The Sorcerer's Apprentice by François Augiéras

Author:François Augiéras [Augiéras, François]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: French Literature, Classics, Esoteric, Fiction
ISBN: 9781782270409
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 1964-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TREMBLING WITH FEVER and cold, I got into bed. Once I was between the sheets my strength of character quickly asserted itself over my tiredness and after a little warmth and rest I was soon myself again. It must have been around three in the morning. My priest did not seem to have returned and I was not displeased to find myself alone. No desire for sleep closed my eyes; on the contrary, the desire to take up pen and ink kept me awake. Delighted, worn-out, home again, I could think of nothing but writing.

The night air touched the flame of my little candle but it scarcely quivered. Exquisite moments at the end of the night. Not a breath of wind. You can see nothing of the World. It is an absence of everything; the seconds are no longer composed of anything; everything seems suspended. The motionless air doesn’t shake a single branch; not one bird sings. All you can feel is the intense, all-pervading spell of the supreme life of earth and sky, so powerfully, that all you have to do is dip into it to draw out what you want. From my bedroom, with the window open, I could only discern the nearness of our trees from faint scents of sap, and the presence of the vast Sarladais from other scents carried by the river, whose whisperings I could hear.

My candle spread a halo of calm light, soft and golden. I watched, and saw myself as being like that little flame, whose glow stood in stubborn opposition to the tranquil shadows.

Is a book born when the idea you already have of it drives away sleep? My solitude and that mad side of me which came from my errant ways presaged nothing good. Knowing myself as I did, I was expecting nothing but the worst. I had read few books, and always at top speed; I was keenly aware that my knowledge of French was rather poor; I spoke it as I heard it, according to sound, hearsay, music, without spelling and without grammar. I lived beside the springs and the woods, with just enough learning to write humbly; this did not give me much hope of creating a work I could feel vain about, which could give a reader pleasure and gain his attention.

In my head, old sentences drawn from old books were mixed up with village expressions, curious provincial turns of phrase, the artless candour of common folk. A tissue of weaknesses run through with follies and naïvety, that was the sort of book I could be the author of.

Despite the keenness of my joy and the possibility that I might wrest it from oblivion, my ability to achieve it seemed to me to be particularly feeble. My isolation plunged me into despair. Can you imagine that: extreme solitude? The only people who had shown me friendship were beings as lost as myself, a priest and a child, and what a priest! It was enough to make

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