samedi 2 octobre 2010

Morning : excellent and fair


'This was not judgment day– only morning. Morning : excellent and fair.'

En général, je suis surtout fan des incipit. Mais il y a quelques explicit qui m'ont remuée à eux seuls autant que tout le roman qu'ils fermaient. Par exemple le 'I have had my vision', à la fin de To the Lighthouse. Et là, celui de Sophie's Choice, au débouché d'un long roman sombre et saccadé de lumière comme l'orage, comme les états d'âme de Nathan :

I had abominable dreams – which seemed to be a compendium of all the tales of Edgar Allan Poe : myself being split in twain by monstruous mechanisms, drowned in a whirling vortex of mud, being immured in stone and, most fearsomely, buried alive. All night long I had the sensation of helplessness, speechlessness, an inability to move or cry against the inexorable weight of earth as it was flung in thud-thud-thuding rhythm against my rigidly paralyzed, supine body, a living cadaver being prepared for burial in the sands of Egypt. The desert was bitterly cold.
When I awoke it was early morning. I lay looking straight up at the blue-green sky with its translucent shawl of mist; like a tiny orb or crystal, solitary and serene, Venus shone through the haze above the quiet ocean. I heard children chattering nearby. I stirred. 'Izzy, he's awake!''G'wan, yah mutha's mustache!''Fuuuck you!' Blessing my resurrection, I realized that the children had covered me with sand, protectively, and that I lay as safe as a mummy beneath this fine, envelopping overcoat. It was then in my mind I inscribed the words : 'Neath cold sand I dreamed of death/but woke at dawn to see/in glory, the bright, the morning star.
This was not judgment day– only morning. Morning : excellent and fair.


Dans la vie on prend toujours le mauvais chemin au bon moment. Dany Laferrière.