He was simple in his dress, meticulously clean, and smelt of primrose soap.
—Anatole France, Little Pierre
—Anatole France, Little Pierre
Tonight, I dreamed of my gas station attendant. He’d fallen for me, and he was lathering my car. I was sitting behind the steering wheel, and he, outside, was rubbing in wide arcs. His sponge foamed, foamed, and with this foam, he covered the roof, the doors, the windows.
I could no longer see anything. I was cut off from the world. All around me, I felt the hands of my attendant rubbing and rubbing their soapy sponge over the body of the car.
Suddenly, my attendant was next to me on the seat. We were both hidden from sight, sheltered under the thick white foam.
The other vehicles were honking, honking, waiting behind us in line for the pump. But the attendant and I were invisible. And I liked the scent of the soap on his wet hands.
I dreamed of my attendant, and nothing will ever be the same. When I saw him this morning at the gas station and he asked me, “Want me to clean your windshield?” I had such a brutal desire to be a sponge, a sponge in his hand, and I felt the shock of the icy water in the pail where he plunged me before stroking me over the window.
The Sea Lion Trainer
. . . to drown in the abyss—heaven or hell, Who cares?
Through the unknown, we’ll find the new.
—Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
Through the unknown, we’ll find the new.
—Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
“Why do you never dream about me?” asked Herbert, the sea lion trainer. “I’m a handsome man, after all. Look at my red jacket. My fringed epaulettes. My gold brandenburgs. And my boots? My tall, scarlet boots? Go on, make an effort! Dream of me!”
Herbert certainly makes big claims! There he is, parading himself in the middle of the ring under the trusting watch of his ten lovable circus animals, his ten docile pinnipeds with handsome smiling faces that, vibrissae trembling, follow him seriously with their large, damp eyes. He doesn’t doubt himself for a minute! The world is his oyster! His wish is his demand!
“Make an effort! Dream of me!”
Of course, Herbert! You only had to ask! I dream on command. Soon, with some practice, I’ll be spinning a ball on my nose, I’ll waddle from one side of the ring to the other, I’ll haul myself, fat and shining, onto one of your red and yellow stands, and I’ll applaud Herbert wildly, clapping my flippers at his entry into the ring.
Since, in spite of a persistent odor of herring, the dear Herbert—I’m forced to admit—does boast several physical advantages, I did what I could last night, after all was said and done. Honestly, I tried. I thought very hard of the gold brandenburgs and the red boots. And I was almost there. I brushed against Herbert in my dream. Then it veered off course. Only slightly, but all the same . . . It wasn’t Herbert.
Instead, I swam alongside an elephant seal. I was under it. Against it. Stomach to stomach. My bare skin flush against its thick pelt. I had taken the precaution of tucking my hair into my shower cap because the huge, wild animal liked to dive deep.
The animal seemed to welcome my presence graciously, twirled supplely, and, very considerately, resurfaced from time to time so that I could take a breath. I did my part by holding on with all my strength and gluing my chest to the animal’s belly.
An elephant seal is remarkably refreshing. You leave feeling completely revitalized. Much more so than with a sea lion trainer in a tailcoat with brandenburgs, even if he is shod in scarlet boots.
The Hunter
The trees in the forests are beautiful women
Whose unseen bodies live beneath the bark.
Their tresses are showered with purest waters and
Dried by wind that restores their shaded crowns.
—Pierre Louÿs, “The Trees of the Forests”
Whose unseen bodies live beneath the bark.
Their tresses are showered with purest waters and
Dried by wind that restores their shaded crowns.
—Pierre Louÿs, “The Trees of the Forests”
I’m a shaded forest. I have tall trees with dark roots, dense copses and murky old growth, ravines, undergrowth, nettles, and brambles. I have immense beech trees and proud oaks. I have clearings, too, gaps in the brush where the moon penetrates and caresses my moss. I have fairies, witches, ogresses, elves. I have divinities, nymphs, undines, and charming dryads lounging placidly within my canopy. And I have does, of course, and vixens, and ladybugs, damselflies, every sort of insect that crawls and that flies and that you can’t even see. I’m a forest inhabited by mystery, filled with the fluttering of wings, with silent flight, with whispered movements, with quivering, with animal cries. A forest alive with its humming, its uneasy hooting, its crazed calls.
Tonight, however, I’m a forest that stifles its murmurs, I restrain my birdsong, I repress my rustlings. Because tonight, I am an amorous forest, watching and waiting.
He’s there. At my edge. He’s not a botanist. He walks too quickly. Also, he doesn't have that delicate way of using two fingers to pluck one of my Endymions, nor that delicious habit of brushing the fronds of my ferns as he passes. No, he’s not a botanist. And in any case, he’s not carrying a collecting box.
He’s not a woodcutter either. He walks like a warrior, and he’s not carrying an axe. What’s that he’s carrying over his shoulder, not a tool and vaguely threatening? A weapon? A gun! Our man is a hunter! Also, he’s in a hurry and presses forward, neck tensed—Onward!—straight ahead. He enters my dream without even a glance in my direction, with the insolence of a true hunter, crushes my hyacinths, tramples my primroses. He enters my dream without even seeing that it’s a dream.
I block his progress with one of my low-hanging branches. He hits his forehead on it. Will he finally see me? My brambles thicken and cut him off. Now will he see me? I feel him as he roughly treads my paths—Onward! Onward! He inspects me and searches deep within me, excavates, furrows. I make myself dense, thick, full, impenetrable. I make myself luxurious, shadowy, tangled. My hunter grows fearful. My hunter tries to run away. But my brush, my bushes, my thickets, my thorny shrubs bring him to a halt.
My hunter is lost. He knows he’s my prisoner. Finally he slows his pace. Finally he surrenders. Finally his dragging footsteps softly stroke me.
He sets down his gun, removes his cartridge belt, pulls off his tall boots, stretches out in my undergrowth, rolls over my moss. He tastes its delight, its silk, its velvet, and the exquisitely damp warmth secreted within my wet earth. He stretches, groans, yawns, contemplates my foliage draping over him like glossy tresses, breathes its perfume and its dewy scent of life pervaded by the night. My dryads sigh from the treetops.
In the mute gleam of a white moonbeam, my indiscreet ferns unfurl to peer at him, my damselflies flit over him in their probing flight, and I feel his heart beating against me. From within my humus, from the depths of my peat, from below my roots, I feel the rumble of his life.
