Mute Objects of Expression (20 page)

Who fails to see here that the sky is closed; the interstellar immensity is seen here in transparency, and it is grandiose (perceived against infinity). It's no more than gas, unfit for breathing. As fish through clear water can perceive the atmosphere above them (or imagine it), so we perceive the ethereal medium.

To be sure, we had no need for this (to see the closed sky so clearly) in order to determine that God is an unworthy invention, a detestable insinuation, a dishonest proposition, an attempt alas too successful at breaking down the human conscience – and that men who incline us in this direction are traitors or imposters.

Elsewhere nature breathes towards skies taken up with other things, for example with moving the clouds about. Here, the skies are definitely taken up with stifling nature. It is quite clear, here, that nature is stifling.

It remains mute beneath the sky shut fast, pathetically attempting to live. The urns and statues assume the role of its interpreters, in supplication. But not a word in response. Splendid.

Might I never manage to conquer this landscape, this Provence sky? That would really be too much! What a lot of trouble it's giving me! At times it seems to me that I haven't seen it sufficiently, and I tell myself I'll have to go back there, as a landscape artist returns to his motif many times over.

And yet, this is a simple matter! At the place known as “La Mounine,” between Marseille and Aix, one morning in April around eight o'clock, through the windows of the bus . . . well, what's the matter with me? I can't manage to go on . . . The sky above the gardens (as I looked up toward the treetops, and though it was clear of all clouds), seemed to me commingled with shadow. As though reprimanded... Sky that's blamed . . . Mingled with shadow and blame . . . (See also
blême,
wan) As though suffering from congestion . . .

This daylight amounts to night, this ashen-blue light –

It holds its shadow in the grips of its luster

The shadow holds to its luster completely diffused

Holds its shadow within the luster diffused

It weighs heavily over Provence (weighs isn't the word)

It exerts there the authority of a black mirror.

Its shadow melded with its luster as though by a sponge.

– Is the most fluid ink truly the blue-black?

Azure touched with pencil lead
this heavy gas forms within a sealed chamber
from an explosion of blue violet petals.

 

This daylight amounts to night, this ashen-blue light
Its shadow all-embracing in the grips of its luster
Run together by a sponge.

 

It holds over Provence
– a landscape generally unremarkable though incandescent –
the authority of a painter's dark mirror.

 

And since we're speaking of painters
let's say that Monsieur Chabaud, all things otherwise being equal,
saw this better than the great Cézanne.

 

Better rendered this tragic permanence,
the tragic inking of the situation.

 

What octopus has sighed its longing toward the sky?
Heavy-hearted, relieved himself?

 

What medicine dropper emptied its heavy heart?

This daylight amounts to night, this ashen-blue light
It holds its shadow in (the grips of) its luster
The temples of the houses are gripped too
Congestion of azure
What heavy-hearted octopus retreating in the sky
relieved himself, provoking this tragic
inking of the situation?

 

Occlusion, congestion, syncope.

This weather is what the colors have assumed to “fade away.”
Under the stress of light
The heart is oppressed by the anguish of eternity
and of death
It stops beating (no, bad)
Paralysis, syncope?
Immobility
Silence.
Springlike phosphorescence
Contraction of the generally unremarkable landscape.

Blême.
Wan, colorless: very pale, more than pale (?). Etym.: from old Scandinavian
blami,
blue color, from
blâ,
blue.

Blâme:
1. Expression of opinion, of judgment by which one finds something bad in persons or things. 2. Reproach, stain (from
blasphemare
).

Congestion:
from
congerere
, heap up, collect.

Estompé.
Blurred, smudged: from
stumpf
, lathered, foamy.

Incandescence:
become white.
Luminescence:
doesn't exist in the
Littré
.

I was wondering earlier this evening, when I wasn't more than half-asleep (by now it's three-quarters):

1st Whether it wouldn't be more “faithful” to write starting from the bus where I happened to be when I was struck by this scene (more faithful and more realizable . . .).

2nd Later . . . but did I dream this? It escapes me! . . . I acutely felt the difficulty of the subject, my merit, and my slim chance of carrying it off successfully.