[10] A puzzling aspect of Rimbaud's style is his use of foreign words within the French text of Illuminations. Devoid of need, in no hurry to make play of their brilliant faculties or their knowledge of your conscience. The Prince was the Genie. You distinguish a red coat, other clothes perhaps and musical instruments. Instead of focusing on keeping the syllable count consistent with the French when translated to English, the translators chose to use words sounding more pleasant to the 'English ear'. He is affection and the future, the power and love that we, held in rage and boredom, watch as it passes by in the stormy sky among banners of ecstasy. Lower down there are sewers. He possessed quite enough earthly power at least. The flowery sweetness of stars and sky and the rest descends opposite the embankment, like a basket – against our face, and creates the abyss flowering and blue below. Standing the test of time and ensuring the work's longevity in the literary world, Rimbaud's Illuminations has been translated repeatedly and introduced to new generations of individuals. Pride more kindly than lost charities. Processions of Mabs in russet, opaline robes ascend the ravines. We were taking a stroll in the suburbs. Through grouping the buildings in squares, terraces, and closed courtyards, they’ve squeezed out the coachmen. The two spent the following year together in London, with Rimbaud visiting Charleville twice. [33] Also interesting, this translation includes only half of the forty-two prose poems known to make up Illuminations, proving further liberties have been taken in its formation.[31]. – You follow the red road to reach the empty inn. Nymphs from Horace with Empire hair-styles – Rounded Siberian women, Chinese girls like Bouchers. Like a god with vast blue eyes and snowy forms, sea and sky draw hosts of young and vigorous roses to the terraces of marble. Your pulse beats in that belly where a double sex sleeps. Kilburn, B. W. (Benjamin West) (1827-1909), The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art Impossible to describe the dull light produced by the immutable grey sky; the imperial glare of the masonry, and the eternal snow on the ground. Ah, the infinite egoism of adolescence, the studious optimism: how full the world was of flowers, that summer! We’ll massacre logical rebellions. Stained with brown lees, your cheeks are hollow. – But then no more. One evening he was galloping proudly. [25] The publishers' dispute ultimately resulted in a dividing up of the manuscripts and their dispersal. I watch for hours the melancholy golden wash of the sunset. That’s true progress. He is affection and the present because he has built the house open to the foaming winter and the sounds of summer, he who purified food and drink, he who is the charm of fugitive places and the superhuman delight of halts. Rimbaud's life and works have inspired many musicians. The cascade sounds behind the comic-opera shanties. – It’s wearisome! ‘Eventide at the Pan American Exposition’ Forward – march!’. Getty Open Content Program. That can only be the world’s end ahead. [15], Two versions of Illuminations were published in 1886, each version arranging texts in orders that differ from the other edition. The antics of curtailed zeal, the tics of puerile pride, weakening, and terror. I really am from beyond the grave, and free of duties. [33] In addition, this translation takes much liberty in the sounds established through cross-language barriers. In these poems, Rimbaud expresses a simultaneous attraction and horror towards the modern city. Diamond! [8] These differences also contribute to the surrealist quality of Illuminations. At the top of the road, near a laurel wood, I surrounded her with her gathered veils, and I felt her vast body a little. Conditions and Exceptions apply. The town, with its noise and smoke from factories, followed us a long way down the roads. The lighting returns to the centre-post. It’s the beloved not tormented, and not tormenting. We have faith in poison. Creatures of fabulous elegance circled round. I alone hold the key to this savage parade. Illuminations rimbaud mouvement littéraire. Résumé de l'exposé . Rien ne bougeait encore au front des palais. The moment of the steam room, of evaporating seas, of subterranean conflagrations, of the wandering planet and the consequent exterminations, certainties indicated with so little malice by the Bible and the Norns which it will fall to the serious being to witness – However it will be no matter of legend! Enough seen. Illuminations is an English word and means coloured engravings, - coloured plates: it is even the subtitle that Mr. Rimbaud had given to his manuscript. ), The blazes raining in gusts of frost. Various translators have interpreted their roles in the presentation of Illuminations to the public in a different light, thus producing multiple versions of the collection of prose poems. That idol without ancestors or court, black-eyed and yellow-haired, nobler than legend, Mexican and Flemish: his land insolent azure and green, skirts beaches named by the waves, free of vessels, with names ferociously Greek, Slav, Celtic. We’ve not forgotten that yesterday you glorified every century of ours. [37] Rimbaud's passion to "change life" is echoed in the Surrealist's call to change reality through (only currently) impossibilities. On the right the summer dawn wakes the leaves and mists. – The city! ‘Cat's Eye Hubble Remix’ Que ce fût ou non une aberration de piété, il voulut. Sounds of cities, evening, and in the light, and always. Minor chords interlace, and fade; ropes rise from the banks. No! Il prévoyait d'étonnantes révolutions de l'amour, et soupçonnait ses femmes de pouvoir mieux que cette complaisance agrémentée de ciel et de luxe. Although little is known about this year in his life, it is certain that in February 1875 Rimbaud had given the manuscript sub-titled Les Illuminations to Verlaine. He demanded no fresh ones. One fine day, among a very gentle people, a superb man and woman cried out in the public square: ‘Friends, I want her to be queen!’ ‘I want to be queen!’ She laughed and trembled. [23] At Kahn's request, art critic and journalist Félix Fénéon arranged the order of the texts by respecting pages that linked the end of a text and the start of another. – For the fevers of mothers and children. – The buzzing, stinking summer grass. We’ll not spend the summer in this miserly country where we shall never be anything but betrothed orphans. – A horse takes off on the suburban turf past the fields and woodlands, riddled with carbonic plague. The summer heat was entrusted to mute birds and the requisite indolence, to a mourning barge beyond price among bays of dead loves and sunken perfumes. Some of the most popular translations include those by Helen Rootham (1932), Louise Varèse (1946/revised 1957), Paul Schmidt (1976), Nick Osmond (1993),[30] Dennis J. Carlile (2001), Martin Sorrell (2001), Wyatt Mason (2002), and the collaborative team composed of Jeremy Harding and John Sturrock (2004). Un bizarre dessin de ponts, ceux-ci droits, ceux-là bombés, d'autres descendant ou obliquant en angles sur les premiers, et ces figures se renouvelant dans les autres circuits éclairés du canal, mais tous tellement longs et légers que … – Oh! Aujourd'hui Lumière. Seeking their personal chemical fortunes; Of races, classes and creatures, on this vessel. You may accept or manage cookie usage at any time. From the length of vine, resting my foot on a gargoyle – I climbed into this coach whose period is clearly indicated by the convex glass, bulging panels, and curved seats. Nevertheless, certain conventions stand among the many editions of the text. The paradise of storms subsides. What has become of the Brahmin who explained the Proverbs to me? I’d reply by jeering at this satanic scholar, and end by approaching the window. I see what follows! [19] He did not leave Africa until 1891 when he was sick to the point of death. Besides, there’s nothing there to be seen. Hibbitt, Richard. Wikisource possède plusieurs éditions des Illuminations de Arthur Rimbaud. One theme evident throughout the text is protest. I view exhibitions of paintings in places twenty times larger than Hampton Court! Elegance, science, violence! The vision was encountered under all skies. Riches spurting at every step! Les Illuminations est le titre d'un recueil de poèmes en prose ou en vers libres composés par Arthur Rimbaud entre 1872 et 1875, et publié partiellement en 1886 puis, dans son intégralité, à titre posthume, en 1895. Rimbaud's relationship with Nouveau remains mysterious because of the lack of information about their life together. – of all kinds, everywhere – Demon, god – youth of this being-here: I!). The Genie was the Prince. © Copyright 2000-2021 A. S. Kline, All Rights Reserved. Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations. Roads bordered by rails and walls, barely containing the thickets, and the atrocious flowers you would call souls and sisters. Cardonel approached Gustave Kahn, editor of the literary magazine La Vogue, who agreed to publish the work along with a sonnet by Rimbaud in 1886. – To Madame ***. I might well be the child left on the jetty washed to the open sea, the little farm-boy following the lane whose crest touches the sky. The mud is red or black. Oh that warm February morning! Having recovered from the old fanfares of heroism – that still attack our hearts and heads – far from the ancient assassins. How far away the birds and the fountains are! Among the most surprising atmospheric events, – Is it a pardonable primitive shyness? He lived with Paul Verlaine and his small family in Paris from September 1871 to July 1872, with a short stint in Charleville in March, April, and May. L’énonciation est caractéristique d’un récit : le narrateur, qui est aussi un personnage, est représenté par la première personne du singulier(« je » ). I made light of his infirmity. Their raillery and their terror lasts a moment, or months entire. Every woman who had known him was assassinated. Dawn and the child fell down at the foot of the wood. The precious stones that hid, – the flowers that gazed around them. The vendors have not yet reached the end of their stock! They’re sent out soliciting in city streets, decked out in disgusting luxury. Here again, the houses are not in rows; the suburbs lose themselves oddly in the country, the ‘County’, which fills the endless west with forests and vast plantations where savage gentlemen hunt for news in the light which they created. Madame *** installed a piano in the Alps. I think there are police; but the laws must be so strange that any idea of the adventurers in this place eludes me. On the last page of Krása's original manuscript was a rehearsal schedule in the concentration camp: four were held in the Magdburg Barracks and one in the Dresden Barracks.[relevant? There’s a bird in the woods, its song makes you stop and blush. [2], The text of Illuminations is generally agreed to consist of forty-two poems. For sale anarchy for the masses; irrepressible pleasure for connoisseurs; atrocious deaths for the faithful, for lovers! [35], Dadaism: In its rejection of the sensible and logical, Dadaism embraced Rimbaud's ability to write in abstractions and impossibilities. Getty Open Content Program. ‘Breed, no matter where, the substance of our fortunes and wishes,’ they beg. Walk, at night, gently moving that thigh, that other thigh and that left leg. « Illuminations, livre de Arthur Rimbaud » in Encyclopaedia Universalis, Keddour, « Illuminations, livre de Arthur Rimbaud » in Encyclopaedia Universalis. Captain Rimbaud fought in the conquest of Algeria and was awarded the Légion d'honneur. In the Jeremy Harding and John Sturrock translation (2004), the reader is the focus of the work. The New York Public Library: Digital Collections. Way beyond your Fakirs and other theatrical buffooneries. Are those popular airs, snatches from noble concerts, the remains of public anthems? ‘Forest Landscape with Waterfall’ The golden dawn and shivering evening find our brig in the offing opposite this villa and its grounds, forming a promontory as extensive as Epirus or the Peloponnese, Japan’s main island, or Arabia! "This Savage Parade: Recent Translations of Rimbaud. And the Queen, the Sorceress who lights her fire in the pot of earth, will never tell us what she knows, and what we are ignorant of. Can one find ecstasy in destruction, rejuvenate oneself through cruelty? [30] Focusing extensively on the lengthy and uncertain publication process surrounding the original "proems," Osmond attempts to organize the works into distinct groups, establishing some definitive order. Vigour! The British composer Benjamin Britten set a selection of Illuminations to music. Chalets of crystal and wood that move on invisible rails and pulleys. And here, forms, sweats, hair and eyes, floating. As Osmond suggests, different ordering gives rise to different meaning in the poems. The beavers built. Above the line of highest crests, a sea troubled by Venus’ eternal birth, charged with orphic fleets and the murmur of precious pearls and conches – that sea darkens at times with mortal lightning. –, ‘Still Life of Boudoir’ When we are strong enough – who retreats? Wild and infinite impulse towards invisible splendours, intangible delights, with its maddening secrets for every vice and its frightening gaiety for the crowd. ‘The Crater of Mauna Loa, Hawaii’ Deepening a pleasant flavour of Chinese ink, a black powder falls gently on my vigil. Perfect unforeseen beings will offer themselves to your experiments. ", Noland, Carrie Jaurès, "Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as Social Deviance" in. A short bridge leads to a gate immediately below the dome of the Sainte-Chapelle. – Some are young – how do they view Cherubino? The coffee cups steamed in the bars. Hearse of my slumbers, isolate, shepherd’s hut of my foolishness, the vehicle turns on the turf of the abandoned highway: and in a flaw at the top of the right-hand window revolve pale lunar figures, leaves, breasts. The salesmen won’t have to claim their commission for a long while yet! Extrait texte du document: « Illuminations, les [Arthur Rimbaud] - fiche de lecture. And, while the frieze at the top of the picture is formed of the twisting and leaping murmur of the conches of human seas and nights. In improvised costumes of nightmarish taste they play romances, tragedies of bandits and demigods, spiritual as the tales and religions never were. – O world! It is this époque that has darkened!’. The translation of Illuminations from French to English proves a daunting task for the translator. Caravans departed. No shops to be seen, but the snow in the street is trampled; a few nabobs, rare as walkers on a London Sunday morning, move towards a diamond coach. Un-harnessing by a patch of gravel. It began in the laughter of children, it will finish so. I had in fact, in all sincerity, pledged to restore him to his primitive state as child of the sun – and we wandered, nourished on the wine of caves, and the biscuit of the road, myself impatient to find the place and the formula. Man of normal constitution, was the flesh not a fruit hung in the orchard, oh childish days! American composer Harold Blumenfeld devoted an entire decade immersing himself in Rimbaud,[39] producing four compositions, namely: La Face Cendrée, Ange de Flamme et de la Glace, Illuminations, and Carnet de damné. Learning that her half-brother was in possession of Rimbaud's texts, Mathilde expressly forbade de Sivry to return the manuscripts to Verlaine or to anyone else likely to publish them. What tedium, the hour of the ‘beloved body’ and ‘dear heart’! Bonjour, quelqu’un a parlé d’éloge de la création poétique. Écrit par Jean-Luc STEINMETZ • 5 067 mots Dans le chapitre « Les Illuminations » : [] Le titre d' Illuminations , quant à lui, si éblouissant soit-il, n'apparut jamais sous la plume de Rimbaud (aucun des manuscrits actuellement connus ne le comporte). Clusters of bell-towers sing the ideas of peoples. As soon as the idea of the Flood was finished, a hare halted in the clover and the trembling flower bells, and said its prayer to the rainbow through the spider’s web. Oh, we now so worthy of such tortures, let us fervently grasp this superhuman promise made to our created bodies and souls: this promise, this madness! On the left the ridge-mould is trampled by every murder, every battle, and every sound of disaster spins out its arc. – The masses, the golden roofs, the beautiful beasts still existed. Still seeking revenge over the destruction of her marriage by Rimbaud, Mathilde prohibited Verlaine from ever regaining possession of his former lover's manuscripts. Laughter of children, discretion of slaves, austerity of virgins, horror of the faces and objects here, hallowed be you by the memory of this vigil. [3] In large part, due to the circumstances surrounding the publication of the poems of Illuminations, there is no consensus as to the order in which Rimbaud intended the poems to appear. … In hours of bitterness I imagine balls of sapphire, of metal. 1 PRÉSENTATION Illuminations, les [Arthur Rimbaud] , recueil de poèmes en prose d’Arthur Rimbaud, paru pour la première fois en 1886 dans la revue symboliste la Vogue, dirigée par Gustave Kahn. There, the morality of living beings is disembodied in her passion or action. A choir of glass with nocturnal melodies...Indeed the nerves will soon be on the hunt. 18 uses nine prose poems: "Fanfare", "Villes", "Phrase", "Antique", "Royauté", "Marine", "Interlude", "Being Beauteous", "Parade", and "Départ". Though influenced by the earlier prose poems of Charles Baudelaire, the prose poems differ starkly from Baudelaire's in that they lack prosaic elements such as linear storytelling and transitions. New York: Athlone Press, 1993. I’m the traveller on the high road through the stunted woods: the roar of the sluices drowns out my steps. May we know on this winter night, from cape to cape, from tumultuous pole to chateau, from the crowd to the sands, from glance to glance, strength and feelings weary, how to hail him and see him, and send him on his way again, and under the tides and over the deserts of snow, follow his visions, his breaths, his body, his light. Then, in the burgeoning violet forest, Eucharis told me it was spring. Retrouvez le poème Mystique de Arthur Rimbaud extrait du recueil de poésie Les Illuminations en pdf, ebook, livre audio, vidéo, écoute, lecture libre, texte gratuit et … Lumière Brothers (c. 1898), Getty Open Content Program. I walked, waking vivid warm breaths, and the precious stones looked up, and wings rose without sound. O my Good! [6] These two poems are remarkable not only as exceptions within Illuminations itself, but as two of the first free verse poems written in the French language. An overcast July morning. 18, is a song cycle by Benjamin Britten, first performed in 1940.It is composed for soprano or tenor soloist and string orchestra, and sets verse and prose poems written in 1872–1873 by Arthur Rimbaud, part of his collection Les Illuminations Whose angle is battered by whirlwinds of light. Little drunken holy vigil! He has known us all and loved us all. Attributed to John Stewart (British, 1800 - 1887), Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard (French, 1802 - 1872) – endowed with frightening voices and dangerous resources. – The little brother – (he’s in India!) Eyes dazed like the summer night, red and black, tricolours, steel pricked with golden stars; features deformed, leaden, pallid, on fire; hoarse-throated frolickers! A Genie appeared, of ineffable even shameful beauty. I have been, at the foot of the bed-head supporting her adored jewels and her physical masterpieces, a large bear with violet gums, fur grizzled with sorrow, and eyes of crystal and the silver of console-tables. His step! Et … Osmond, Nick, ed. I mark the history of treasures you discovered. Old craters circled by colossi, and palm-trees of copper roaring melodiously in flames. It was much sadder than mourning. Fields of flame leap to the rounded hilltop. For Helen’s childhood thickets and shadows trembled, the breasts of the poor, and heavenly legends. The instructive voices exiled...physical ingenuousness bitterly stale...Adagio. The Southerly wind reminded me of wretched childhood events, my summer despair, the terrible quantity of strength and knowledge that fate has always kept far from me. Apparently, as he learned languages, Rimbaud kept lists of words he wished to use in poems. The anxious calculations on the fleeing deck. Yet the Prince passed away in his palace, at the customary age. The wall facing the watcher is a psychological succession of frieze-like intersections, atmospheric layers and geological undulations – Intense and rapid dream of deeply-felt groupings, with beings of all types in all perspectives. O his breaths, his heads, his running: the terrible swiftness of the perfection of forms and action! By Arthur Rimbaud. Par ailleurs, la fleur « qui [lui] dit son nom », et l’aube qui est personnifiée en « déesse » peuvent être considérées comme des personnages du récit. Also to every cult, in such a place of memorial cults and among such events that one must surrender, according to the aspirations of the moment or our own serious vices. In a cellar I learnt history. The first adventure, on the path already full of cool pale gleams, was a flower that told me its name. Master jugglers, they transform people and places and reveal magnetic stagecraft. Phenomena shifted about. [11], Because the poems of Illuminations are so diverse and self-contained, they cover a wide range of themes. This supports Rimbaud's role in revolutions as the Dadaist movement was a protest movement against capitalist ideals believed to be at the root of all war. In whatever evening, for instance, the simple tourist retiring from our economic horrors finds himself, the hand of a master wakes the harpsichord of meadows; cards are played in the depths of the pond, mirror, evoker of queens and favourites; there are saints, sails, and threads of harmony, and legendary chromaticism in the sunset. This evening, to Circeto of the icy heights, fat as a fish, and illuminated like the ten months of reddish light – (her heart amber and spunk) – my only prayer as silent as the regions of night and preceding acts of daring more violent than this polar chaos. – For the shipwrecked. When the world has reduced to a single dark wood for our four astonished eyes – to a beach for two loyal children – to a musical house for our clear sympathy – I will find you. Can it be that She will win pardon for my eternally crushed ambitions – that a comfortable ending will repair ages of poverty – that the day of success will lull us to sleep on the shame of our fatal clumsiness? The little hills are covered with broom. ‘Statue of Christ, Reims Cathedral’ We use cookies for social media and essential site functions. there, in front of the sunset, in the meadow of carnations. In an attic where I was imprisoned when I was twelve, I knew the world, I illustrated the human comedy. The Mass and first communions were celebrated at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral. He set fire to palaces. – One sees, rolling by like a dyke beyond the hydraulically-powered road. Tie yourself to us with your impossible voice, that voice! Some of these bridges are still covered with hovels. Henri Le Secq (French, 1818 - 1882), Getty Open Content Program. Desperadoes long for storms, drunkenness and wounds. Getty Open Content Program. They are in the south. I could show you unknown riches. The same bourgeois magic wherever the packet-boat deposits us! The crowds of shadows had not yet left the woodland road. They swooned against each other. Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820 - 1884), Getty Open Content Program. My duty has ceased. Other composers inspired by Rimbaud are Bulgarian composer Henri Lazarof and German composers Georg Katzer and Andreas Staffel (born 1965). Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations, Phrases. Translation of 'Illuminations – 12 – Phrases' by Arthur Rimbaud (Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud) from French to English Il est égalemen… Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820 - 1884), Getty Open Content Program. After this vaguely hygienic diversion, I would stretch out on the straw mattress. At present, a gentleman of a harsh country under a sober sky, I try to be moved by the memory of my beggarly childhood, of my apprenticeship and arrival in clogs, my polemics, my five or six widowhoods, and a few binges when my strong head prevented me rising to my comrades’ diapason. What is my nothingness, compared with the stupor that awaits you? Her solitude is the erotic machinery; her lassitude, the amorous dynamic. He amused himself cutting the throats of rare creatures. The sluice gate is raised. The swarm of golden leaves surrounds the General’s house. Now, the eternal inflection of moments and the infinity of mathematics drive me through this world where I submit to every civic honour, respected by strange children and enormous affections. At the sides only the thickness of the globe. Indeed, they were kings the whole morning, while carmine hangings festooned the houses, and all afternoon, as they advanced towards the gardens of palm-trees. [27], Rimbaud was the subject of an entire chapter in Paul Verlaine's Les Poètes maudits, showing the older poet's devotion to and belief in his young lover. [34] Knowing little about Rimbaud, the editor Gustave Kahn mistakenly introduced him as "the late Arthur Rimbaud", thereby facilitating his adoption by the Symbolists as a legendary poetic figure. Felice Beato (English, born Italy, 1832 - 1909), Getty Open Content Program. The air is motionless. [33] Parallel text has been adopted to make the reading more manageable for the literary audience, and although this is known to "cramp" a translator's style, Harding & Sturrock chose to do so for the sake of their readers. [21] With a view to publishing the complete works, Verlaine inserted into the original manuscript poems written in 1872 along with texts Rimbaud had given to Nouveau. For men. You are still at the temptation of Anthony. The weather was overcast, and that Southerly wind stirred all the vile odours from ravaged gardens and parched meadows. I can even see the old women still, of that time and place! [12] Another major theme in Illuminations is the city, most evident in the poem "Ville". Keystone View Company (1920), Getty Open Content Program. ‘A Flood in Lyon’ Everything monstrous violates Hortense’s atrocious gestures. ‘From Ivanif [sic] Tower, Kremlin, Moscow’ – In the service of the most monstrous exploitations, industrial or military. [4] Despite this ostensible controversy, a large number of scholars have declared the order of Illuminations to be irrelevant. Blumenfeld's two-part orchestral work, Illuminations, is based on five prose poems from Rimbaud's work: "Mystique", "Diluvial"[dubious – discuss], "Après le déluge", "À une raison", and "Soir historique". Illuminations is an incomplete suite of prose poems by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, first published partially in La Vogue [fr], a Paris literary review, in May–June 1886. In the big greenhouse that was still streaming, the children in mourning looked at the marvellous pictures. Roger Fenton (English, 1819 - 1869), Getty Open Content Program. What kind arms, what sweet hour will recover that region from which my slumbers and slightest movements come? Nothing, in any case, of its present seeming. RIMBAUD ARTHUR. The beloved. The water is grey and blue, wide as an arm of the sea. Imprimer ce poème. For example, the poem "Being Beauteous" has an English title, even in the original French. Le "rimbaldisme" se prête aux rèveries de celui qui s'y adonne. Like Dadaists, Surrealists do not accept rationality as they believe it to be the cause of unhappiness and injustice. From the desert of bitumen, in headlong flight under sheets of fog spread in frightful layers through the sky that curves, retreats, descends formed of deeply sinister black smoke that the Ocean in mourning delivers, flee helmets, wheels, ships, cruppers – The battle! ‘Haut Rhine’ Les textes des Illuminations - quarante-deux ou quarante-quatre, selon les éditions - sont, dans l'ensemble, relativement brefs et divisés en quelques paragraphes qui rythment la prose, scandent le parcours poétique. Because since they abated – oh, the precious stones burying themselves and the opened flowers! A Norwegian Nebuchadnezzar designed the steps of the ministries; the minor officials I saw are, as it is, prouder than Brahmins, and I trembled at the aspects of the guardians of those colossi and their site supervisors. They have reproduced, with singularly appalling taste, all the classical architectural wonders. I can’t regret my old part in divine gaiety: the sober air of this harsh country feeds the depths of my atrocious scepticism. ‘The flag goes with the foul landscape, and our dialect muffles the drum. I smiled at the blond dishevelled waterfall among the fir trees: on the silvered peak I recognised the Goddess.