One evening, let us say, when the naïve tourist, isolated from our economic horrors, finds himself, a master’s hand brings to life the harpsichord of the meadows; people are playing cards at the bottom of the lake, a mirror showing queens and sweethearts; we have holy women, veils and threads of harmony, and legendary chromatic tones, in the light of the setting sun.
He shudders as hunts and hordes pass by. Theatre drips onto the grass stage. Oh, the confusion of the poor and weak on these stupid levels!
A slave to its vision, Germany rises up towards moons; the Tartar deserts light up; old revolts swarm at the centre of the Celestial Empire; by the rock stairs and armchairs a small world, pale and flat, Africa and Occidents, is about to be constructed. Then a ballet of known seas and nights, a valueless chemistry, and impossible melodies.
The same bourgeois magic at all the ports where the packet boat deposits us. The most rudimentary physician feels that it is no longer possible to put up with this idiosyncratic atmosphere, a mist of physical remorse, the very sight of which is an affliction.
No! It is the time of the sweating-room, of the seas rolled back, of the underground blazes, of the planet torn from its orbit, and of the resulting exterminations, certitudes foretold with so little spite in the Bible and by the Norns and which it will be up to the serious person to watch out for. – However, it will not look anything like a legend!
Note : These translations by Robert Yates will eventually be published by Poetry in Translation editor Sebastian Hayes. S.H.
