Into the Sun by C. F. Ramuz

Author:C. F. Ramuz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Directions

XIX

Hello anyway! Hello, all!

Hello! again and anyway, you from here, and you from farther away,—from the lands downstream, from the lands upstream, from towns and from hinterlands. All of the lands along the Rhône are mine, even if you are only a painted canvas stretched across nothing at all, as on a theater stage, where we act and then we roll you back up.

Even if you are nothing but lies and only for a time,—precisely because of that, perhaps, and while you are here.

You are starting to lean, you are starting to loosen, like a sail when there’s less wind; so I will look at you again, love you once more,—seeing you better, loving you better because I know that I won’t see you again, because I am at the end of loving you.

I said hello to you, I will say hello to you again. Because you are here, because you will no longer be here, O paintings, painted things, things stretched before us with a bit of color, and with parts that are starting to peel …

Painting of green, blue, white, gray, painting of grass, water, rock, O valley, O double ledge, sometimes widened, sometimes narrowed. Double rocky coast with water in the space between, which is before my eyes here, then I will go to look for it farther in thought, I’ll continue, starting at its two ends in thought, and I’ll paint it for myself within me one more time.

Hello! again, hello to the real coast! And hello to the imaginary coast, the one I still imagine, as when the potter makes his vase, having first fashioned it in his head, then gradually coaxing his conception out of the clay, making the form descend from his head along his arms all the way down through his fingers.

Because you’re here, because you’re mine, because I hold you before me; and once more, in your flow, I stop you, I fix you.

Oh! you, painted lands, but you will be unpainted, so I must quickly paint you again.

The boat was moving over the water, the boat will stop moving: the boat will start to move again. I make the branch of the fig tree budge in a different kind of movement. I have the sound, the word, the color. I have lines, I have surfaces; I put in place, I make stand straight, I make rise, I make happen, I make stop happening.

Things, you alone can go,—I’ve seen enough of you, you don’t contain me anymore, I am the one who contains you, it’s my turn, you are sufficiently mine.

First taught by you, now teaching you.

Oh! taught by you, and for so long, I know; since I was very young, taught by you, because you were already coming when I didn’t know how to hear, I already saw you when I didn’t know how to see, Rhône-lake, and you already here;—coming with your cadences day and night, teaching me my accent, teaching me about recurrences, teaching me about duration; with

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