Collected French Translations: Prose

by Ashbery, John

  FEAR: No, don’t joke about it! This bedroom is sacred.

  LOVE: Consecrated, Madame.

  FEAR: Don’t overdo it. It’s not cold in here, though.

  LOVE: The tropics, or almost … especially since you’re magnetized by the North.

  FEAR: I want to look out the window.

  LOVE: Choose: There is one casement for seeing who’s coming, and another for seeing who’s going. At the first is fastened a spy4 of smoky silver, almost black. At the second blooms a pot of basil whose yellow flowers have the violent perfume of cat’s breath. I never open that one because I don’t like flowers … and I like even less the musky breath of cats, vile rat-snatchers.

  FEAR: Oh, this wall, this wall which reaches to the sky and blocks up space!

  LOVE: Behind it is an army which is awaiting orders to proclaim me king … or shoot me. I had it built so as not to be disturbed by the perspective.

  FEAR: You can hear the sound of the ocean.

  LOVE: It’s the wind in the alley, together with the passing of the transatlantic trolleys.

  FEAR: The spy reflects the clouds which you can’t see because the sky is walled up. It’s like a black dreaming of white forms. I am terrified of that spy.

  LOVE: Wait! With a little spit and my handkerchief, I’m going to brighten it for you.

  FEAR: Don’t. We would see words written on it. Quickly—back into the room. Someone is coming. I heard the whole sea rising … and the transatlantic trolleys too.

  LOVE: Then look again, now.

  FEAR: I see a woman, a very pale woman, with eyes of green water, who is leaning from the same window we are. I see that she is centuries old, because she is standing against a twenty-year-old tree whose two branches are garlands. It is the Sea5 and Love. She is leaning against a maypole whose whiteness is that of the Eucharist, a maypole with the body of a supple man, and, members with members, waves with waves, shivers with shivers, the Sea is trying to invade Love, and Love is trying to resist the Sea. (Perhaps it is only a mother and her son, a most natural offshoot.) I also see clouds galloping in squadrons of white rumps. I see … also that I see nothing more. I tried to lean out and almost lost my balance. Let’s go back in.

  LOVE: You really are dizzy this time.

  FEAR: Yes, I was afraid to recognize myself in that eternally treacherous woman: the rising Sea!

  LOVE: Come on, look me in the eye and stop divagating6 with your pointless waves and shivers! What else do you see?

  FEAR: I barely see your real face, but above it I see the white dial of your strange clock where there are three hands.

  LOVE: The first marks the hour, the second drags the minutes, and the third, always motionless, eternalizes my indifference.

  FEAR: Ah! You don’t love me anymore!

  LOVE: That was the one thing to fear, Madame.

  “La Peur chez l’Amour,” from L’Amour en visites (Paris: P. Fort, 1898). Fiction 2, no. 1 (1973).

  RAYMOND ROUSSEL

  (1877–1933)

  AN UNPUBLISHED NOTE

  Tuesday

  Dear Sir

  Agreed for tomorrow Wednesday at seven.

  Thank you for your astounding sonnet. So many rhymes for “Roussel”! It is a tour de force and “lis braire”1 is terrific. It reminds me of this couplet of twelve-syllable lines:

  Dans ces meubles laqués, rideaux et dais moroses

  Danse, aime, bleu laquais, rit d’oser des mots roses.2

  fondly,

  Raymond Roussel

  Probably written by Roussel to Pierre Frondaie. Atlas Anthology 4 (1987). Reprinted in Selected Prose, by John Ashbery, ed. Eugene Richie (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004; Manchester, U.K.: Carcanet Press, 2004).

  FROM IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA

  Chapter One

  About four o’clock that afternoon of June 25, everything seemed ready for the coronation of Talou VII, Emperor of Ponukele and King of Drelchkaff.

  Although the sun had passed the zenith, the heat remained oppressive in that region of equatorial Africa, and each of us remained acutely conscious of the sultry, threatening weather, untempered by the slightest breeze.

  In front of me extended the vast Square of Trophies situated at the very heart of Ejur, the imposing capital formed of innumerable huts and lapped by the Atlantic Ocean, whose distant roar I could hear on my left.

  The perfect square of the esplanade was outlined on all sides by a border of venerable sycamores; weapons deeply imbedded in the bark of each trunk served as supports for various heads, banners, and all kinds of decorations placed there by Talou VII or by his ancestors on their return from many a triumphant expedition.

  On my right, in front of the central point of the line of trees, stood a red theater resembling a huge Punch-and-Judy, on whose pediment the words “Club of the Incomparables” in silver letters on three lines were surrounded by dazzling golden rays radiating in all directions like sunbeams.

  On the stage, which was presently visible, a table and chair seemed to await a lecturer. Several unframed portraits pinned to the backdrop were underlined by an explanatory label which read “Electors of Brandenburg.”

  * * *

  Closer to me, on a line with the red theater, stood a broad wooden pedestal on which Nair, a Negro youth of barely twenty, was standing and leaning forward, engaged in an absorbing task. On his right, two stakes planted respectively at two corners of the pedestal were attached at the top by a long, supple cord, sagging under the weight of three objects hanging in a row and distinctly visible, like the prizes in a lottery. The first object was none other than a bowler hat on whose crown the word “PINCHED” was inscribed in whitish capital letters; then came a dark gray suede glove whose palm, facing me, was ornamented with a letter “C” lightly traced in chalk; finally, a fragile sheet of parchment dangled from the cord: Covered with curious hieroglyphics, it bore at the top a rather crude drawing representing five people, obviously meant to appear ridiculous through their general aspect and the exaggeration of their features.

  A prisoner on his pedestal, Nair had his right foot caught in a veritable snare tightly fastened to the solid platform; like a living statue he was making slow and punctual gestures, while murmuring groups of words learned by heart. On a specially designed support in front of him, a fragile pyramid, made of three panels of bark joined together but noticeably raised, served him as a loom; on an extension of the support, within easy reach, was a supply of fruit pods, whose outsides were covered with a grayish vegetable substance resembling the cocoon of a larva just before it turns into a chrysalis. Pinching with two fingers a fragment of these delicate envelopes and drawing his hand slowly toward him, the youth created a tensile bond resembling the gossamer threads that drift through the woods in spring; with these imperceptible filaments he was weaving a marvelously subtle and complex web, moving his hands with amazing agility, crossing, tying, interlacing in every possible way the dreamlike ligaments, which formed a gracious amalgam. The phrases he murmured to himself served to regulate his perilous, precise manipulations; the slightest error and the whole work would have been spoiled, and, without the automatic aid to his memory furnished by a certain memorized formula, Nair would never have been able to accomplish his task.

  On his right, other pyramids placed along the edge of the pedestal with their summits pointing backward allowed one to appreciate the appearance of his work after its completion: The base, upright and in plain view, was faintly indicated by an almost invisible fabric, more tenuous than a cobweb. Fastened by its stem deep inside each pyramid, a red flower led the eye straight through the imperceptible veil formed by the aerial web. Not far from the stage of the Incomparables, to the actor’s right, two poles four or five feet apart supported an apparatus in motion; the nearest pole held a long spindle around which a strip of yellowish parchment fitted tightly; solidly nailed to the farther post, a square board horizontally placed served as a base for a vertical cylinder which was being slowly turne
d by clockwork.

  The yellowish band, unfolding uninterruptedly over the whole distance of the interval, embraced the cylinder, which, in turning, drew it continually back to itself, to the detriment of the distant pivot forcibly involved in its gyratory motion.

  On the parchment, groups of boldly drawn savage warriors succeeded each other in diverse attitudes; one column, running at breakneck speed, seemed to pursue a fleeing enemy; another, lying in ambush behind an embankment, seemed to await patiently an opportunity to show itself; here, two phalanxes equal in number were engaged in fierce hand-to-hand battle; there, fresh troops struck out with fierce gestures to fling themselves bravely into a distant melee. The unfurling parchment constantly offered new strategic surprises thanks to the infinite multiplicity of the effects obtained.

  * * *

  Facing me, at the other extremity of the esplanade, stood a kind of altar preceded by several steps covered with a thick carpet; a coat of white paint veined with bluish lines gave the ensemble, seen from a distance, the appearance of marble.

  On the sacred table, represented by a long board fastened halfway up the structure and covered with a cloth, could be seen a rectangle of parchment speckled with hieroglyphics and standing erect next to a heavy cruet filled with oil. Next to it, a larger sheet of luxurious heavy paper bore this title carefully traced in gothic letters: “Reigning House of Ponukele-Drelchkaff”; under this heading, a round portrait—a kind of delicately tinted miniature—depicted two Spanish girls of thirteen or fourteen wearing the national mantilla—twin sisters, judging from the exact resemblance of their faces; at first sight, the picture seemed to be part of the document, but on closer examination one discovered a narrow band of transparent muslin which, adhering both to the circumference of the painted disk and the heavy vellum, rendered as perfect as possible the juncture of the two objects, in reality independent of each other; to the left of the double effigy the name “SOUANN” was printed in heavy capitals; beneath it the rest of the sheet was filled by a genealogical tree comporting two distinct branches, issuing parallel from the two gracious Iberians who formed its topmost point; one of these lines terminated with the word “Extinction,” whose letters, almost as large as those of the title, aimed brutally at a sensational effect; the other, which did not extend quite so far down as its neighbor, seemed on the contrary to defy the future by the absence of any terminal bar.

  Near the altar, toward the right, stood a gigantic palm tree, whose magnificent foliage attested to great age; a placard attached to its trunk bore the commemorative inscription: “Restoration of the Emperor Talou VII to the Throne of His Forefathers.” Sheltered by the palm leaves, a stake planted in the ground supported a soft-boiled egg on the square platform furnished by its summit.

  On the left, equidistant from the altar, a tall plant, old and decrepit, offered a sad pendant to the luxuriant palm; it was a rubber tree whose sap had dried up and which had fallen almost into decay. A litter of woven twigs, placed in its shade, bore the horizontal cadaver of the Negro king, Yaour IX, dressed in the classic costume of Gretchen in Faust, with a pink woolen dress, small alms-purse, and thick blond wig, whose long braids, drawn over his shoulders, reached halfway down his legs.

  * * *

  On my left, facing the red theater and with its back to the row of sycamores, a stone-colored building suggested a miniature version of the Paris Bourse.

  Between this edifice and the northwest corner of the esplanade was a row of several life-size statues.

  The first depicted a man mortally wounded by a weapon thrust into his heart. Instinctively his two hands clutched at the wound, while his legs bent under the weight of his body, which was about to topple over backward. The statue was black and seemed, at first glance, to be made in one solid piece, but as one looked at it one slowly became aware of a multitude of grooves running in all directions and generally forming numerous parallel groups. Actually the work was composed solely of countless whalebone corset stays cut and molded according to the necessities of the modeling. Flat-headed nails, their points no doubt bent on the inside, fastened these supple strips together; they were juxtaposed so artfully as not to leave the slightest interstice. The face itself, with the details of its agonized expression, was made of nothing but carefully fitted-together stays which reproduced faithfully the form of the nose, the lips, the eyebrow ridges, and the eyeballs. The handle of the weapon that pierced the dying man’s heart suggested that a great technical difficulty had been overcome, on account of the elegance of the hilt, in which could be perceived the traces of two or three whalebones cut in short fragments and curved to form rings. The muscular body, the clenched arms, the sinewy legs about to give way—everything seemed to palpitate or suffer, as a result of the striking and perfect contours imparted to the invariable dark-colored strips.

  The feet of the statue rested on an extremely simple vehicle, whose low platform and four wheels were fabricated with other ingeniously combined black whalebone fragments. Two narrow rails, made of a raw, reddish, and gelatinous substance, which was nothing other than calves’ lights, were aligned on a blackened wood surface, and gave because of their relief if not their color the exact illusion of a segment of railroad; the four immobile wheels fitted them without crushing them.

  The wooden railbed formed the top of a wooden pedestal, entirely black, whose front displayed a white inscription which read: “The Death of the Helot Saridakis.” Underneath, in the same snowy lettering, could be seen the following diagram, half in Greek and half in French, and accompanied by a slender bracket:

  Next to the helot a bust of a thinker with knitted brows wore an expression of intense and fecund meditation. On the pedestal one could read the name:

  IMMANUEL KANT

  Next came a sculptural group representing a touching scene. A horseman with the ferocious face of a myrmidon seemed to question a nun standing with her back to the gate of her convent. In the background, which ended in a bas-relief, other armed men mounted on restless steeds awaited their chief’s command. On the base the following title engraved in concave letters, The Lie of the Nun Perpetua, was followed by the interrogative sentence: “Is this where the fugitives are hiding?”

  Farther on, a curious evocation, accompanied by the explanatory words “The Regent Bowing before Louis XV,” showed Philip of Orleans respectfully bending low before the child-king, aged about ten, whose pose was full of natural and unconscious majesty.

  Unlike the helot, the bust and the two groups had the appearance of terra-cotta.

  Norbert Montalescot, calm and vigilant, was walking about near his works, surveying in particular the helot, whose fragility rendered the careless contact of a passerby even more to be dreaded.

  Beyond the last statue stood a tiny cell without a door, whose four walls, of equal width, were made of heavy black canvas which no doubt blocked the sun’s rays. The roof, slightly inclined along a single plane, was made of strange pages from a book, yellow with age and cut in the form of tiles; the text, in English and printed in large type, had faded and in some places completely disappeared, but certain pages whose top was visible bore the title The Fair Maid of Perth still legibly printed. In the center of the roof was a tightly shut trapdoor, which, instead of glass panes, was fitted with the same pages tinted by age and wear. The whole of the fragile covering must have created inside a diffuse, yellowish light, soft and full of repose.

  A kind of chord like that of brass instruments, but much fainter, escaped at regular intervals from inside the cell, and created the exact impression of musical breathing.

  * * *

  Just opposite Nair, a tombstone, on a line with the Bourse, served as a support for the various parts of a Zouave’s uniform. A rifle and some cartridge pouches had been added to this cast-off military clothing, obviously destined to perpetuate piously the memory of the entombed man.

  Erect behind the funeral slab, a panel covered with black cloth offered to the gaze a series of twelve watercolors, a
rranged by threes in four equal rows symmetrically placed one above the other. The resemblances between the people in the pictures gave one to suppose that the series was linked to some dramatic narrative. A few words by way of a title had been traced with a brush above each picture.

  In the first painting a noncommissioned officer and a flashily dressed blond woman were ensconced in a luxurious Victoria; the words “Flore and Sergeant Major Lécurou” summarily designated the couple.

  Next came “The Performance of Daedalus,” represented by a wide stage on which a tenor in Greek robes seemed to sing with all his voice; in the first row of the stage box could be seen the sergeant major seated next to Flore, who was peering through her lorgnette in the direction of the singer.

  In “The Consultation,” an old woman in a voluminous cloak was drawing Flore’s attention to a celestial planisphere pinned to a wall, and knowingly extending her forefinger toward the constellation Cancer.

  “The Secret Correspondence,” which began a second row of pictures, showed the woman with the cloak offering Flore one of those special stencils necessary for decoding certain cryptograms and which consist of a simple sheet of cardboard bizarrely pierced with holes.

  The décor of “The Signal” was the terrace of an almost deserted café, in front of which a dark-complexioned Zouave seated alone at a table was pointing out to the waiter a large moving bell at the top of a nearby steeple; underneath one could read this dialogue: “Waiter, why is the bell ringing?” “For the evening service.” “Then bring me an arlequin.”

  “The Sergeant Major’s Jealousy” depicted the courtyard of a barracks where Lécurou, raising four fingers of his right hand, seemed to address a furious reprimand at the Zouave already seen in the previous picture; the scene was brutally accompanied by this phrase of military slang: “Four days’ C.B.!”