Mute Objects of Expression (13 page)

Completely evolved as well toward perfect dryness . . .

Have I entered the brushery (brushes, combs with handles finely tooled in lichen, hairpins) of a gigantic redheaded Creole, amidst these entanglements, these heavy scents? These great rocks here and there, left on top of the salon counter? Yes, most certainly, I find myself here, and as it turns out the place lacks neither charm nor sensuality. This is a great idea that a minor poet would be pleased to ponder.

But why pile on so many dead branches, why this massive stripping of the trunks, and why this consequent ease of strolling among them, with no vines, or cords, or smooth floorboards, but the deep carpet, the meditative obscurity, the silence? Because isn't the pine the tree that furnishes the most dead wood, that becomes most totally disinterested in its earlier lateral outgrowth, etc.? By this route I come upon an idea perhaps initially less seductive (less shimmering, less cosmetic), but more serious and closer to the reality of my object . . . , etc.

 

Let's put it simply: on entering a pine woods in the sweltering heat of summer, the pleasure one feels is much like what might be produced by the small hairdressing salon adjoining the bathroom of a wild but noble creature. Aromatic brushery in an overheated atmosphere, the vapors rising from the lacustrian or marine bath. Fragments of sky like shards of mirrors seen through brushes with long handles finely tooled in lichen. A scent
sui generis
of hair, of its combs and its hairpins. Natural perspiration and hygienic scents mingled. Heavy ornamental stones left here and there on the hairdressing counter, and in the high rafters an animal effervescence, the millions of animal sparkles, the musical, singing vibration.

At once, both brushes and combs. Brushes whose every bristle has the shape and brilliance of the tooth of a comb.

Why has she chosen brushes with green bristles and violet wood handles all tooled with verdigris lichen? Perhaps because this noble savage is a redhead, soon to steep in the neighboring bath, lacustrian or marine. This is the hairdressing shop of Venus, with Phoebus light bulbs inserted in the mirror wall.

I find that a not-unappealing tableau, because it truly renders the pleasure felt by any man who ventures into pine woods in August. A minor poet, indeed even an epic poet, might be content with that.
But we are something other than a poet and have something else to say.

If we've made our way into the familiarity of these private chambers of nature, and if they were thereby brought to new life in speech, it is not only so we may grasp this sensual pleasure anthropomorphically, but also that a more serious co-nascence may come of it.

So let's delve into this more thoroughly.

Winter:
Temple of caducity.

Eroded by lichen, the low branches have fallen. And no encumbrance midway up. No snaking of vines or ropes. You can roam about at leisure between the senile masts (all crinkled and lichen-cloaked like old Creole men), their locks entangled in the heights.

 

In August:
All set about by mirrors, it's a pavilion of aromatic hairpins, sometimes raised by the morbid but cautious curiosity of mushrooms; a brushery with long-tooled handles of crimson wood and green bristles, chosen by the wild and noble redhead rising from the lacustrian or marine bath that steams by the low-lying shoulder.

 

Temple of caducity!
Winter,
eroded by lichen, the lower branches have fallen. And no encumbrance midway up, no snaking vines or
ropes. You can roam about at leisure among the senile masts whose mops of hair tangle only in the skies.

 

In August
, all set about by mirrors, it's a pavilion of aromatic hairpins (sometimes raised after light rainfall by the morbid, cautious curiosity of mushrooms), a brushery with long-tooled handles and green bristles, for the flamboyant creature rising from the marine or lacustrian bath that steams by the low-lying shoulder.

 

 

Slow production of wood.

Isn't a pine the tree that furnishes the most dead wood?

On the ground a deep resilient layer of aromatic hairpins whose dry surface is sometimes raised after light rainfall through the morbid curiosity of mushrooms.

. . . And not a leaf stirs between these senile masts whose conical tufts mingle in the skies.

Words to look up in the
Littré:

Caduc.
Decrepit: frail, on the verge of collapse.

Caducité.
Caducity: lack of persistence in one part.

Fournaise.
Furnace: 1. large fire; 2. blazing fire; 3. by exaggeration, a very hot place.

Cosmétique.
Cosmetic: same origin as
cosmos:
world, order, ornament.

Encombre.
Hindrance: accident that impedes, but comes from
incombrum:
a mass of
felled wood
(what a marvelous confirmation).

Serpentement.
Snaking: checked.

Lichen:
vegetal
agamae
whose life is arrested by dryness.

Halle, halliers
. Pavilion, thicket: checked.

Elastique.
Resilient: which returns to its original shape.

Champignon:
mushroom which grows in pastoral sites.

Brosserie.
Brush factory. No.
Brossailles. Broussailles.
Brushwood.

Négligentes.
Negligent, remiss: from
nec legere,
not for taking, not for picking. A poor fit.

Above all, it is a slow production of wood.

Through all the successive lateral outgrowth – progressively lichen-cloaked and decaying but no matter (through exaggerated layers of lichen) – the shaft must become more noticeable, persisting for the sole benefit of the more and more heaven-bent conical toupees which time and again hold to the skies seven candelabra.