest satisfaction is achieved when the ultimate effects of the last consumer goods are equal." This quote comes from ... (?) My uncle has an excellent review of it in his Introduction to Political Economy (new edition). This formulation is very unclear. A balance must be established in which the pleasure gained from the object is equal to the degree of consumption.

"...Since no illuminant has ever seen the shadow of the object it illuminates..." Chapter 328 of "Painting Theory" Gide went to Provence on April 25 to visit the von Reiselberg family, who had a residence in Saint-Clair. The city wakes up to a day filled with nothing but spring and all the tender colors of countless flowers, fragrant and waving on the lush grass.In these flowery meadows there were rocks, white roads raising dust and quivering in the sun, and pines with noble, even rough bark.I think of Apollo, Commander of the Muses, with his haughty head without tenderness on such a tender body.

The flowers are blooming like a piece of brocade.Hedgerow of roses and creeping Banksy rose, gray-purple tamarind and deep purple judaida, yellow calamus on the banks of the river, crimson calamus in the fields, on rocks, valerian slopes and tapestry The asphodels on the carpet, and those plump, purslane-like flowers on the tapestry, those big pink or yellowish star-shaped flowers that we and Rosenberg admired, do you remember? Together with Jalou, who had just arrived from Marseilles, I met Blanche in the Luxembourg Gardens.I don't know who was with Blanche. Whenever I met Blanche, I immediately felt that my tie was not straight, my hat was not cleaned, and my cuffs were dirty.I worry about these far more than what I have to say to him.

I have recorded elsewhere his conversation with Rainier?I was there at the time and heard such questions and answers. "Oh! my dear friend, you are wearing these very fine trousers. Where did you get them?" Renier was very annoyed by this, and replied in a serious and sly tone: "From the laundry shop." De Gruux had indigestion (also due to other grievances), Léon Blois told him, repeating to him: "You should, look at you... you should spit on... someone else." In the two years since I have known Odion Redon, I am still digging this bottomless statement, this aphorism, axiomatic, like this maxim which, as admonishment to youth, determines his entire aesthetic point of view: " Shut up with nature."

At the von Reiselberg house, the children were quoted.Although I hate the general "children's talk", here is an excerpt of what I think is the most wonderful. The little Bonnier boy, in response to being asked what he does in class: "I'll wait for people to go out." Your Excellency wanted Francis Y. . . to sympathize with the sufferings of Christ on the cross, and to stir up his rage against the wicked who had crucified Christ there.Looking at the crucifix hanging on the wall, he said: "It has to be nailed so that he can stay on it." I quote the words of little Paul. When he was beaten, he cried and said:

"Really sorry!" Among the most beautiful words are those of Theo von Reiselberg's daughter, Little Elizabeth.One day she cut her hand, was terrified at the sight of the blood, and ran to her parents howling: "All my sauce is draining!" At that time, I was teaching her pinyin and literacy, and I used various methods to help her remember, saying to her: "Use A to spell Alice, use B to spell Bertha... use T to spell Special Olympics, and so on." The next day let her repeat the letters she had learned, and asked her: "Use T to spell...?" The little girl immediately said loudly: "Spell out Daddy."

And words like Claude Laurent Jr.One afternoon when the children were eating snacks, the adults asked them one by one what they wanted to do in the future, and only one child suddenly said: "Me, I want to marry a very ugly woman." Seeing that everyone was dumbfounded, he added: "So that my friends can make fun of it." Went to Mount Roti yesterday.It was the wilderness that attracted me, and it was the children.Strictly speaking, it is not a village, and there are only a few terraced houses along the hillside.The avenue passes at the foot of the mountain.As soon as a group of children recognized my pilgrim's cloak, they immediately crowded around me and sat around me in the wilderness.Little Joseph came and curled up in my cloak as he had done last year.The kid is so ugly he can't even smile.There was his sister, weak and pale, as tall as an ear of wheat, not much higher.They also brought a little brother, who couldn't walk last year, whom Joseph had memorized, named Rene, who looked very strange, with a very broad forehead, and a stupid look, who always smiled, and looked special when he didn't smile. deep.These children are so poor that they don't know what to do with them; they need to be replaced from head to toe. (I didn't see last year's vegetable-like kid who fell into a pot of boiling water and burned half his face.) I keep a copy of La Fontaine's Fables in my pocket and show them the illustrations, but I won't ask They explain. On the way home, a fog rose from the sea, covering the whole place in a short time.If I hadn't stayed in the wilderness, I would have thought the foggy scene was very beautiful. In the moving car, I wrote a letter to André Ruyt in my cabbage green notebook. Now, in my room, looking out of the window, the sky is gray and low, and the fields are desolate.Someone is plowing.A flock of crows hovers, following the plow, and occasionally rushes down, pecking at grubs... I'm sure they've missed something under their beaks. Marius's wife died young, Jana and Mathilde were by the side, Marcel and I, we arrived afterward, talked about other things on the way, and saw Marius standing at the door, His eyes were red from crying, which was pitiful.After we hugged each other, he handed me the knife, opened it and said to me: "Pick more white lilacs." The old mother cried and repeated: "How happy these women are if they are over there! Without them, What should we do?" Then, let me enter the house.The room was clean, yet again shrouded in silence; Mathilde and Jana were by the window, having just finished folding a sheet.The deceased stopped on the bed, with a false blush remaining on his cheeks, but the hands holding the ebony crucifix were already sallow.Leaning on the cross, put a few white flowers. This morning the curate came to give her the last sacrament.Was it not enough that she had received Holy Communion the night before?She doesn't want to die yet.When she saw the priest come in, she trembled violently. "Oh! Why, I'm going to die now?" she said. "My child," answered the abbe, "you will not die; besides, God may show you." From that moment on, she began to struggle.Then Jana took her hand and said softly to her: "Last night I had a wonderful dream, Marie; I dreamed that we both went to heaven..." As soon as she had finished speaking, she fell asleep as if She waited for this sentence before she was willing to die. (Spent the day at Ducourt's house in Rabouil estate.) After I sent little Paul to the train station, I went back to Hebin Road. I have never seen such a bustling road on the opposite side of the theater.Two bands, one in front of the theatre, the other a little to the left, on the terraces of the two cafes, almost mixed their music.It is not beautiful to see a group of people walking chaotically.I was on the first street behind the theater, listening to the children swearing.Then, an Arab came up, and I followed, and approached the corner of the street to strike up a conversation with him.He was tall, well-dressed, and youthful, admirably.I learned that he was coming from the National Fortress; so we talked about the National Fortress, about Tizi Ouzou, and what he was doing in France.When the subject was exhausted, I gave him ten sous and parted with him.Fascinated by his thanks, I followed him involuntarily and saw him suddenly enter a brightly lit bar, but I hesitated outside the door, lingered for a long time, and turned back after walking away.Two women stood guard at the door.Loud waltz, rushing out of the bar.I'm not sure that the young Arab went into this bar, maybe he went into the little café next door where a gramophone was blaring.In the end, I went into the bar anyway.Sure enough, the Arab young man was inside. He was chatting and laughing with the woman, and his elegant and contented appearance was extremely charming.I didn't have a great desire, but I watched him intently.A few Englishmen came in, neither old, nor ugly, nor unpleasant.I was drunk after drinking a glass of sweet soju.An Englishman sat down at the piano, played a waltz, and then played a "Serenade" by Chopin.Across from me sat some dock workers.The Englishman chatted with the young Arab, with the woman.Everyone spoke English, it's a pity I couldn't understand what they were saying; but what a beautiful evening it was! Yesterday at Dieppe, with Henri Gayon, saw Walter Sickert again.He said to me, "Do you remember when you first met me and said, 'I like your paintings, doesn't that annoy you too much?'" "Very likely; as I think, if I were a painter, I should not be flattered by a writer." A memory of J.S.'s childhood: When he was about eleven years old, he once took a bath in the bathtub, and the adults also put his five-year-old brother M...in it.After taking a shower, J... put on her clothes again, returned to her parents, and said boldly: "It's really interesting, it's great to fall in love naked." After he said this, his parents let him take a bath alone. For me, the number of things that don't have to be said is increasing day by day. "In the case of peculiar needs, perhaps the most singular is that of the needs of thought which are most easily satisfied." (Nodier: "The Cult of Ossian Poetry." - Censorship of the French Dictionary. ) I haven't done serious work since October 25, 1901, when I finished it.The article on Wilde, the lectures I gave in Germany, and the last lecture in Brussels (which I found boring and badly delivered) were nothing.For three years, my mind was depressed and numb, and my whole body was numb all day long.Maybe, I put my mind too much on the garden and got in touch with the vegetation too much, so I developed the habit of the vegetation.Writing a simple sentence is also a labor of thought; moreover, speaking is almost as laborious as writing.I must admit, too, that I have become critical: there is always a critique lurking in the back of my head, and the slightest doubt comes to my mind and says to me, "Are you sure it's worth the trouble?"... Thoughts immediately flinched. During my trip to Germany this summer, my numbness was shaken a little.But back here it got worse.I blame the weather (it has been raining non-stop this year); I watch every plant for hours); I also blame my own habits (how can my dull mind get the better of my body?).In fact, I became dull, with neither passion nor joy.In the end, deeply worried, I decided to shake this muddled mental state that added to the morbid restlessness.I was convinced and convinced Em that the only way I could get back on my feet was to travel and get away from myself, and to be honest, I didn't convince Em; I obviously felt that, but what could I do?Still have to move forward.So I decided to set off.I tried my best to justify my actions; it wasn't enough for me to start, Em had to let me go.I hit a wall, resignedly indifferent.Or rather, I didn't bump into anything, but fell into it, bottomless and unable to extricate myself. Em's lamentable misunderstanding of this voluntary (yet almost unconscious)...sacrifice (I can think of no other word) spirit, I understand now, as I had sensed then.This spirit also played a part in keeping me discouraged.Exaggerating my uneasiness, exaggerating my emotions, is intolerable more than anything.Happily, that memory is fading now... When it's time for me to reindulge in life, I'll watch these days come before me with horror... However, I still left (before I left, I gave detailed instructions to plant the fruit trees that Cluj would send in).Yes, I left (October 10, as I remember), first to Bordeaux, to return Dominique to his parents.I want to go to Africa via Spain, but ships are not available, and I am also afraid of crossing the strait, so I cannot help but hesitate.However, when I arrived in Marseille at about six o'clock in the morning, the sky was clear and the weather was calm, so I made up my mind and booked a seat for the afternoon. I had planned to write a book on Africa, but the notes from my last trip with Em and Gaion were too far off to be finished in Couverville.I must revisit the old place again, and I am determined to write there day by day.As for discussion and thinking, you can add it later; what is not easy to trace and cannot be imagined is the feeling at that time. The notes I brought back from this trip were sorted out in Couverville (hardly a word changed). Em didn't join me in Algiers more than a month after I left.A month of solitary life brought me back to peace of mind; the peaceful life we ​​lived afterwards left me with only good memories.In Algiers, and on subsequent trips, I was able to read the first volume of Nietzsche's Correspondence, which greatly helped me regain my sanity... When we crossed Sicily, the weather was very bad, and the sun did not shine again until Rome.In Naples, or rather in Sorrento, I visited the inscrutable Volmorre (I have described this visit in detail in a letter to Druane).In Rome I saw Maurice Denis again; but he was always with Mituillard, and did not see me as often as I had hoped.On the contrary, I can see John Schellenberg every day... He gradually confided in me and forged a deep friendship with me.