the world, that order for them was only the order of external rules, hygiene and transportation networks. France was Greece for them. But, deeply naive, they saw in France only its classic writers and its painters after Watteau. They dreamed of a world whose sole values would be knowledge of the arts and elegant customs. In reality, they didn’t just dream of it. They created it, in part. But for themselves alone. An artificial island.
I remember the park, with its stereotypically romantic trees, belonging to the poet Richard Dehmel and Monsieur von Mützenbecher, head of the theater of the Grand Duchy of Baden.
I’m dreaming. My dream erases the years. Monsieur von Mützenbecher appears before me, not in a suit jacket or black morning coat, as I was used to seeing him, but in a German officer’s uniform. I turn over on the straw. Monsieur von Mützenbecher is saluting me. I can see that he is surprised by my reserve. These people have hardly any imagination or taste. An oaf like all the others. Does he think I’m going to jump into his arms?
“Weimar,” I say to him, “Weimar and Nietzsche and your idolatry of French painting; all that was only a fifth column.”
“No,” he responds, “the German aristocracy never loved Hitler.”
“But it serves him.”
“No, it serves Germany. Even if Germany is wrong, even if Germany is criminal; did you want us to betray her? We are not in thedays when generals committed treason without dishonoring themselves. You must admit, that is one of the effects of your democracy … Thus we, the officers, have been obligated to follow our troops. It is history turned upside down.”
He bursts out laughing, a false laughter, a philosophical laughter.
“This is the world inverted, like a glove turned inside out. But our meeting is the spark, the spark that rights the world … Look …”
And indeed I see German soldiers forming up, leaving, marching in step toward the Rhine, returning home.
I no longer saw the Loire. The Loire was no longer anything more to me than a strategic myth. From the courtyard I see shrubs, fields. I have no connection to this featureless, flat landscape, which seems laid out by chance and to which only chance has led me. And I sense clearly that I’m granted these two meters of courtyard and the straw I have for the night only reluctantly. Such as when I apologized to Soutreux for whatever trouble I might cause her, and she replied, “But no … you can certainly stay here for a day or two.” Other landscapes, old homesteads, I yearn for them, I can’t let go; I’d like to be there in the blink of an eye, by a miracle. I’ve left pieces of my life there. Such as my cousin Nicot’s house overlooking the Saône. How nicely it all comes together: the river, the old gate, the ancient garden, the welcome and hospitality, the ten-year-old Chardonnay rich as hazelnuts, the 1840 folding screen that instantly puts me into a fairy tale. The house in Saint-Amour, the house in Villars, I’ve thought about them the way thinking of fruit makes one’s mouth water.
I’d like to escape, to escape to any time, any place where I don’t know the price of mattresses, of beveled-glass windowpanes and gardeners’ hours. I hope to console myself contemplating three rosebushes against a background of locust trees. It’s a momentary pleasure. An old habit. Man isn’t only an eye. These are the war’s roses, the debacle’s roses, Soutreux’s roses.
Some German planes pass overhead, practically hedge-hopping. We’re watched even from the sky.
A rumor circulates that the Italians are in Nice. At that point I didn’t know I possessed Nice. I didn’t know I was the owner ofNice … I didn’t realize all my proprietary instincts. Nice had just been snatched away from me.
The vieux monsieur comes over to me looking desperate and furious.
“I had salvaged a jar of red-currant preserves … The Germans took it.”
Aufresne is washing and
I remember the park, with its stereotypically romantic trees, belonging to the poet Richard Dehmel and Monsieur von Mützenbecher, head of the theater of the Grand Duchy of Baden.
I’m dreaming. My dream erases the years. Monsieur von Mützenbecher appears before me, not in a suit jacket or black morning coat, as I was used to seeing him, but in a German officer’s uniform. I turn over on the straw. Monsieur von Mützenbecher is saluting me. I can see that he is surprised by my reserve. These people have hardly any imagination or taste. An oaf like all the others. Does he think I’m going to jump into his arms?
“Weimar,” I say to him, “Weimar and Nietzsche and your idolatry of French painting; all that was only a fifth column.”
“No,” he responds, “the German aristocracy never loved Hitler.”
“But it serves him.”
“No, it serves Germany. Even if Germany is wrong, even if Germany is criminal; did you want us to betray her? We are not in thedays when generals committed treason without dishonoring themselves. You must admit, that is one of the effects of your democracy … Thus we, the officers, have been obligated to follow our troops. It is history turned upside down.”
He bursts out laughing, a false laughter, a philosophical laughter.
“This is the world inverted, like a glove turned inside out. But our meeting is the spark, the spark that rights the world … Look …”
And indeed I see German soldiers forming up, leaving, marching in step toward the Rhine, returning home.
I no longer saw the Loire. The Loire was no longer anything more to me than a strategic myth. From the courtyard I see shrubs, fields. I have no connection to this featureless, flat landscape, which seems laid out by chance and to which only chance has led me. And I sense clearly that I’m granted these two meters of courtyard and the straw I have for the night only reluctantly. Such as when I apologized to Soutreux for whatever trouble I might cause her, and she replied, “But no … you can certainly stay here for a day or two.” Other landscapes, old homesteads, I yearn for them, I can’t let go; I’d like to be there in the blink of an eye, by a miracle. I’ve left pieces of my life there. Such as my cousin Nicot’s house overlooking the Saône. How nicely it all comes together: the river, the old gate, the ancient garden, the welcome and hospitality, the ten-year-old Chardonnay rich as hazelnuts, the 1840 folding screen that instantly puts me into a fairy tale. The house in Saint-Amour, the house in Villars, I’ve thought about them the way thinking of fruit makes one’s mouth water.
I’d like to escape, to escape to any time, any place where I don’t know the price of mattresses, of beveled-glass windowpanes and gardeners’ hours. I hope to console myself contemplating three rosebushes against a background of locust trees. It’s a momentary pleasure. An old habit. Man isn’t only an eye. These are the war’s roses, the debacle’s roses, Soutreux’s roses.
Some German planes pass overhead, practically hedge-hopping. We’re watched even from the sky.
A rumor circulates that the Italians are in Nice. At that point I didn’t know I possessed Nice. I didn’t know I was the owner ofNice … I didn’t realize all my proprietary instincts. Nice had just been snatched away from me.
The vieux monsieur comes over to me looking desperate and furious.
“I had salvaged a jar of red-currant preserves … The Germans took it.”
Aufresne is washing and
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