The valley is a long way off. A long way down. A long way behind the dark mountains that encompass the horizon. I arrived late last night; I couldn’t see anything, except that the road went uphill, climbed for a long time, and that the sky was curtailed. Standing at the window of my room, I feel as though I am soaring over a land that falls away into the unknown. The mountains... I had never been to the mountains before. “Come on,” Eagle had said, “I’m going to be spending the summer with my grandparents; you can almost touch the sky, you’ll see!” School would be over in a few days time; my parents approved – “Mountain air is good for you!” – and all that remained was to set off.
I have woken late, which is unusual for me. The air is quiet... I couldn’t tell you what that means. The feeling of having slept well, pleasantly. I go downstairs; everyone is already up, of course.
“People tend to sleep well in the mountains!” cries Eagle merrily.
“What your friend needs most is a good breakfast,” says Grandmother firmly. “The mountain air makes you hungry!”
It’s true, I really am hungry. Breakfast is copious. I never eat that much at home. The grandparents ask me questions, kindly; about my life, about my studies. They don’t ask me “Everything going well at school?” as I so often hear – but does anyone even listen to the answer?
“Are you happy with what they’re teaching you?” asks Grandfather.
“I am happy,” I answer willingly, “though there are some things...”
“... you can’t see the point of!” Grandfather finishes my sentence on a playful note.
Grandmother carries on, with a kind, slightly mocking smile:
“Our grandson thinks the same thing. I see you get on well together!”
I don’t quite know what to say; Eagle comes to my aid:
“Grandfather compares school to a library; you never know which book you may need one day.”
Grandfather nods. An idea comes to me:
“The more I read one book, the less I can read others.”
Grandfather has listened carefully.
“Most of all, you should never go against your own nature,” Grandmother says to me with a smile.
“Have you never been to the mountains before?” Grandfather asks me.
I tell him it’s my first time.
“So you haven’t had time yet to realise...”
“I don’t think we’ve given him much time for that,” Grandmother says.
“We should go back up,” Eagle cuts in. “You haven’t had time to settle in either. Don’t forget, we’re here for ages!”
The grandparents chuckle. We go upstairs.
“Grandfather is a real fount of knowledge,” Eagle says mockingly.
“He is indeed!” I answer vehemently. “You told me yourself that he knows trees better than anyone!”
“That’s true. I was just kidding.”
I look through the window at the forest that clings to the steep slope of the mountain. I hear myself murmur:
“They’re not just trees, they’re also so many things... so many beautiful things that your grandfather has made.”
Eagle has heard me; he starts to laugh:
“Do you see tables and wardrobes in the forest?”
I give him a friendly shove:
“Just because I can see better than you!”
Eagle feigns admiration:
“How wonderful! And how useful that will be for you in the mountains; everything you look at is a very long way off!”
The valley... It’s a long way off too. But how can I know it’s a long way off, if I can’t even see it?
“Can you go to where it’s a long way off?”
My question has surprised him.
“Of course...” he begins.
Something has stopped him. He goes on:
“Yes, you can go there.”
He hesitates, then finishes up:
“But it’s even further than what you can see.”
So the valley is that far away... I suddenly feel myself in a solitary world, a world from which I can no longer return, a world whose life is not the life I have always known. And yet I am not scared; no, my instinct murmurs to me “The mountains protect you...”
“Where do you want to go?”
Eagle sounds anxious. Is he afraid I want to run away? I reassure him:
“Nowhere. I feel fine here. Like in a house.”
“Like in a house?”
“Yes. The mountains. They’re like a great big house. A great big house of which yours is a part, and in which I feel at home, at peace.”
Eagle is silent for a long time. Then he says in a serious voice:
“I was afraid you wouldn’t like it in the mountains; you’ve never been before.”
His mood suddenly shifts and he cries:
“Three cheers for the mountain-dweller!”
We both laugh long and loud, exchanging friendly punches.
A good part of the afternoon was spent tidying up. Eagle – for what else could the master of the mountains be called? – then showed me the house and its secrets. The secrets were the lovely tools with which Grandfather, not so very long ago, used to make so many of the beautiful things I had seen in Eagle’s room, in the city where we live and where we both go to school.
It’s nearly tea-time; we go down to the dining-room to join the grandparents. Grandmother asks me if I’ve settled in. I talk of the view from my window, which impresses me so much. Grandmother seems surprised:
“The view?”
I don’t understand her question. Grandfather has twigged.
“The view from the room is of the mountains,” he explains to Grandmother.
Now Grandmother too has got it.
“We’re used to it here, you know,” she says to me with a smile.
Then she adds:
“But I’m glad you like it.”
The talk is about me again, my tastes, what I like to read, what I like to do outside school. They listen to me. I’m not used to it. I talk with pleasure; thoughts come in such abundance that I’m not able to get them all out. Eagle says nothing, a contented little smile on his lips – he knows how reluctant I am usually to answer grown-ups’ questions. Suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, he bursts out:
“I’m glad you came!”
The Grandparents nod warmly. The mountains are a lovely house...
The sun has come to wake me, shooting me a quick glance through a fracture in the mountain. It must be very early. The cool of the night is still there, entering through the half-open window. The sun is hiding but can still be guessed in the halo that crowns the peaks.
The household is also awake; mountain folk get up earlier than city folk. Perhaps because there’s nothing to see in the city. The sky that colours with imperceptibly changing hues, the trees that seem to tremble with little specks of light that the sun sprinkles on them, the river whose glint I catch sight of only for moments: how ever could I see them through the bustling streets of my city?
“Ah! Just in time to go and fetch the milk!”
Grandmother is already preparing breakfast. She asks me if getting up so early doesn’t bother me.
“My grandson wanted to wake you, but I wouldn’t let him,” she says with a smile.
The grandson protests:
“The sun was already up!”
“Let’s go. I’m sure you need the help,” I say condescendingly.
He doesn’t bother to give me an answer and pushes me through the door.
“If you find it hard going I can give you a tow!” he cries.
The slope is steep, the hamlet climbs bravely up the mountainside. I take a deep breath and set off at a sprint. Eagle can’t catch me. I turn round, striking a victorious pose. He is a little lower down, standing with arms folded, a sardonic glint in his eye.
“The milk’s here. Run if you like, but it’s a good idea to know where you’re going first!”
He’s right, of course. I make amends and head back down to the neighbours’ house where the grandparents get their milk and other good things. The neighbours are fond of Eagle and happy to see him again; and me too, since I’m his friend. A few words that would have been ridiculous in the city but seem full here; milk, eggs... they say: the cow, the chickens... Eagle thanks them and calls “See you tomorrow!” The neighbours are expecting their daughter, who is coming for the holidays. “Her school’s in the city.”
Breakfast is waiting for us. The milk isn’t like the milk I drink at home. Here, you eat it more than drink it. Grandfather tells us about the hamlet, what the people do. When I say “us,” it’s me he talks to; Eagle knows. Not everyone is there, some have gone up into the mountains with the livestock, others have gone to sell their produce in town...
“There’s not a lot of entertainment here,” says Grandmother.
Is she worried? Eagle starts to say something but I get there first:
“I’m not looking for entertainment; I’m like your grandson. We like to talk, about our ideas, about life... and what we learn at school, too... and we like walking – and talking...”
I add in a rush:
“There’s no end to it here!”
The grandparents are listening attentively. I go on:
“I like to dream...”
Eagle interrupts me with a laugh:
“Even in class!”
Grandfather protests:
“That doesn’t sound like him!”
Grandmother echoes his opinion. I want to talk just as much as before:
“The city hums. Here, the valley is a long way off. I can gaze at the sky without the mountains asking why I’m looking up.”
The morning is spent doing little jobs to help Grandmother, who is always telling us to go and do more interesting things. After lunch, Eagle suggests going for a hike the following day – “You can see the sun and the whole landscape!” Proposal accepted.
We set off early. Not walking, but climbing between the dense trees of the forest that invades the mountain above the hamlet. There is no path, but Eagle knows which trees to pass between. We reach the top. Down below, the hamlet, slipping on the slope but never falling; ahead, walls of trees, walls without end. I dream of being on the ocean in the middle of a storm, the treetops breaking waves, the hamlet a boat doing its best not to founder.
“Sit down, why don’t you? The view’s just as good!”
Eagle dispels my dream. I sit down. A rock becomes a seat. The ocean has gone but the mountain is there, firmly holding up the hamlet down below us.
“I’d already seen photos of the mountains, but not this stillness.”
A long, still smile answers me. We sit in silence, looking out, absorbing the solitude. I had learnt that shepherds stayed alone for a long time with their sheep: it had seemed impossible. Now I understood. Marvellous things could chance by at any time, from the bed of the river we couldn’t see or from the slope hidden on the other side of the great peaks. What lay behind those silent crests?
“I change worlds when I come here,” says Eagle softly.
The silence that surrounds us remains unbroken. He goes on:
“I don’t have any particular complaint when I’m in the city. Neither at home, nor at school. Nor about our schoolmates. Nor about... about...
He smiles sadly.
“In a word, everything’s fine. Yes, I know, some little upsets from time to time – unpleasantries even – though really nothing serious. But I have to live with others. No, it’s not with, with isn’t necessarily a problem, it’s... I don’t know how to say it, maybe don’t even know how to think it... I don’t know, living in... In doesn’t mean anything, you don’t live in other people! I don’t know...”
He falls silent. Does he expect me to say something? If so, what? I felt the same thoughts while he was talking. I don’t know how to explain them any better than he does. He goes on:
“Our whole life depends on those who live with us. They expect something from us and we expect something from them. There’s nothing to argue about; life in the city couldn’t exist in any other way. Here we’re alone. Our life depends only on the sun. And we couldn’t survive the way we are.”
He falls silent again. The city is down there, at the far end of the valley. I say softly:
“When we go back down to the valley, the crowd will be all around us; we’ll have to try and glimpse the mountains through the crowd. The mountains where we feel so good, and where we cannot live.”
Hiking here isn’t like going for a walk in the valley. You have to detect the narrow and often precipitous tracks, climb up and down between the trees, hang on to branches on the steep slope... and gaze at the inaccessible peaks, the flowers that strew the path and that Eagle never tramples, the forest where the trees cling tightly to each other, the pastures in which the animals amble around and which seem to faint away into the sky.
We are exhausted at dinner-time. Grandfather reassures me:
“You’ll be fine in a couple of days, you’ll soon get used to it.”
“Eagle is much less tired than I am,” I reply modestly.
Grandfather chuckles:
“That’s normal for a bird... seeing as you call him Eagle!”
I tell them of my wonderments. Grandmother gives me a smile:
“You like the mountains. City folk get bored here; they always need something to entertain them.”
The day is over. I go to sleep without a thought.
Eagle hasn’t got up early either.
“The sun’s already up!” I tease him.
“However did you notice?” he ripostes.
It’s not an argument anyone is going to win so we go and fetch the milk. The neighbours’ daughter arrived yesterday evening and comes to meet us.
I am surprised. I was expecting a country lass. Yet I had already noticed yesterday that the mountains are not the countryside. Living in a city, I’m not really familiar with the countryside, and even less so with the mountains. And yet the impressions are vivid; in the countryside you’re at home outside, in the mountains you’re at home inside. And where are you at home in the city? I don’t know. What is it like when you’re in a fortress? Are you protected or shut in? Or both? My instinct had murmured “The mountains protect you...” I haven’t felt shut in, here in the mountains. In the city the question had never occurred to me. No, I’m not shut in in the city, I can leave whenever I like; in a fortress you have to ask permission. But in the mountains I don’t need to leave, everything is already here. The neighbours’ daughter is a mountain lass. What makes me say that? Her determined look? Lots of girls have a determined look. I’d say rather that she sets her foot down firmly on ground she’s sure of.
“You’ve come to get the milk!”
Her voice is clear. Eagle tells her about me. How do I get the impression she already knows me? From the quick nod that seemed to say yes to Eagle when he told her about me?
After breakfast, Eagle takes me off to spend the morning talking about “the Universe and the Rest,” as we call our usual conversations. We go and sit on the patch of grass at the bottom of the hamlet, from whence we can see the river as it hastens down into the valley.
“She’s very nice but a bit of a handful,” Eagle tells me. “It can be a bit awkward...”
“A bit of a temper?”
“No, not at all. But you can never take it easy with her. She’s bursting with curiosity about everything, and she knows an awful lot. She’s in the same class as us even though she’s a good year younger... It’s not always easy to keep up with her.”
I remember what I thought earlier:
“She seemed to go right through me.”
Eagle looks a bit taken back, then says:
“I’m not surprised to hear you say that. I suppose she does have a... penetrating way about her.”
“And at school?”
“Always top.”
“I’d never dare talk to her.”
Eagle laughs:
“You won’t have to! She’ll get there first.”
He adds, slightly mockingly:
“But watch out with your answers, otherwise you might get a bad mark!”
Now that really does concern me:
“You’re worrying me...”
He laughs again:
“No, no, just joking. She’s very nice really; you’ll see.”
“You already told me that. So she’ll very nicely take the mickey out of me!”
He laughs some more:
“Well, you’ll just have to try harder, for once!”
Seeing my face fall, he reassures me:
“I’m only joking. You won’t have any trouble. It’s just that she’s not stupid. And talking with her is always interesting.”
After lunch we go with Grandfather to the nearby town to do some shopping. The road isn’t like the one in the valley; I never know where it’s going. In the distance, almost behind me, a village. The road turns, then turns some more, then turns back on itself, and there we are in the village that seemed to be getting further away. Finally we reach the town. It’s quiet, quieter than where I am down in the valley; things seem to move slowly and yet everything gets done without anyone quite realising. Perhaps because there’s nothing unnecessary to disturb life’s flow. In my city I sometimes feel as though I’m in a dream in which everything bobs about fretfully but when you wake up nothing’s moved. In this little town, I feel something like a stream that nothing can stop. Is the neighbours’ daughter like that stream?
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of entertainment. During the evening we watch a film, all together.
The morning milk. Eagle asks the neighbours’ daughter if she wants to come with us up the mountain where we were yesterday, a place she too knows well. “I’ve got a lot on today, but tomorrow with pleasure!” she answers with a smile.
I’ve never drunk so much milk at breakfast before.
“You really like milk!” exclaims Grandmother.
“It’s not as good as this in the city,” I reply admiringly.
“It’s straight from the cow here. Not everyone likes it that fresh.”
Grandfather mutters:
“There’s lots of things not everyone likes here.”
I am surprised:
“Such as what?”
“Life’s simple here,” he answers, sounding disillusioned. “City folk find it boring. They want events to stimulate their minds dulled by nothing but nature.”
He ponders for a moment, then carries on wistfully:
“Yet will a tree stop bearing fruit if it sees nothing but the sun, rain and wind?”
The morning passes quickly, doing this and that, helping Grandmother. After lunch we head down to the patch of grass at the bottom of the hamlet; the river is still splashing its way down... the valley is waiting for it...
“But nobody’s waiting for us, we’re on holiday!” declares Eagle brightly.
“Yes, nobody’s waiting for us...”
“Does that make you sad?”
I laugh:
“No, not in the least! I was just thinking we are truly alone if nobody is waiting for us...”
“We’re not alone, we’re together.”
“Yes, but if I’m not there, you’re waiting for me, and vice versa.”
“OK, but there are the parents, school friends...”
“You see? People are waiting for us!”
He gives me a sideways glance.
“There you go, complicating things again. Explain!”
“I think I should have said the people who might need us.”
“Yes, we have to be helpful, I know. But I don’t know what else you can say.”
“Animals don’t look after each other...”
He cuts me off:
“What do you know about it? For a start, there are animals that live in groups. And then, animals look after their young as well.”
“Yes, they have to survive. Humans live in groups too. And survive as they can, the same as animals.”
“I don’t get it. I just thought...”
I interrupt him:
“At school; I know. You’re right, nobody is waiting for us to recite a lesson.”
“That’s all I... No, it isn’t all! We can decide for ourselves...”
“Would you upset your grandparents?”
That riles him:
“Don’t be silly! I wasn’t talking about going off the rails!”
He suddenly sounds angry:
“I get it. We’ll always be slaves.”
“Animals are neither free nor slaves. They survive, the species will get by somehow.”
“So are we waiting for anything other than to survive?”
“Maybe. Maybe to become something else without waiting for nature to do it in our place.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Eagle finally declares:
“In that case, it’s nature we mistrust. And hence ourselves. And as other people are like us, they expect from us... the impossible, I suppose.”
The neighbours’ daughter climbs quickly. I find her rather hard to follow. Not that she’s quicker than me – I’m a fast runner – but she instinctively guesses each gap between the trees, each rock to get a foothold on, each treachery of the slippery slope. Eagle follows – he knows the place too – but his movements are more considered, less natural. Half-way up, a really steep bit; we need to take care. Suddenly, the neighbours’ daughter careers down the slope, hangs on to a branch that bends almost to the ground, leans over to grab something, then clambers back up, crawling more than climbing.
“Here,” she says to me. “I went to pick a gentian to celebrate your arrival!”
She holds out a flower – it looks like a slim, elegant little vase – its colour a tender blue that sings.
“The vase is its corolla,” she tells me with a laugh.
She looks down and shows me the plant whose flower she has picked:
“It has other flowers, it’s still alive.”
I am taken aback. I try to say thank you, which comes out as a sort of gurgle, and end with a big smile which Gentian – I mean the neighbours’ daughter, I think I’m getting all muddled up – must find ridiculous. No; she answers me with a kind and simple smile:
“It’s good you came; Eagle will be happy not to be on his own all summer.”
We look at her, slightly surprised. Her eyes have a mischievous glint:
“Your grandfather told me. I hope you won’t fly away! And is your friend a big bird too?”
“No, he’s the Mountain-dweller!”
“The Mountain-dweller?”
“Yes, he told me the mountains were a great big house and he felt at home there.”
She looks at me closely:
“People only pass by in the mountains; they wouldn’t know what to do with a great big house.”
I feel more comfortable all of a sudden:
“And now I have a lovely flower in my great big house. Gentian gave it to me.”
I didn’t realise how tired yesterday’s hike had made me until I woke up, late and feeling lazy.
“Gentian’s a fast walker!” Eagle has said to me with a laugh.
The morning is spent as usual doing little jobs around the house, despite Grandmother who, as usual, chases us out so that we can do “nicer things”. At lunch Grandfather sings Gentian’s praises: “She’s got a good head on her shoulders, she knows what she wants!” Grandmother adds warmly: “She’s a good soul!”
In the afternoon we laze around on the patch of grass at the bottom of the hamlet. Could Eagle be tired too? The view of the mountains delights me as much as on the first day: I’m still not used to it, as Grandmother would say. But however do you get used to it? Perhaps simply by forgetting to look.
“What does it mean, to think of nothing?” asks Eagle, stretching lazily.
I chuckle:
“It means thinking of something other than what we’re asked to think.”
“Gentian’s always thinking about something.”
“How do you know?”
“Everyone’s pleased with her. She’s better than us at school.”
“She wasn’t thinking about school yesterday.”
It’s his turn to chuckle:
“Yesterday she was thinking about giving you flowers!”
“So what?”
“So I don’t know! She’s still attached to the world.”
“To the world! She has big thoughts, doesn’t she?”
“No, that’s not what I meant...”
I let him think. After a while he continues:
“What she talks about is always connected to what makes life what it is.”
He hesitates, then goes on:
“She doesn’t dream.”
He corrects himself:
“No, I’m sure she does dream, but about things that exist.”
“You mean she wouldn’t dream about being in a world other than the one we live in?”
“Yes... Or almost... She may dream about being in another world, but another world that exists, even if it’s different from the one we live in.”
“If I dream about being in a star, it’s not real, of course, but it’s like a game.”
“She doesn’t play games.”
That makes me think. Grandfather had said “She’s got a good head on her shoulders, she knows what she wants.”
“So we should neither dream nor play?”
Eagle answers meditatively:
“When you’re always thinking about something, maybe you don’t have time.”
“What if you’re not capable of always thinking about something?”
He nods:
“That’s certainly the case with me, so I do sometimes play!”
He looks at me, perhaps laughing, perhaps not:
“Isn’t that alright?”
I answer, perhaps laughing, perhaps not:
“I think we often play together!”
After an appropriate silence, I add:
“Natural life isn’t still; we have to do something, we can’t stop ourselves. So if we can’t do any better we play.”
“They say that play is practice for real life.”
“I think that’s quite right...”
I finish off with a quick laugh:
“... especially if you practice playing!”
Eagle is pensive. I am pensive.
“What about dreams?”
“What about dreams?”
He laughs:
“I asked first!”
I look at him askance:
“Because you can’t answer the question.”
“Not at all! It’s because I know that you can!”
I... dream:
“When you dream, it’s of things unknown.”
He protests:
“We know everything we dream!”
“Yes, in a real dream...”
“In a real dream? Why, are there false ones?”
“No, no; you know what I mean!”
He nods and waves a hand:
“Oh, yes. Like when you dream in class.”
“Yes, when they tell us we’re not learning anything, that we’re wasting our time.”
He waves again, vaguely:
“Maybe we are.”
“But what if we weren’t? Animals don’t dream.”
“Animals don’t go to school.”
“All they want is what they’ve got. When I dream, like in class, I would like what is unknown to me to start existing.”
“The solution to your maths problem!”
I will not be deterred:
“And why not? If nobody has found the solution before me, it’ll be a discovery and not a dream!”
I hear a clear voice from behind me:
“You want to be an explorer?”
We turn round. Gentian is there, wreathed in smiles.
“An explorer?” I say, surprised.
“Yes, you were talking about discoveries.”
I explain. She gives me an admiring look:
“You’ve brought schoolwork? Me too! There’s so much I want to know...”
Eagle has given me the kind of look that says disaster is imminent. He tries to deflect:
“Our Mountain-dweller is trying to discover what is unknown.”
Gentian seems not to understand:
“Everything is unknown as long as you don’t know it.”
A moment of uncertainty. She goes on:
“My father has to go and get some timber tomorrow, it’ll take him all day. The owner of the sawmill has a very nice daughter who knows the mountains like the back of her hand. She said she could take me on a lovely hike. Do you want to come too?”
Eagle asks if the girl...
“She’ll be delighted, I’ve already mentioned it to her. We’ll leave at dawn.”
“We’re on!” we say in chorus.
Sunday. We make a family visit to friends of the grandparents who live in a village I can see on the other side of the depths into which the hamlet seems to slip. Eagle should be able to reach it with a beat of his wings but has prudently chosen to stay with us in the car. The road insinuates itself mysteriously into the deep shadows of a thick forest that seems never-ending. A sudden glint, then a billowing whirl of spray appears, furiously embracing black rocks that struggle with all their might to keep their heads above water.
The road climbs up again. The forest is less thick, allowing a glimpse of our hamlet, which has given itself a nice clearing to look out through. “In the mountains a clearing is a pasture,” Gentian had told me. “Can you see our house?” Eagle asks me. Yes, I can see it, down towards the bottom of the hamlet, below Gentian’s. We reach the village, not much bigger than our hamlet; here too, all the houses are built on the slope but they’re packed up against each other and the village doesn’t seem to be slipping. The grandparents’ friends are in their garden. “We saw you coming,” they say, “you can see the road from here as it climbs.” “Did you see us leave?” Eagle quips and everyone laughs.
The house is full of clocks. The grandparents’ friend mends them. There are all sorts; I look at them, intrigued.
“Do you like them?” the clockmaker asks me.
My gesture is eloquent.
“They’re old; mending them is often a tricky business.”
“My husband is very particular,” says the clockmaker’s wife.
Grandfather explains:
“I sometimes mend the woodwork if it’s damaged, but the clock mustn’t become new otherwise memories would be lost. It’s nice to see the smile on the face of someone who’s got back something they loved.”
Grandmother and the clockmaker’s wife talk about life. Life is what happens every day, what you see, what you hear, what takes us to the table, what tells us to sleep, what tells us we don’t have time. Don’t have time to talk about life.
“What do you get up to during the holidays?” the clockmaker asks. “Don’t you get bored?” he adds, turning to me.
“No, not at all. We go hiking in the mountains. It’s my first time. I love being here.”
“It’s good that you’re able to go hiking. I’ve got a lot to do, I don’t have time.”
I want to ask him “When you were...” but he gets there first:
“When I was a boy I went to school...”
He seems to be chewing on something:
“In the holidays I helped my parents...”
He bites his lip:
“I kept our cows...”
He sounds embarrassed. I say quickly:
“You were up in the mountains! You could see everything... And cows give good milk...”
I stammer. I was going to say “... if they’re well kept”. Fortunately I kept my mouth shut instead of saying something stupid. What is really stupid is absolutely wanting to say something... yes, something. It’s stupid to have nothing to say and to want to say it anyway. While I am deep in thought and the clockmaker is looking slightly puzzled, Eagle explains:
“He said he’d never drunk milk as good as the milk from our mountains.”
The clockmaker gives me a satisfied look:
“You’re right, mountain grass is the best for cows.”
After a moment’s silence he tells me more about clocks, with details I don’t understand. I just sit and listen, which he seems to appreciate.
The clockmaker’s wife has made a large walnut cake “... for the young ’uns!” It’s very good indeed. This time I do have something to say:
“I’ve never had a better one!”
Eagle agrees. The clockmaker’s wife is delighted.
“It seems you like everything that comes from the mountains!” exclaims the clockmaker.
The conversation picks up again; the things that happen every day... I listen with pleasure, thinking about nothing. Holidays...
The lovely mountain forest is there, in front of me, in the form of lengths of wood; the sawyer and his daughter show us round.
“These are oak lengths; lovely wood. You just have to be careful where you saw them; cut them in the sapwood and it soon rots, cut them in the heart and it warps.”
The Sawyer half lifts a long plank and adds sententiously:
“And you have to watch out for knots.”
He gives us a lengthy explanation of his craft. Eagle and I listen carefully; Gentian, who already knows it all, is chatting with her friend.
We walk, or jump rather, on huge rocks that take us to a mountain stream that we have to clamber up beside to reach the summit, our destination. No oak trees here; they’ve stayed down below, where we’ve come up from, where they’re turned into planks.
The stream is peaceful; it’s summer. The eddies release a few bubbles of foam that reflect the sunlight. The water is so clear I can see the multi-coloured stones that the stream caresses. We climb easily; the grass is springy and a pleasant coolness relieves the heat that I can see in the slight haze blanketing the village way down below where I can spot the sawmill.
The slope gets steeper. Large boulders surround us; towering almost over our heads, they seem to watch us, or threaten us rather.
“If they fall, we won’t have time to get out of the way,” the Sawyer’s daughter tells us.
General panic. With the serenity of a blue sky, she adds reassuringly:
“We won’t know anything about it; the sound comes later.”
As we all look up to contemplate the danger, she concludes:
“But you can’t keep looking up all the time.”
I was wrong about the general panic; Bluesky’s terrifying words had left Gentian unmoved. She says factually:
“It’s been dry for a while now. The ground is firm, they won’t fall.”
The two girls have exchanged a barely concealed grin.
Eagle quickly recovers:
“You thought we...”
He doesn’t finish his sentence as the two girls are now laughing openly, though not unkindly. At a loss for anything to say, we two boys join them.
We continue our ascent, glancing furtively at the boulders. I mean, I glance furtively at the boulders; after all, you never know... Gentian has noticed and gives me a friendly smile. The stream reveals new aspects encrusted with more multicoloured stones which break the flow into little cascades. We have to climb properly now, finding handholds on rocks – rubble from boulders that have fallen another day – and skirting slippery slabs of snow forgotten by the sun. “Firn,” Gentian tells me. We climb; the expanses of packed snow increase in size, and suddenly I see a silent company of sheep that hurtle – are they fleeing us? – across a wide and steep firn. Bluesky has approached the firn and hit down hard into the snow with her heel; a small hole has formed. “That’s how the sheep get across,” she says. And she adds, looking at me: “Don’t try it, you haven’t got hooves like them. The snow is hard and if you slip...” I look down towards the bottom of the firn; it’s a long way...
At last, no more climbing! I am surprised to find myself in a pleasant garden, full of grass, where the little stream takes a rest. “I always stop here,” Bluesky tells us. Like the stream, no-one is going to say no to a rest and we settle down comfortably on the edge of the steep slope we have just climbed up.
Before us, infinity. The sky is transparent. Earth is inhabited only by mountains. A lace border woven by all the distant peaks adorns the horizon. The closest alps look like impregnable fortresses. Am I in one of them?
“Would you like some?”
The voice of the lady of the fortress... Oh, it’s Bluesky, offering me some bread and sausage. I must look like someone who’s come a long way because she asks:
“Safe travels? Where were you, on the other side of the mountains?”
I look at her; she seems not to be taking the mickey. I answer hesitantly:
“On the other side of the mountains there’s the valley; I stopped before that.”
“Don’t you like the valleys? They’re all around, here. I’m in the valley too. You...”
I interrupt:
“No, I wasn’t thinking of those valleys. I like your valley, it’s in the house.”
“In the house?”
Bluesky doesn’t have time to be surprised. Gentian explains:
“He told Eagle the mountains were a great big house.”
Bluesky ponders. I add:
“By the valley I mean the big valley. The valley where I live, and Eagle too. There aren’t any mountains. There aren’t any walls to make a house. The wind blows through without stopping. Gentian told me that people only pass by in the mountains; they wouldn’t know what to do with a great big house.”
Bluesky looks at me for a long time then says slowly:
“People come to my father’s to get planks; they don’t stop.”
She says nothing for a while, then shakes her head as if to chase away a bad thought and says brightly:
“What do you think of the sausage?”
The sausage is very good.
“I’ve never had better!” I say enthusiastically.
Eagle compliments me:
“You certainly do like everything that comes from the mountains!”
“If you don’t...” Bluesky teases him.
She doesn’t have time to finish, as Eagle has already grabbed the sausage:
“I’ll gobble it all up! I’m starving!”
“Just as well the girls thought to bring food,” cries Gentian.
“Three cheers for the girls!” exclaims Eagle, then goes on without pausing for breath:
“What else is there?”
“That’s it!” Gentian answers him with a laugh.
Bluesky soothes Eagle’s palpable concern with a chuckle:
“Don’t worry, there’s cheese. It’s from the cows you saw a while back, the ones the boy was keeping in the pasture, down below the boulders.”
“And for you,” Gentian tells me, sounding mysterious, “there’s a cake you really like.”
“Oh, yes indeed,” adds Bluesky in the same mysterious tone of voice.
I have guessed – not that it was very hard:
“Walnut cake!”
We all laugh heartily, our laughter as hearty as our appetite.
After lunch we continue to laze around in the sun. Three little white clouds have come to while away the time with us above the three great peaks that stand out against the horizon.
“It’s been lovely to be here with you,” says Bluesky softly. “I’m always so busy...”
“Aren’t you on holiday?” Eagle says in surprise.
Bluesky smiles:
“I am... like Gentian, and she’s very busy too, as you well know.”
“That’s true, she helps her parents a lot. And you help your father too, of course.”
“Oh, I do help him, yes... mostly with his accounts... he’s not very good with figures.”
She turns to Gentian:
“It’s the same with you.”
“Yes, it is. I always wonder how he manages when I’m at school.”
Eagle sighs:
“I wouldn’t be able to help my father, I don’t know much.”
My opinion of myself is rather similar:
“Same here.”
Bluesky smiles:
“You work harder than us at school, you deserve a rest.”
“More than you?” Eagle exclaims. “Gentian’s brought schoolwork with her! And in any case she’s better than us at school. She wants to know everything!”
Gentian answers, sounding slightly embarrassed:
“Oh, I don’t have to try very hard, you know. I enjoy learning things.”
Now it’s Bluesky’s turn to sigh:
“It’s brave of you to do so much. I can’t. It’s not that I’m lazy, I work hard, as you know. But school is difficult. You, Gentian, have to do what you’re capable of doing. Those who can’t have to count on the ones like you.”
Gentian laughs merrily:
“You want to confiscate my holidays!”
“I’ve never seen you doing nothing.”
“And you neither!”
Eagle grumbles:
“So there’s only us two who do nothing!”
The girls start to exclaim “No, not at all!” but Eagle is on a roll:
“And it’s so nice to do nothing, knowing that we can count on Gentian!”
“Boo! Boo!” cry the girls in chorus.
Wake-up. The milk. Gentian is glad we enjoyed yesterday’s hike, and that we got on well with Bluesky. She has things to do; we don’t.
Breakfast. Chocolate – with milk. We tell the grandparents about yesterday’s hike.
“You see,” Grandfather says to me, “you have no trouble with the hills now, you’ve got used to them.”
He tells me about past adventures:
“I used to go up into the pasture in the summer; I looked after the animals.”
His eyes brighten with his memories:
“I used to go to town, the one we went shopping in last week.”
He ponders for a while:
“I used to take the cheese to market.”
He gives a little chuckle:
“I used to walk. It takes longer than going by car.”
Grandmother joins him in the past:
“I used to go too; it would take us all day.”
The grandparents have fallen silent. Where are they? On the long road?
The morning is spent as usual, helping Grandmother. The afternoon finds us on the patch of grass, in the usual place, down at the bottom of the hamlet. The river, in the background, splashes its way down to the valley...
Eagle ruminates:
“So there’s just us two who do nothing...”
“Even the river flows...” I remark.
Eagle ruminates again:
“Ponds don’t...”
“So they do nothing...” I nod.
Eagle ruminates some more:
“I think there are frogs in ponds...”
I conclude:
“No pond, no frogs...”
A brief moment, then we snort with laughter.
The aspen leaves tremble in the breeze; we sit in silence, gazing at the village on the other side of the little valley where the clockmaker lives.
Eagle says, almost under his breath:
“How calm everything is. Is letting yourself be filled with nature’s calm doing nothing?”
“Your grandfather said that what he really liked when he repaired the woodwork of a clock was to see the smile on the face of someone who’s got back something they loved. Is looking at that smile doing nothing?”
Eagle has a doubt:
“It could be said that the smile originated in what Grandfather did.”
“Then he should have continued doing that instead of wasting his time looking at smiles that don’t do anything!”
Eagle laughs:
“You’re right. Next time I see a smile, I’ll tell it that it isn’t doing anything.”
I don’t laugh:
“And when I see nature, I’ll tell it that it hasn’t done anything either and that I don’t have any business looking at it.”
Eagle exclaims:
“And the nature we look at is the nature we’ve made. There’s nothing to look at as long as people haven’t done anything.”
“Yet those who pass by, as Gentian put it, say afterwards ‘Oh, how lovely!’.”
“In the same way that they’d admire an empty plate and then starve to death.”
An idea strikes me:
“Your grandfather must have looked at the clock for him to find its memories, and at the person who gave it to him.”
“That’s right, and so by looking he did something.”
“As with nature. If you look at the nature you’ve made, you can make something else out of it.”
We remain buried in our deep thoughts.
Eagle is the first to surface:
“The clock has to exist for you to look at it; the same with nature.”
He has fallen silent. I sum up:
“You can’t look at anything if nothing exists.”
“Absolutely, but that’s not the worst of it. You can’t do anything either.”
I protest:
“I can always do what I want: I exist.”
“Yes, but you’ll exist on your own. You can always look at yourself; and you can always do for yourself, for yourself only. For ever and ever.”
This morning Gentian suggests we go with her down to the little valley where she has an errand to run for her parents. We leave after lunch. I don’t need to hang on to trees this time but the path is still steep and fraught with obstacles; roots grab hold of my foot without warning, sudden turns reveal precipices – or at least potholes...
We reach the bottom. The river I could see from the hamlet surprises me; it no longer splashes and tumbles the way it seemed to from up there. No, I’m in calm, almost sleepy waters, dotted with islets formed by rocks between which the current wends its tranquil way.
Gentian has surprised my surprise:
“It tumbles higher up and it leaps lower down but here it’s in no hurry, there’s not much of a gradient. We’ll come back when we’re done, it’s fun to jump from one rock to another!”
“And to fall in!” adds Eagle admonishingly.
Gentian gives a peal of laughter. We join in a moment later.
The errand completed, we go back to the river. It’s true, it’s fun to jump from rock to rock, and none of us quite manages to fall in. Gentian dances over the stones with the agility of a chamois, Eagle flies – of course – from one to the next, and even I make a decent fist of it. Breathless, we collapse onto the grass at the riverside.
“I’m hungry!” says Eagle uncompromisingly.
That’s easily sorted: we’ve brought a picnic. Eagle isn’t the only one to pounce on the feast. Having fed, we gaze lazily at the river as it flows past.
“It runs, it runs, it runs...”
Eagle has spoken slowly. Gentian gives him a quizzical look:
“Do you want it to stop?”
“It can’t. It bears my thoughts away.”
“Are you afraid of not thinking any more?”
He doesn’t answer. I say:
“What if he were afraid just of thinking?”
Gentian frowns:
“No-one’s afraid of breathing.”
Now it’s our turn to look askance. She goes on:
“You can’t be afraid of what’s natural.”
I say:
“You can be afraid of what you eat.”
Gentian nods:
“Yes, food can be bad.”
I finish up:
“Or poisoned.”
“By an enemy; otherwise, it’s just bad,” she says firmly.
“You can also not be hungry,” says Eagle slowly.
“That’s it! You’re afraid of not being hungry!”
Gentian’s conclusion makes us laugh. Eagle no longer looks thoughtful.
“It’s all nonsense!” he cries. “You can be afraid of going hungry, not the opposite. Sorry, I’m talking rubbish – I’ve had too much to eat!”
“So we’re afraid of what we have to...”
Gentian interrupts me:
“We don’t have to think!”
That would seem not to be the case, since that’s what we all start doing.
Gentian continues, hesitating slightly:
“I can’t reasonably be sure that animals don’t think...”
She goes on more confidently:
“In all events, they don’t communicate their thoughts with the words we use.”
“We often think without words...” I point out.
“They’re images,” Eagle breaks in. “Animals certainly see images too.”
He ponders for a moment then says, as if to give weight to his argument:
“Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to move around or feed; they need to be able to recognise an image.”
“There’s the sense of smell...,” I observe.
“It’s still a kind of image; it’s immobile. Our thoughts aren’t immobile.”
Gentian is looking at the river, dreamily:
“I sometimes get the feeling that my thought stops without me really being aware of it; is it immobile then?”
“If it stops, it must have been moving,” I answer doctorially.
They have both stared at me with the clear intention of taking the mickey but their sense of purpose has faltered and they wait without saying anything. I continue, more simply:
“Animals see images and think perhaps without our words; we see images and think with our words.”
They’re still listening. I go on:
“What were we like in days gone by?”
The question has no answer, naturally. Only the river could know, but it doesn’t speak with our words...
No-one says anything for a long while. Gentian has offered us bread and chocolate. We eat; it occupies the mind, so they say. That... I share my... thoughts:
“We don’t think while we’re eating.”
“Speak for yourself!” exclaims Eagle mockingly. “I’m a thinking creature!”
Gentian feigns admiration:
“Oh, how fascinating! Turn round and look at me so that I can finally see one!”
We laugh long and loud. Is it so as not to think? I persist:
“While I’m in the act of eating, I don’t think ‘I’m eating’; if animals do the same, they don’t tell us so with our words.”
Eagle has become serious again:
“An animal eats because it’s hungry. We do the same.”
Gentian turns to me:
“You talked about days gone by. Perhaps we used to be like the animals we see; we couldn’t speak with words the way we do now.”
We eat our bread and chocolate. I almost feel as though I have to think.
I can hear Eagle ruminating solemnly:
“I think, I eat; I think, I eat; I think, I eat...”
I get my revenge:
“By the time you’ve finished eating, you’ll no longer be a thinking creature!”
Gentian laughs; Eagle scowls, casts about for a knockout blow but doesn’t find one. Bread and chocolate...
I pick up Gentian’s thread:
“So in days gone by we used not to think the way we do now. How did that change come about?”
“And when?” adds Gentian.
“Long ago... Long ago...,” Eagle replies, drawing out each ‘long’.
We mean to tease him but he carries on before we can get a word in:
“Long ago I discovered thought, and now I have become what I am!”
Eagle’s grandiloquence makes us laugh. I complete my revenge:
“And that’s why you’re afraid of thinking!”
My revenge has only made him laugh. But Gentian suddenly exclaims:
“When you discover something new, you may be afraid it’s dangerous.”
We look at each other, not knowing what to say. Finally Eagle says dully:
“Dangerous for our life.”
Gentian shakes her head several times:
“And one day we were afraid of thinking.”
We sit in silence, thinking... about thinking, no doubt. After a long while I take the plunge:
“When you’re afraid, you run; and if you can’t run, you fight, you fight to the death, the other’s or yours.”
Talking is an effort. Yet I go on, my voice steady:
“We mustn’t have understood why we were afraid. And when you don’t understand what you’re doing, you don’t stop.”
Gentian shrugs helplessly:
“We couldn’t run away from what was inside us.”
Eagle concludes:
“So all that was left for us to do was fight.”
“How so?”
“When thought tried to invade us, we tried to repel it.”
I nod:
“We needed to stop it from existing. It had appeared without our wanting it to.”
Gentian adds:
“Not thinking is stopping thought from existing.”
“Not thinking!” exclaims Eagle.
He goes on immediately:
“However did we manage not to think?”
We think about it... long and hard... Gentian finally suggests:
“We did something else... something else that didn’t need thought.”
“To not need thought you have to forget it,” I point out.
“We forgot it by hunting in the woods, by foraging for ripe fruit; we forgot it by listening to the wind sigh, by watching the clouds wandering across the sky; we forgot it by singing, by dancing. We forgot it by filling up time.”
Are we dreaming of the days gone by that Gentian has just brought to life for us? Eagle comes back to earth:
“Perhaps we were happy!”
“How could we know without thinking?” I immediately point out.
Gentian speaks up:
“So perhaps it’s when we stopped being happy that thought invaded us and we were frightened by it.”
“We should have kept on fighting it!” Eagle exclaims impatiently.
No-one has anything more to say. Eagle glances hopefully at the picnic basket. Gentian smiles:
“Happiness is in the right-hand compartment; there’s still some chocolate left.”
We all laugh gaily. No-one refuses the chocolate. The river still runs just as quietly; did we use to sit beside it in days gone by? What did it say to us to let us know that we could drink from it?
Eagle starts up again:
“If we were no longer able to fight the thought that had invaded us and that we were afraid of, we must have discounted it because it was potentially dangerous.”
I am of the same opinion:
“Yes, as soon as a thought appeared we said it was wrong.”
“And that the person who said it was bad.”
“And yet we must have noticed one day that some thoughts were good.”
Gentian speaks up:
“But we were still afraid; no-one wanted to admit to having thought it.”
“And what if someone did so nevertheless?” asks Eagle.
“They would have got into serious trouble!” I scoff.
“And what if we saw they were right?”
Gentian speaks up again:
“We entrusted thought to them.”
That takes me aback:
“Entrusted?”
“Yes. It had disappeared from among us again; it was theirs, theirs only.”
Eagle is unconvinced:
“What if later their thought had stopped being good?”
“We were no longer able to tell; we were no longer thinking.”
That bothers me:
“And what if a disaster happened because of them?”
“It was no longer their fault, but ours,” Gentian replies dully. “We had entrusted thought to them.”
The sun has just taken refuge behind the highest peaks. We climb the path that leads up to the hamlet. The shadows darken. I am filled with a sadness mingled with an indefinable fear. What is waiting for me, out there where I can no longer see anything? The darkness? Or thought?
The milk. Gentian gives us a big smile:
“I really enjoyed it, yesterday. I love talking about that kind of thing... talking about life. But it’s so rare to be able to.”
She adds with a laugh:
“People are hunting in the woods...”
Then, looking sheepish:
“Me too. My parents need me today.”
Breakfast. The milk is still just as good; whatever did I use to drink in the city? We talk with the grandparents about yesterday’s... hike, shall we say.
“Gentian knows a lot,” says Grandmother, “but she can be quite hard to understand...”
“She knows more than we do, in any case,” cuts in Grandfather.
Grandmother nods:
“She means well...”
She means well. Is that a thought? I... What would Gentian say?
The morning has gone by. After lunch, a family outing to go shopping in the nearby town. “Are we going hunting?” I whisper to Eagle. We exchange knowing glances. Are we never supposed to go hunting? Are we prohibited from thinking at certain times? We go from one shop to another; everyone’s hunting. Yet Eagle has whispered his answer: “I prefer to hunt in the woods!” We laugh noiselessly. In the street, the grandparents meet acquaintances. Friends? I don’t know how I would know. The people are nice, the conversations pleasant... Don’t even think about it! Oh, yes. Everyone has spoken very kindly to me. We go home; the road twists and turns between the peaks, plunges into ravines, spans torrents. I love to listen to the mountains...
Gentian was waiting for us:
“With my father, I’m going back to Bluesky’s tomorrow.”
“We’re coming with you!” we tell her with a grin.
The mountain stream is sparkling merrily to greet us. The multicoloured stones have dutifully awaited our arrival. “It’s because you’ve come back without waiting too long yourselves,” Bluesky tells us. Seeing my raised eyebrows, she adds: “Little by little the stream carries them off. If you come back in a thousand years’ time they’ll be in the valley and you won’t be able to recognise them any more because they’ll have turned into dust.” We make it a date. “Don’t be late!” I say firmly. “Don’t you be late,” Bluesky retorts, “I’ll always be here.” I don’t quite know what to say. Bluesky has set off, quickly clambering up the path beside the stream. We follow. The village gets further and further away, dropping down more and more. The great boulders observe us watchfully. The firns expand as we climb. The sheep come and go.
We’re back in the fortress garden. The lady of the fortress has handed me bread and sausage. Infinity still lies before me.
“We’ve found ripe fruit!” exclaims Eagle.
“Ripe fruit?” queries Bluesky.
We tell her about our conversation the day before yesterday. She looks slightly anxious:
“I’m not afraid of thought; it’s my companion.”
She pauses for a moment, then goes on:
“I let it roam free.”
Now it’s Eagle’s turn to be anxious:
“What if it ups and offs?”
“It often does. It comes back if I suit it.”
I interrupt sharply:
“Does it up and off when you’re out hunting?”
She smiles, a little sadly:
“Yes...”
“So we don’t always have the right to think?”
“No...,” she answers with a sigh.
She looks at me and goes on:
“I need the game. If I think while I’m hunting, it’ll get away.”
She laughs softly:
“I hunt the way animals do... without words, my words.”
After a moment’s silence, Gentian asks her:
“Is it only while you’re hunting that you don’t think?”
Bluesky looks at her intently:
“Is feeling a thought?”
Eagle speaks up:
“Is feeling an image?”
Bluesky hesitates:
“You mean like for animals?”
Gentian asks slowly:
“Does feeling need game?”
Eagle concludes:
“If feeling needs game, it’s not a thought.”
Bluesky turns to him:
“You said our thought is not immobile; so if feeling isn’t immobile, it’s just a thought.”
I summarise:
“If feeling is immobile, it’s an image, not a thought.”
Eagle comments:
“If feeling is immobile and therefore not a thought, it may need game.”
“Without game we’re alone,” says Bluesky softly.
Gentian says firmly:
“Feeling always stays in you. It’s feeling that will find the game. If feeling stops being immobile... putting it more simply, if feeling changes, the game will get away.”
“And what if there weren’t any game?”
“Do you mean what if you didn’t look for any, or what if you didn’t find any?”
Bluesky ponders. She finally answers:
“When I hunt I look for game; I may not find it.”
Gentian gives her a smile:
“It will come if you suit it.”
Bluesky is still pensive:
“Yes, I suppose so... or hope so, rather.”
She adds after a moment:
“But it may not exist; and if feeling always stays in me, that feeling will remain alone.”
Eagle sharply interrupts the conversation between the two girls:
“It won’t remain alone, because it’ll be with you!”
Bluesky smiles sadly:
“Without the bee, the pollen will remain alone with the flower.”
Do the three little white clouds above the three great peaks continue the conversation? They don’t have thoughts; of course not. Do they have feelings? Why shouldn’t they? They’re images, aren’t they?
“They’re together, they talk to the peaks...”
My voice has gone off into the distance; an echo has come back from the mountains:
“They don’t move. The warm air rising along the rock faces forms them as it cools.”
No, it isn’t an echo, it’s Bluesky’s voice. She smiles at my surprise:
“It’s only clouds you were watching. They’re often there. When I was little, I used to think they came to see me.”
She adds with a laugh:
“And I still do!”
She looks serious:
“It’s not them that live, it’s us.”
I say without really realising:
“Then they don’t have feelings.”
Bluesky studies me closely:
“You mean with our words?”
I don’t know what to say. She goes on in a low voice:
“I can’t talk about my feelings, I mean about those that don’t change, with my words.”
Eagle speaks up:
“Images don’t talk.”
Gentian nods:
“It’s we who make them talk... with our words. And those words deceive us.”
I clarify:
“They deceive us about our feelings.”
She concludes:
“So we can’t know our feelings.”
Bluesky says assertively:
“I don’t need to know them.”
She turns towards Gentian:
“You told me that feeling always stayed in me. If it’s really part of myself, it’s myself that I have to know. I may not know the feeling but it will always be in me, and it won’t change as long as I don’t.”
Gentian says pensively:
“Animals don’t know their feelings either.”
“And animals always stay themselves,” declares Eagle.
“Then my feelings are the same as those of animals,” concludes Bluesky.
Eagle stretches out on the patch of grass at the bottom of the hamlet.
“Ah, back on holiday again!”
“Have you learnt your lessons?” I tease him.
He pretends to look horrified:
“Much too hard!”
Then goes on:
“I hope I don’t get tested!”
“On what subject? Thought or feeling?”
He ponders:
“Feeling. Maybe I’m more used to talking with Gentian...”
He ponders some more:
“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s more... Grandmother says that Gentian knows a lot. It’s true. And it can be complicated. And yet...”
He laughs:
“And yet we can think.”
I laugh too:
“You’re right.”
I go on, hesitating slightly:
“With Bluesky... I don’t know how to put it... she’s there, without being protected by words.”
Eagle laughs again:
“As for animals!”
Then, more seriously:
“And yet she’s not an animal.”
“It’s not only animals that live without words.”
“Plants?”
“The elements.”
“The elements?” Eagle cries in astonishment.
“Yes, wind...”
He breaks in emphatically:
“Fire!”
“Are you afraid of getting burned?” I say sarcastically.
“It’s you that ought to be careful,” he retorts immediately. “It’s not me that has a date with her in a thousand years!”
Not finding an answer, I give him a hearty shove.
“That still doesn’t solve the problem of fire and wind,” he laughs.
He goes on thoughtfully:
“Yesterday, she said that the clouds came to see her.”
“Yes, I’d been on about how they talked to the peaks.”
“She didn’t need words. For her the clouds aren’t alive; we are.”
“Does she need words with us?”
We sit in silence. From this distance the river looks still; yet it hasn’t stopped flowing, because I can hear its now familiar murmur. The sun glints off its spray-topped eddies. The wind toys with the delicate leaves of the aspen that surround the hamlet. On the mountainside opposite, the village where the clockmaker lives seems buried in the torpor of a hot afternoon. Do I need words with the mountains?
“You’re very quiet!”
We turn round. Gentian is there, wreathed in smiles:
“You looked lost in thought. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you.”
Eagle wraps himself in the dignity born of impotence before a tragic fate:
“You have just annihilated the greatest philosophical edifice of all time!”
Gentian has measured the horror of the situation:
“I will spend the rest of my life rebuilding it!”
She goes on solemnly:
“Fortunately I spent the whole afternoon getting ready for school; I need learning to bring such a great endeavour to completion!”
“You’ve already got learning,” Eagle mutters. “You don’t need holidays.”
I don’t quite follow his reasoning, so quickly put forward the same type of argument:
“For us, it’s our holidays that bring us learning.”
Having reached these transcendental conclusions, we burst out laughing.
Once we’ve calmed down, Gentian tells us that she’s free tomorrow:
“I’ve done enough work today. Tomorrow, I’ll be happy to take a closer look at holidays.”
After some thought, Eagle and I decide that it is indeed a vital subject of study.
“What if we went up to the tarn?” suggests Gentian.
Eagle knows the place.
“It’s like a mirror that reflects the sky!” he tells me poetically.
It’s a deal.
A forest of venerable larch trees crowns the summit we have just reached. We silently descend the other side on a soft carpet of needles that mute the sound of our steps. Leaving the forest, another life has appeared. Below us, very near, stands a motionless tarn adorned, as Eagle had said, with the deep blue of the sky. In the distance, very white clouds rest on peaks where immaculate sheets of iced snow sparkle in the sun. At the bottom of the valley that the tarn overlooks, a broad river wends its sinuous way. We take possession of the little meadow, embroidered with a blanket of bright flowers in innumerable colours, that lies beside the tarn. It’s been a long hike and the picnic we have brought with us is greeted with enthusiasm.
“Now that I’m on holiday I can’t wait to find out what I’m supposed to get out of them,” says Gentian, devouring a piece of ham.
“I’ve already told you, you know quite enough already,” answers Eagle through a mouthful of pâté.
“You can never know enough!” she retorts with a chuckle.
As Eagle says nothing, she goes on kindly:
“I don’t really mean it. Even if I’m not learning, I can expect adventure.”
I comment:
“You can find adventure when you’re learning, at school or in books.”
Eagle mutters:
“Adventures are all I ever get at school, and they’re always bad!”
I protest energetically:
“You can’t mean that! You get good marks...”
He interrupts me:
“And quite a lot of bad ones...”
“I thought you were supposed to be on holiday,” Gentian says sarcastically, “and you can’t stop talking about school!”
“It’s true, you’re right,” Eagle answers nonchalantly. “And by the way, what were you doing yesterday afternoon?”
We all laugh, though Gentian has come up with an answer:
“If you must know, I was seeking adventure in textbooks!”
Eagle is clearly seeking some witty comeback but Gentian gets in first:
“No, it’s not the same adventure; at school it’s expected.”
I speak up:
“You can have a surprise.”
“Yes, but coming from known things.”
“In that case it wouldn’t be a surprise,” Eagle corrects her.
Gentian hesitates:
“If it doesn’t come from known things...”
She takes her time:
“... perhaps it comes from a known life.”
Eagle raises an eyebrow:
“And what is an unknown life, then?”
She hesitates again:
“A life you don’t expect...”
Eagle illustrates her remark:
“Like the teacher who asks me a question while I’m looking out of the window.”
I say sarcastically:
“That happens far too often for you to consider it unexpected.”
Gentian cuts our jesting short:
“Lots of things can happen at school, but they’re part of school.”
Eagle has found a weightier argument:
“You come into the classroom, you’re shown the blackboard, you’re asked to explain... You come into the classroom, you’re shown to the desk at the front, you’re asked to explain...”
I speak up:
“The second time is after you’ve become a teacher...”
He interrupts me:
“No, it’s the same day; the next class.”
“The teacher wants to...”
“He’s not there.”
“It’s a game, you have to pretend...”
“A pupil says he’s very worried that he hasn’t understood and insists on an explanation.”
After a moment I answer:
“Yes, that’s unexpected.”
I turn to Gentian:
“Would you say that’s an unknown life?”
She hesitates again:
“Yes, it’s an unknown life...”
She goes on, sounding more sure of herself:
“Everything around me is new; I’m not one of the pupils, I’m a teacher. And it’s happened in an unexpected way.”
She ponders:
“Yes, it’s an adventure; what I have to do has changed.”
I propose another adventure:
“You wake up in a civilisation that’s different from ours; what you have to think about has changed.”
“So many adventures!” Eagle exclaims. “And there are so many more we could imagine. Another century, before or after; the moon...”
“I’m still the same.”
Gentian’s words have seemed to emerge from a dream. We look at her with some surprise. She laughs:
“I’m here! I’m not on the moon!”
She is silent for a moment, then goes on in a serious tone of voice:
“They were lovely adventures. But I was able to come back from them.”
“I thought you were still on the moon!” I say with a smile.
She goes on, still sounding serious:
“I come back intact. What I can do has changed, even what I can think has changed, but my thought has not changed, everything that happened took place outside me.”
We sit for a long while in silence. The hot sun draws us to the spring that feeds the tarn. “The water’s good here, the pastures are below us,” Gentian has told me. Yes, the water is good, it makes you want to drink.
We head back to the tarn through the heady scents of the larch trees. The very white clouds seem not to have moved; have they been waiting for us?
“Well, now the water is inside you,” Eagle says to Gentian mockingly.
He adds, looking ecstatic:
“Talk of an adventure!”
I barely have time to start an approving smile before Gentian replies:
“Yes, an adventure indeed!”
We are confused. She goes on:
“If I don’t drink, I die. Water keeps me alive, without my having to think or decide for myself. What happened wasn’t outside me...”
She stops suddenly, as though facing an insurmountable obstacle:
“No, it wasn’t inside me either.”
I protest:
“If I may...”
“No! My body isn’t me!”
She finishes angrily:
“No! It isn’t inside me! I don’t know either what it is or where it is!”
She has fallen silent, almost panting. Eagle and I are somewhat bewildered. After a long silence I take the plunge:
“So what is there inside you?”
She doesn’t answer straight away. Eagle takes advantage of the hiatus:
“Do you mean... your soul?”
She seems not to understand:
“My soul...?”
She ponders for a moment:
“My soul... no... yes... No, I don’t know what my soul is either...”
The two of us remain silent. Gentian carries on, sounding calmer:
“No; inside me is my life, my everyday life, my life with those I love. My adventure is suddenly discovering that I am needed, and giving what is inside me.”
The grandparents are glad we’re enjoying our holidays so much.
“You could have found it boring,” Grandfather says to me. “There’s not a lot to do here.”
“There’s not much in the way of entertainment,” adds Grandmother.
Grandfather nods and mutters:
“If you can’t live without entertainment, you can’t see what life really is.”
After breakfast the grandparents go off to see friends in the town; we go with them. The road has become familiar but the mountains don’t want to stay with me – I’m going too fast! No matter, I’ll be back. The house is set back from the road; from one window you can see the town, from the other the mountains. Do we remain the same from one window to the other? How silly! And yet... I may still be the same, but do I want the same things? What am I made of? Of what I call me, or of my wants? Eagle has been keeping an eye on me for a while now; the friends’ son is talking and I’m not listening. Let’s listen.
“Which tune do you prefer?”
He must have said something to me before, but what? Eagle answers in my place to give me time:
“I like the red-house tune, it’s very jolly!”
Oh, yes. The son was showing me the music boxes his father makes, in the form of little houses... at least, he was playing them to me... Let’s try the green house:
“The green one is very tuneful...”
Well done me! Eagle stifles a giggle:
“He really likes music, you know,” he says to the son.
It’s true, I do really like music; and it’s also true that the tunes the son continues to play us are very pretty. But I’m elsewhere. The tarn, the stream... Too much has happened since I got here, two weeks ago... My abstracted look makes the son think I was listening carefully. Eagle knows better:
- He’s...
He wants to help me out. I interrupt him sharply:
“Can I hear the red one again?”
I listen. The son is happy. Eagle is worried. I say something appropriate... But it’s true, I do like the tunes, and I really admire the way the father has built these pretty little houses... The tarn, the stream... I have to come back; the son is talking to me...
That afternoon we are at the bottom of the hamlet again, as usual. Eagle has flopped down on the patch of grass:
“Ah!... A bit of peace and quiet. I don’t feel like doing anything...”
“Now there’s a surprise,” I tease him. “Don’t you want to revise our lessons, like Gentian?”
He throws up his hands in horror:
“No way! I’d rather stay stupid. It’s complicated, being smart...”
I can’t miss a sitting duck:
“And you’re just a simple guy...”
“Now that’s smart!”
We laugh. No, I laugh. Eagle seems to be pondering some mystery. I finally give in:
“You look as though you’re thinking about complicated things.”
He nods slowly:
“Yes, I was thinking about yesterday. It’s restful, making music boxes... even if it’s tiring.”
“Yes, it’s true; it’s calming; your mind stays free.”
“You were distracted...”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes.”
It’s true, I was distracted. I was thinking of...
“I don’t really know why I was distracted. I don’t know...”
He looks at me closely:
“Anything wrong?”
“No, not at all. Quite the opposite!”
He doesn’t really seem reassured. I go on:
“I was thinking of our hikes...”
He waits.
“At the lake, it was good... and then the stones with the beautiful colours in the stream... and then...”
He breaks in – I had stopped talking:
“And then?”
And then...
“And then I don’t know... It’s all hazy...”
“With a blue sky?”
“I... what do you mean, with Bluesky?”
My question makes him laugh:
“Because there was a beautiful blue sky! What were you thinking, then?”
“Very funny!”
He laughs even harder:
“OK! So what’s all this about your haze?”
“Enough already! My haze is everything we’ve been saying... The mysteries of adventure, as Gentian would say. The adventure of feelings, as Bluesky would say – Yes, Bluesky, not the sky that is blue.”
“OK, OK, keep your hair on!” laughs Eagle merrily.
I start laughing too:
“You started it!”
He turns serious again:
“You’re right. We never spoke about those things before. I told you that Gentian... I didn’t know Bluesky; you’re right, she’s... she senses things, it’s quicker than thought.”
“That’s a discussion we could have with the two of them.”
“Why not?”
A moment’s silence. I go on:
“You, you’re used to the mountains. For me, it’s the first time. You know, it’s like being in a world without ties... without ties to reality, maybe.”
Eagle ponders:
“Me too, I got an indefinable feeling when we were in... your garden, near the stream. If it takes a big word to describe it, I’d say it was magical.”
We sit in silence. I dream... can one dream of haze? I hear Eagle’s voice:
“It’s true, the mind stays free.”
That wakes me up:
“Musical houses?”
“Yes. Can you make houses if your mind is elsewhere?”
“Of course. If you don’t need a mind to make them.”
“Very well. And what if the mind tells you there’s no point making houses? Or even that it’s bad to make them?”
I start to analyse:
“Houses are made for others, the mind for oneself.”
“In that case, where houses are concerned, it’s the mind of others that will decide.”
“They can make them themselves, or else find those who think the same way as them.”
Eagle sounds worried:
“You mean you shouldn’t do anything for others if you don’t know them?”
“If you do, you replace your mind with that of the others. Which means you destroy yourself, yet without knowing why, since you no longer have your mind.”
“Last week we lost our thought, today we’re losing our mind!”
I answer with a little laugh:
“You said yourself that being smart was complicated!”
“Oh, boys know very well how to overcome that kind of problem!”
A bright laugh has rung out. Gentian, wreathed in smiles, is standing behind us; she brings good news:
“I’m going to Bluesky’s the day after tomorrow...”
We leave her no time to continue:
“We have overcome! We’re coming with you.”
A friend of the grandparents has come for lunch. “He makes lovely furniture,” Grandmother has told me. “Grandfather taught him everything,” Eagle explained to me a little later. The cabinetmaker asks me what I want to do in the future. I admit that I don’t know exactly what.
“That doesn’t matter,” he tells me.
After drumming his fingers on the tabletop, he adds earnestly:
“When you want what you do to be useful...”
He leaves his words hanging for a moment:
“I mean, when people need it...”
He pauses again:
“That’s what matters.”
He gives his opinion an approving frown.
Grandfather is even more intransigent:
“If I don’t leave a chair to sit on or a bed to sleep in, my life won’t have been worth living.”
“Not everyone needs a chair or a bed.”
I wasn’t expecting the comment I had just made. Nor was anyone else, for that matter. To begin with I didn’t understand what I had said. Nor did anyone else, for that matter. They stared at me wide-eyed and the cabinetmaker stated, as though it were self-evident: “They’ll need something else.” “Yes, of course they will,” I answered, and the conversation turned to other fertile subjects.
After lunch, Eagle and I go to the place where we usually discourse on “the Universe and the Rest”. All that’s left is to talk about the “Rest”. The rest is what I didn’t say at lunch, which Eagle of course want to ask me about.
“I conclude that in order to make something for others, you have to know them,” I reply.
“And knowing them is pointless, since we saw in our last lesson that we shouldn’t do anything for them.”
“And yet that’s what the cabinetmaker does.”
“And yet that’s what the cabinetmaker does.”
Having thus jointly laid the foundations of a deep philosophical investigation, we... said nothing for a long while. Eagle was the first to break the silence:
“The cabinetmaker is an upright man.”
“The cabinetmaker means well.”
“The cabinetmaker does something for others without knowing them.”
“The cabinetmaker replaces his mind with that of others.”
“The cabinetmaker does not know that he has destroyed himself.”
Wow! We took a deep breath. I went on:
“The cabinetmaker is an upright man who means well.”
“The cabinetmaker replaces his mind with that of others.”
We finish in unison:
“The cabinetmaker does not exist.”
We burst out laughing.
We race up the stream. The water gushes beneath my feet, which catch in stones, slip into holes, so that I’m constantly in fear of falling. Eagle and I are fast runners; accepting the challenge, we exchanged knowing looks – the girls would be way behind by the time we got to the garden, our destination. Well, we got that bit wrong. The girls were not way behind us. Rather the opposite in fact, as we could see them bounding ahead of us all the way up.
Bluesky won by a short head from Gentian. Also-rans, we got there in the end. The girls exchanged knowing looks...
“I take no credit, I’ve known the stream ever since I was little,” Bluesky says with a laugh.
“Me too,” adds Gentian with a smile.
Eagle and I have exchanged a hangdog look.
Running, even badly, makes you hungry. The picnic baskets are soon open.
“Just as well I didn’t bet the sausage!” exclaims Eagle, seizing it.
“We’d’ve given you some anyway to help you get your strength back,” Gentian tells him with ironic concern.
“Well, that makes me feel better,” replies Eagle, trying to sound mollified.
We devour the food. There are no clouds in the sky. Bluesky has seen me looking:
“You won’t see any, they’re behind the mountains. By the time they get here it’ll be too late. Storms are always sudden.”
“And that’s when the boulders fall,” adds Gentian ingenuously.
I barely have time to start worrying before I hear Eagle saying nonchalantly:
“It’s been dry for quite a while now. The ground is stable, they won’t fall.”
Surprised, the girls say nothing. Eagle carries on in the same tone of voice:
“Grandfather says that when the air is still, the storm is far.”
“No need to keep an eye on the clouds, then,” I bluster in Eagle’s support.
Bluesky smiles:
“I can see you’re no longer frightened of the mountains. Very well. But you have to keep an eye on the clouds all the same; a storm can blow up quickly. And that can really be dangerous.”
The picnic ends with a walnut cake, made by Bluesky. I thank her:
“That’s really nice of you. And it’s really good – absolutely delicious, in fact. I’ll miss it when I’m back home.”
Bluesky gives me another piece:
“If you miss it, you’ll just have to come back!”
“Done!”
I turn to Eagle and add:
“If your grandparents will have me...”
“Of course,” he reassures me mockingly. “They wouldn’t want you to go without walnut cake.”
I grunt in reply and give him a good shove.
No-one says anything. We sit for a long while, looking into the distant stillness. Eagle, who doesn’t like extended silences, is the first to speak:
“The day before yesterday, we were holding a race between feeling and thought.”
“Which one won?” asks Gentian curiously.
“We reckoned that feeling was quicker than thought.”
“Yes,” says Bluesky, nodding. “Feeling doesn’t need to go through stages.”
“You’re not free with feeling because it can’t be alone; with thought you can do something...”
I interrupt Gentian:
“For yourself or for others?”
“Both. But you don’t live alone; and even what you do for yourself involves others.”
“That you know or not?”
Eagle speaks up:
“We need to explain.”
We do so.
Gentian comments:
“With thought you can do something for those you know; but you mustn’t, because you destroy yourself. If you do it for yourself, you have to know yourself, otherwise what you have done might not be of any use.”
I say:
“Of course, you can be wrong about what you do.”
Eagle adds:
“Or worse, you can know that what you’re doing is bad.”
“Yes, but if the thought itself is bad, the bad is good from the thought’s standpoint.”
Bluesky seems troubled by Gentian’s words. She says in a low, slow voice, as though for herself:
“In that case, thought is pointless.”
We are silent. She goes in the same tone of voice:
“You may have to kill to save the life of someone you know.”
She stops. We are still silent. She goes on:
“How can you know if it’s not just for the pleasure of killing?”
For a long time no-one finds anything to say. I finally break the silence:
“Thought and knowledge give no certainty.”
Eagle says sarcastically:
“We’ve long known that thought is dangerous!”
Gentian concludes:
“Well then, it’s for the person to whom we have entrusted thought to kill.”
She adds sententiously:
“And as we no longer think, we will think nothing of it.”
Silence returns. Bluesky murmurs:
“A real friend isn’t someone else.”
I am surprised:
“He isn’t himself.”
Eagle protests:
“If a real friend is neither himself nor another, thought won’t accept it because it’s... unthinkable!”
“The unthinkable doesn’t bother feeling,” states Gentian calmly, “since feeling isn’t a thought.”
Bluesky smiles happily:
“Then feeling lets you do something for a real friend.”
She concludes brightly:
“You know a real friend; and as he isn’t someone else, you don’t destroy yourself.”
We too have been very busy with Grandmother this morning. Gentian and Bluesky aren’t the only ones to be busy. Well, more or less... “Come on, we’re on holiday!” Eagle has trumpeted. At lunch Grandfather has talked about school:
“You learn interesting things at school, you’ll be very knowledgeable.”
“Not as knowledgeable as Gentian,” says Eagle with a laugh. “She works much harder than we do!”
Grandfather wags a joking finger:
“We’ll send you to your room and lock you in!”
Grandmother shushes him and says:
“Don’t worry, I’ll hide all the keys.”
“Phooey!” blusters Eagle. “We can jump out of the window!”
Everyone laughs. But Grandfather hasn’t quite given up:
“What do you suppose Gentian will think of that?”
We cut him off before he can say any more:
“That we ought to be ashamed of ourselves...”
Mollified, Grandfather smiles kindly:
“Idle, that’s all you are.”
Amid the laughter, Eagle reassures Grandfather:
“We do work a bit at school all the same, when we have nothing better to do...”
He quickly adds:
“No, no, our marks are good enough... and we even like the subjects that make us think!”
Grandmother congratulates us:
“It’s very good to learn how to think properly. That’s what school’s for. We weren’t always able to...”
She doesn’t finish. Grandfather speaks up:
“What I learnt at school has helped me all my working life. I’ve learnt other things along the way, and been able to improve what I do, but I’ve always used what I learnt at school to my advantage.”
Grandmother looks worried; she asks Eagle:
“What do you mean by subjects that make you think? Are there subjects where you don’t have to think? How can that be?”
Eagle smiles:
“I just meant that in some subjects turning things over in your mind is all you have to do.”
Silence has fallen. A silence full of incomprehension. Thinking… turning things over in your mind… I attempt an explanation:
“What Eagle means is that to make a calculation, for example, all you have to do is think of the right way of doing it.”
Grandfather seems not to understand:
“If I don’t think about what the calculation is for, what’s the point of making it?”
My explanation has failed. Eagle tries to improve it:
“At school you learn how to make calculations and that way, the day you need them, you know how to do them.”
I add:
“You have to learn how to saw wood before you can decide what piece of furniture to make.”
Grandfather frowns:
“So no-one ever thought about making a piece of furniture before learning how to saw wood?”
Grandmother speaks up:
“Don’t bother them! Let them get on with learning their lessons!”
She goes on after a pause:
“What are the subjects you like and that make you think?”
“The ones that tell us about the ideas of important people,” answers Eagle.
“Important people?” queries Grandfather.
I explain:
“The people who write the books we have to study at school.”
“We’re told to fill ourselves with their ideas,” adds Eagle.
I finish off:
“They are the models we should follow in our lives.”
Grandmother beams.
“You’re good lads!” she says with emotion.
Grandfather is not to be left out either:
“If you do a good job of learning all those good ideas, everyone will always be pleased with you.”
He turns to Eagle:
“You’ve already shown me some of your books; sometimes I don’t really understand the ideas I see in them. But then, all people asked me to do was make furniture...”
After lunch we go to our familiar patch of grass. Gentian has stopped by to tell us she’ll be going back down to the little valley tomorrow; we’ll go with her, of course. For the time being we watch the river whose shimmer tells us it’s waiting for us. Eagle reviews the conversation with his grandparents.“For prehistoric man, sawing and calculating were things you had to think about. We have inherited what they created. Now, we think about what the furniture we make is for.”
I nod:
“An in order to think better, we listen to important people.”
“Whose ideas we read about in books.”
A short silence, broken by Eagle:
“And our mind? We replace it with that of others. That of the writers.”
“And destroy ourselves.”
A pause. The conclusion is inevitable, albeit unexpected.
“That’s where proper reasoning takes you,” exclaims Eagle.
I concur:
“I’m done with listening to teachers’ advice.”
“Me too.”
“We’ll issue an official statement as soon as school starts again.”
“No more advice!”
“No more teachers!”
“No more writers!”
“No more school!”
“No more...”
Eagle has spluttered to a stop. Caught up by my momentum, I blurt out another “No more...” that ends with a great burst of laughter from the two duettists. Once we have calmed down again, we scrutinise the grave and imminent danger of destruction that threatens us.
“It’s not the same thing at all,” Eagle begins.
“True; we’re not replacing anything at all.”
“The writer isn’t asking us to make a piece of furniture.”
“At his convenience.”
A pause. So what is the writer doing? I take the plunge:
“The writer expresses his ideas.”
“We do what we like with them; the writer doesn’t force us.”
I ponder:
“And yet when people talk to us about it, they tell us that writers show us how to live.”
“Yes; that’s what Grandfather said too, just now.”
“So it’s the others who use the writer to force us.”
Eagle exclaims:
“So it’s not the writer’s mind we replace ours with, but the mind of those who use the writer.”
“And they’re the ones who destroy us.”
“I could hear you from my house yesterday! You were laughing fit to bust! Philosophy again, I dare say?”
That’s Gentian, who has come to pick us up before going down to the little valley.
“What else?” Eagle retorts, sounding as miffed as someone so misunderstood might have a right to be. “We’re educated people!”
“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” she says deferentially. “Far be it from me to disturb your intellectual endeavours.”
We preen. But she goes on:
“I’ll go on my own; the path’s so steep it might imperil your endeavours.”
Our preening crumples and we jump to our feet.
“We couldn’t let you take such a frightful path all on your own. We’ll save you from the terrible danger!”
“Now I truly have nothing to fear!” she cries.
Laughing, we set off. Before long we can hear the river’s welcoming murmur.
Gentian has run the errand for her parents and now here we are jumping from rock to rock. Breathless, we sit down on the river bank to take advantage of its coolness.
“Which basket is it in?”
Eagle’s question makes us all laugh... all of us except him, of course. Bread and chocolate are passed around.
“Does chocolate replace my mind?” asks Eagle, his mouth full.
Gentian feigns surprise:
“Was that the philosophical enquiry that was making you laugh so much yesterday?”
Eagle seems to have made a discovery:
“What if it were true?”
Gentian is genuinely surprised; me too. He goes on:
“Cows eat all day; what mind do they still have left?”
“Watch out for your chocolate,” I say sarcastically.
Gentian looks serious:
“Cows can’t do otherwise; we can.”
She adds urgently:
“Eagle’s right; if chocolate’s all you think about, your mind will take its leave.”
I comment:
“Can we do other than cut planks, repair clocks, make furniture? Can we not think just about that?”
Eagle frowns:
“In a nutshell, we can choose between chocolate, clocks – and those who use a writer for their own ends.”
After the ensuing silence, Gentian says deliberately:
“Amongst ourselves, and with Bluesky too, we can let our mind run from one to the other without fear. If I want to replace a mind with mine, I have to sure of mine, or rather believe I am sure of it. When we’re together we seek; someone who feels sure of themself doesn’t seek.”
Silence has returned, but a peaceable silence. Not for long, though...
“Someone who wants to replace our mind...” begins Eagle.
He hesitates, then goes on:
“... can lie to us.”
Silence has returned, but an anxious silence. I break it:
“I’ve often felt scared about behaving like the great philosophers they tell us about at school; their fate at the hands of others was not always enviable.”
Eagle backs me up with fervour:
“When I... sometimes, what philosophers say, they generally tell me I’ve got my head in the clouds!”
“From which I deduce that if not learning is clearly of no use, learning is not of much use either!”
“In which case,” concludes Gentian sadly, “the destruction we talked about consists in replacing our mind with the mind of others, the mind of those who use the writer they have chosen to give us as a model to get us to obey someone who can lie to us in their own interest.”
Sunday morning. There’s a market on and people are out and about. We go with the grandparents. Grandfather chats with the people he used to share his craft with in days gone by; they’re not just colleagues or customers, as they say where I come from; no, there are ties between them, by which I mean that he knows what they do, their likes and dislikes, their families, their lives. These people have things in common with Grandfather, almost intimate things – health, pleasures, joys and sorrows, good times and bad, business matters. Grandmother is at the market, stocking up the larder for the next few days; she talks about how dear the fruit is, the vegetables that are thriving in her vegetable patch – not what I had called her garden when I first arrived – the housework that never ends, her grandson who is doing so well at school. The conversations around us are noisy, lively. Everyone has things to do. They’re in no hurry but nothing ever stops, nothing leaves room. How could I talk about thought, feelings, mind? Here, thought has a purpose, feelings concern someone and the mind is good or bad, as I have often heard said without ever knowing clearly what it meant. All these people seemed happy to be together; you’d have believed without a moment’s hesitation that they were among friends. But wouldn’t Bluesky have said that each of them seemed to be another person to the others?
We had come to get the milk. Gentian’s father had just found out that he would have to go to the sawmill in the afternoon. “Shall we go?” Gentian had asked.
The sun was heading off to sleep by the time we reached the bottom of our stream. Seeing us climb in the shade with which the mountain had covered the stream, it immediately came out again to light our way. We reach our garden without further ado. Having done its duty the sun went off behind the mountain, letting a dark mantle spread over the valley where the sawmill gradually faded away.
The heat of the day had yielded a little without the sun to support it, but we didn’t yet need the warm clothes we had brought with us. “You’ll be cold before you even notice it,” Bluesky has told me. “Yes, and it comes all at once,” Gentian has added. We flash lights in the direction of the sawmill; Bluesky and Gentian’s fathers were expecting them and send us answering flashes. I see Gentian’s father’s car leaving the village to go back to the hamlet. As Bluesky’s father has business in the little town not far from our hamlet, he’ll bring us back tomorrow morning; it had been agreed that we would spend the night in the mountains.
The three great peaks opposite us cut off the rest of the light that the sun bears away. We have eaten: tomatoes, sausage, cheese, walnut cake.
“Do you still like it?” Bluesky asks me, sounding slightly anxious.
She adds, no doubt to explain why:
“It’s always the same.”
I give her a big smile:
“I’d eat it day and night!”
I add, to explain my contentment:
“It’s not always the same to me. Sausage doesn’t smell like that or taste like that where I come from, the cheese doesn’t have those little crystals that make you never want to stop, and I’d never even had walnut cake before!”
I pause to draw breath:
“And then I’ve never come across places that make me want to live there so much; this garden here, the river down below the hamlet, the tarn...”
I look out into the distance:
“Here I can see the night, which doesn’t come to the city where I live, and which is there, everywhere, offering me its mysteries.”
My friends listen to me; they seem happy... We eat in silence. Flickering lights from the village in the valley illuminate our eyes. I can hear the muffled tread of sheep looking for grass. A tinkling in the distance; a cow has just stood up. The silence was not troubled... The moon hasn’t wanted to disturb the deep black of the night, now transparent. Only the stars twinkle, bringing us distant messages from a world that may have disappeared long since.
“The stars won’t keep you warm,” Bluesky says to me softly.
I smile dreamily:
“I was wondering why they look at us. Do they think we no longer exist?”
Gentian clarifies:
“There are stars that don’t see us even if they’re looking at us now. We didn’t exist at that time.”
Bluesky is pensive:
“How can we know something that doesn’t exist?”
She turns to Gentian:
“I know, you can explain...”
“And while you’re at it you can explain why we can’t know what does exist!” exclaims Eagle.
He shakes his head:
“And yet it’s incomprehensible!”
I speak up:
“Can we know... the others, as we’ve called them?”
“Their thoughts?” asks Gentian.
No-one says anything. She goes on:
“Thought also appeared one day.”
“Oh! It’s even appeared just now! I’ve just thought that I’m cold!” cries Eagle.
We laugh. It’s true, it is cold. We make a dive for our warm clothes.
“Cold also appears!” I joke.
“When you’re a long way away from the cold, you can’t know what it is,” comments Gentian.
“Feelings also appear one day; and when you’re a long way away, you can’t know what they are either,” says Bluesky slowly.
“And yet they may exist...”
The night’s silence answers Gentian. Are the stars indifferent to our hopes?
“If feelings exist, how can we find them?”
“You have to wait for them; if they exist, they’ll come,” Gentian answers me.
“You have to go towards them; they will reveal themselves when they’re close enough,” states Bluesky firmly.
“We live in an invisible world,” Eagle says emphatically. “It’s there and we can’t see it!”
He goes on dramatically:
“And we see it when it is no longer there!”
If Eagle’s intention was to make us laugh, he’s failed lamentably. What he says is so true... Gentian piles it on:
“The stars have moved since we got here, and yet they’re still in the same place.”
“I’m even colder now!” mutters Eagle.
This time we do laugh. Bluesky has stood up.
“Let’s go and warm up!” she cries brightly.
I am somewhat surprised. It’s not far off midnight and going back down with no moonlight seems tricky.
“Dangerous, even,” confirms Bluesky.
“Especially for beginners!” Eagle teases me.
I am more and more in the dark, so to speak. Gentian pretends to reassure me:
“Don’t worry, we’re going up, not down!”
Ah!
“You’re all horrid!” cries Bluesky with a laugh.
She explains:
“There’s a little hut not far from here, a bit higher up, called a refuge, it’s open day and night for anyone who wants to rest or shelter. That’s where we’re going. The path is quite safe, you can see it clearly with your torch.”
We reach the refuge shortly after midnight. I am surprised. The refuge is empty, and it’s cold inside; but everything is ready so that wayfarers can light a fire, make food and even sleep. We are soon warm and cosy, and the remains of the sausage and cheese have been hungrily despatched.
“I love your refuge!” I tell Bluesky enthusiastically. “We should stay here all holidays!”
“It would be nice,” she nods, “but no way, I’m afraid. Gentian and I are often busy, as you know, and the refuge is here for everyone. What would’ve happened if we’d found it locked?”
I feel embarrassed:
“I was just saying, you know...”
She stops me with a calm smile:
“I know.”
She goes on brightly:
“The sun’s up in three hours. It’ll be light. We’ll be able to go back down.”
The night passes peacefully. The stars turn... without moving. Gentian explains a lesson from school to Bluesky, Eagle and I tell them about our life in the city. Through the window, I can see the outline of the three great peaks gradually emerging against a vast canvas of deepest blue. We start to descend. The outline becomes sharper, the blue more tender, and suddenly I am dazzled by a blazing white fire. The sun has risen!
The next day. The sun hasn’t risen! And yet it’s there, flooding the hamlet with light. Oh, I know. It’s taken advantage of my being asleep to get up without telling me. No hike today... The day after tomorrow we’ll go to the tarn with Gentian. This afternoon we’re going to friends of the grandparents in the little town. They have a nephew our age who’s come to stay with them for a few days. He doesn’t like the mountains, he doesn’t like the countryside, he doesn’t like the seaside. You’ve guessed it, he likes the city. It’s the only place a person can live, he says.
“The mountains are boring.”
I wait for him to go on. He doesn’t. I ask him a question:
“Why?”
Not a question to ask, judging by the condescending tone of voice in which he answers me:
“What is there to do here?”
What can I tell him? The stream, the sun? I suggest:
“Not see people you don’t know.”
He glares at me disapprovingly:
“That’s stupid!”
Well, that’s one argument... I go on:
“There are three great peaks where I went hiking yesterday; I know them...”
He breaks in:
“I know the street where I go and buy my records.”
Eagle tries to make a joke:
“He’s never bought the peaks!”
The joke falls flat. I try again:
“I also know the place from which I can see the peaks.”
Answer:
“I know the street where I go to the cinema.”
I have clearly chosen my examples badly. I am rather lost. What can I say to him? The stream, the sun? The stream... he will without doubt have seen bigger, better ones at the cinema, and maybe with a boat race as well, how exciting; the sun... there’s nothing to see, and in any case it’s dangerous to look, you need special glasses, it’s complicated. I exaggerate, of course. Let’s see:
“Have you already seen the sun come up?”
“That’s stupid!”
It’s an argument without end. Eagle speaks up:
“You can’t see it in the city...”
“You can see it as much as you like at the cinema. In any case, I prefer sunsets, they’re more poetic. I even saw one at the seaside, with my parents. But the seaside’s boring, there’s nothing to do. I’m busy in the city, I never get bored.”
“Busy?” I exclaim. “You do things for yourself?”
“For myself? Why? There are people whose job it is. I watch what they do. There’s lots to see in the city; see or listen to – I listen to music a lot.”
He sneers:
“Am I supposed to compose it as well?”
Eagle bristles:
“I have friends who do.”
“Are they professionals?”
“No...”
He cuts him off:
“Amateurs can’t be as good as professionals. There’s no point to what they do. I want the best and I reckon I know what that is. I don’t stint when it comes to finding the best.”
He sneers again:
“It’s easy to go and see the sun come up. I don’t see what’s so worthy about that. I can spend an hour looking for a good record; I don’t just make do with the first one that comes along!”
I say without realising it:
“Or the first sun that comes along...”
He gives me a sidelong look:
“What do you mean?...”
He’s visibly casting around for something else to say. Finally:
“What about you? Do you do things for yourself?”
“I keep a diary.”
He laughs loudly:
“Is that what you call doing something for yourself? What do you write about? Things you get up to with girls?”
I said nothing. Eagle said nothing. We both said nothing.
On the patch of grass at the bottom of the hamlet. We’re not silent, not like yesterday.
“Words don’t have the same meaning for everyone,” Eagle has begun tartly.
“Welcome grammar!” I grunt. “The plural isn’t the singular.”
“He’ll never get to know the unexpected; he’s already got everything mapped out.”
“He’ll never get to know anyone; he’s short-sighted, he can’t see people except as a crowd.”
“In all events, he’s not afraid of thought: he doesn’t know what it is!”
We ponder these first findings, which we had held back until this moment of peace and quiet.
“So we should write only stories, not a story,” grumbles Eagle.
“If it’s for him, he goes from one cinema to another, from one film to another.”
“That way he doesn’t have time to think.”
I exclaim:
“Then he is afraid of thought without even knowing it exists!”
We allow ourselves a chuckle to dissipate our irritation.
“What about us? Are we afraid of our thought?”
We look at each other for a long while. I answer Eagle’s question:
“I write down everything we do.”
“I know, you’ve sometimes shown me your diary; but I’m a poor reader...”
I cut him off:
“That must be why you pointed out my mistakes.”
He grins:
“What was it you said? Welcome grammar!”
I grin too. He goes on:
“I could never write like that, I don’t have the patience.”
“Oh, I don’t need patience. I want to hang on to life. It may come in handy one day.”
“Do you want to become a writer?” he asks me deliberately.
“No, I’d rather stay myself.”
He falls silent. After a moment he goes on again:
“I’m glad you write like that. I’ll be even stricter with your mistakes.”
I give him a smile:
“I’ll have to take care, otherwise you’ll be buried under grammar.”
We laugh.
“I haven’t read your writings for a while. How have you described Gentian and Bluesky?”
“I haven’t described them; I’ve reported as accurately as I can what they said and what they did.”
“And what they thought?”
“No, I can’t know that.”
I pause for a moment, then add:
“When several people look at someone, they each see and hear that person themselves. If I impose myself, no-one will be able to see or hear them.”
Eagle exclaims:
“In that case it’s just as well I’ve seen them for myself!”
He ponders for a moment, then goes on:
“It’s just that it’s as if I asked you ‘What do you think of them?’ and you say ‘You’ve seen them, think for yourself!”
I am confused:
“Saying what I think is making myself known, not making them known.”
He protests:
“It’s making yourself known if we already know them; but a book must remain for ever...”
“Oh, come off it!” I protest.
He takes no notice of my interruption:
“... otherwise why write it?”
I don’t know what to say. He goes on:
“You say that everyone sees and hears for themselves. I’m not sure that’s quite the case. Perhaps someone can’t hear...”
“A deaf person?”
“No, a deaf person will have no trouble reading you; no, I mean someone who doesn’t understand what is said. They won’t understand your text either.”
“Am I supposed to give an explanation?”
“It’s not shameful!” he replies with a laugh.
I smile:
“It may be if it’s a bad explanation!”
I go on in a more serious tone of voice:
“If the person whose words I am reporting expresses themselves badly and I correct them, my reader won’t hear it.”
“And if you don’t correct them, your reader won’t hear anything at all.”
“No matter, since I wouldn’t have heard anything myself.”
Eagle nods:
“And yet you would explain a maths problem.”
“OK, let’s suppose I have to show someone the way in town; of course I would tell them that they should watch out for the pothole I know exists in a particular street. But why should I warn my reader to be wary of the little interest I have supposedly found in this or that character...”
I say neutrally:
“... you, for example...”
I can’t continue, my breath cut by a solid thump. Eagle takes advantage of the situation:
“Well, then, the reader wouldn’t waste his time...”
“... reading me, if on the contrary he finds the character fascinating!”
After a short silence, he goes on:
“Nevertheless you choose the words you report; Gentian and Bluesky are known by those words, not by the ones you didn’t report. You’re imposing not only your choice but also the vision the reader will have of them.”
That’s worth taking a closer look at. I embark on an in-depth analysis.
“There’s a man who only likes driving his big car. One day, on the way to see a friend, he has a breakdown. The repairman lends him a small car to finish his journey: the man will pick up his big car on the way back. A person, who knows him, sees him leaving his friend’s house and getting into the small car. Oh, thinks the person, so he doesn’t only like big cars.”
Eagle protests:
“An explanation was all that was needed.”
“Of course, but you said, didn’t you, that I reported what I chose; in my example, all the facts are reported. And if I explain, it will be my explanation.”
“In that particular case there was no problem.”
“You reckon? What if, without my knowing, the man had himself asked for the small car, either for fun or to compare? That’s two more cases, and there may well be others.”
“OK, but in that case you can never know anything.”
I laugh out loud:
“Didn’t I tell you I couldn’t know what Gentian and Bluesky thought?”
Eagle smiles:
“Go on, tell me what Gentian and Bluesky think!”
Wrong-footed for a moment, I intend to give him a good shove but he’s already taken evasive action.
“You want to know what I think of them.”
“I do indeed, but that’s not what I asked you.”
“I have to think something about them so as to be able to say, or rather suppose, what they think.”
“OK, you don’t want to say anything.”
I protest:
“I never said that; I...”
He interrupts me briskly:
“Yes, yes, I know what you said!”
He interrupts himself:
“I’m hungry. Let’s go and get something, an afternoon snack.”
Grandmother has already prepared lots of good things. “You only eat sweet things where you come from,” she has scolded us yet again. “It does you good to eat properly while you’re here.” We eat properly. It’s good, though it feels more like dinner to me than an afternoon snack: ham omelette, salad and raspberries with cream! Well, I would happily eat raspberries and cream any time. “Me too!” Eagle has told Grandmother.
Back on the patch of grass.
“Well then, as you didn’t say no, I’m listening.”
I play innocent:
“About what?”
Eagle is not fooled; I only just avoid another shove. I capitulate:
“Mummy Gentian has found children. Bluesky has woven her web in her impregnable fortress. In both cases we are prisoners.”
We say nothing for a long while. Eagle finally makes up his mind:
“It’s an open prison.”
“What means do we have of escaping?”
He hesitates:
“The holidays will end.”
“Gentian and Bluesky will be in our city. They will have a different shape.”
“In that case one day or another the prison will close again.”
“And we ourselves will have closed it.”
He pulls a face:
“That day, it’s they who will be prisoners.”
A long silence. Eagle says again, as in a fairy tale:
“Go on, tell me what Gentian and Bluesky think.”
I answer, as in a fairy tale:
“You no longer want to know what I think about them.”
He says nothing. All I can do is carry on:
“We’re nimble and quite smart. We can dig a cave for them, where they will be prisoners; we will guard the locked door behind which they will be safe and sound.”
I add wearily:
“But as you are well aware, I can’t know what they think...”
We make our way down through the forest of venerable larch trees. Gentian is ahead of me, walking with a firm tread. What is she thinking about? That the sun isn’t as burning hot as the last time we came to the motionless tarn adorned by the deep blue of the sky? Has yesterday’s great discussion about what Gentian and Bluesky think been muted by the soft carpet of needles?
“There’s the tarn!”
Gentian’s clear voice has dispelled my ponderings. We sit on the grass, surrounded by the bright flowers in innumerable colours that border the tarn. The river flows as tirelessly as ever. In the distance, the clouds are not as white as the previous time, and the crystalline blankets of icy snow no longer sparkle on the peaks; the summits have disappeared in the haze. The lunch is unpacked. Gentian officiates. Her movements are confident. There is no haze around her. Why do her actions seem so important, so essential, even? Eagle and I can do important things, even essential things. But I believe I feel that the nature of what she does is different to that of what we do. We can bring the sausage and the knife and so many other things; she sets the table.
“Where are you?”
‘Where are you?’ Where are you… Oh, that’s me! I’m…
“I’m here!”
A merry laugh – slightly sardonic – answers my somewhat hesitant assertion.
“Was your thought afraid of you?” Eagle teases me, still chuckling.
Gentian is not so cruel:
“His thought took hold of him. He’s no longer part of the ‘Universe and the Rest’!”
I give a quick grin:
“I’m more likely to be part of ‘Mankind and the Rest’…”
“What a find!...”
I don’t give Eagle time to continue:
“More than you might think. We know how the Universe is made…”
“If that’s the case, you’re the only one!”
Gentian has been observing me:
“Your thought really has taken hold of you. So it’s Mankind that we don’t know how it’s made?”
“We don’t know about the Universe either,” Eagle mutters.
She insists:
“Ah, but we do. Or at least, if we don’t, we can. No, that’s not what I meant…”
“Who’s getting all muddled up now, then?”
“At least she has ideas!” I tease him.
“Yes, that’s true, and so do you. It’s just a shame you keep them to yourselves.”
Gentian has paid no notice to our gibes:
“When I talk about the Universe I know what I’m talking about even if I don’t understand it. Mankind isn’t what I can see, it’s inside; I can’t know what I’m talking about but I can understand it.
She goes on, almost in the same tone of voice:
“The earth is still warm; it’s warming the cold air up there. The haze is already lifting. It’s a lovely day.”
She remains thoughtful, then adds softly:
“It’s so simple…”
She has fallen silent. The Universe does not need to fall silent, it never speaks. The river erodes the soil, stubbornly and inconsiderately. The larch trees have trapped the water that falls; does the water know? What about Mankind?...
Eagle has had the thought:
“What if Mankind were like the stars? When you see them, perhaps they already no longer exist?”
That’s going too far and I tell him so:
“Did you exist before anyone ever looked at you?”
Gentian doesn’t give him time to answer:
“Stars can exist without anyone seeing them. So can Mankind.”
For a long time she contemplates the peaks escaping from the haze:
“If a star shines only for itself, it will never illuminate anything.”
The milk. “Good morning, Gentian!” The morning spent helping Grandmother. Back to Gentian’s to get some cheese.
“See? We’re busy too!” says Eagle self-importantly.
“I see…”
She hesitates:
“I have a book to read this afternoon…”
“What book?” I ask her curiously.
“It’s about ethics; what you should do…”
“Is it for school?” enquires Eagle.
She smiles:
“Yes. But I hope it’ll be for me too. If we’re supposed to do what is considered good, we might as well know what it is.”
She hesitates again. I think I’ve understood:
“Do you want to talk about it when you’ve finished it?”
“Oh, yes! I’d really like that!”
She goes on very quickly:
“And it’s quite hard sometimes; you’d be helping me.”
Eagle bursts out laughing:
“By listening to your explanations, I suppose.”
She laughs too:
“Why not? If you understand, it means my explanations must have been clear!”
She adds brightly:
“My father’s going to the sawmill tomorrow. Let’s go to Bluesky’s, we can all talk about it together.”
The decision is made. A phone call to Bluesky and an arrangement to meet up is made.
The cheese is to be served at the lunch for which some friends of the grandparents have come over. He runs a furniture shop in a town in a nearby valley; his wife does the books. The accounts are in good shape, the shop is doing well. He is giving Eagle instruction; as for me, he doesn’t know whether I deserve instruction or not.
“My father left me the business and I’ve always put the shop first. I’ve always sold good furniture – ask your grandfather – I’ve always been honest and I’ve always had satisfied customers.”
He stops, takes a mouthful of wine and looks at Eagle:
“If you follow the rules of society…”
He fumbles for words, doesn’t find them:
“My shop makes a good profit, my father would be proud of me.”
He stops again. The conversation moves on. He moves on with it, often nodding his head:
“My shop wouldn’t work if I didn’t take any notice of what my customers like. My aim is to make them happy, to please them. If I don’t do that, I wouldn’t be doing my duty towards my customers…”
He nods:
“… and they would quite rightly go to another shop.”
He heaves a great sigh. Of relief? The conversation moves on. He moves on with it, often nodding his head:
“If you’re going to do something, do it properly…”
He fumbles for words, doesn’t find them:
“That’s what I was taught at school.”
He looks at Eagle:
“Learn your lessons, son!”
He gives a rich chuckle:
“You’ll have good customers!”
The conversation moves on. He moves on with it, smiling smugly.
The sun has lost some of its radiance. In the stream, the multicoloured stones that line its bed break its surface. No, summer isn’t quite on its way out yet, but the lengthening shadows point the direction. The sky is no longer quite as transparent, the horizon is uncertain and the three great peaks have retreated, their outline blurred by a slight haze.
The conference on ethics has begun.
“We got an ethics lesson too,” says Eagle wryly.
He recounts yesterday’s incident.
“My father takes notice of what his customers like, too,” comments Bluesky, “but he tends to offer them what’s right for them; perhaps he would have more customers…”
She doesn’t finish.
“Tell that to the writer of the book on ethics I’ve just finished reading,” Gentian chips in with bitter irony.
“Well, tell us what it said, then!” exclaims Eagle.
Gentian smiles sadly:
“Yesterday I said I hoped my book would be informative… I think I’m better informed by people.”
“So whose advice should we follow?” asks Bluesky, sounding slightly anxious. “That of books, or of great men and women?”
“Perhaps great men and women never write books,” teases Eagle.
“It’s not ethics when my father gives a piece of advice to the person sawing a plank.”
Gentian gives Bluesky a nod:
“Nor when I ask my cows for milk.”
I object:
“You’re not talking about the same thing. Ethics is not concerned with actions but...
Gentian interrupts me urgently:
“Ethics is about how to behave; behaving is acting.”
“We act according to what we are; actions are merely a necessary consequence – a confirmation, I could say. Ethics judges what we are.”
“So ethics doesn’t tell us how to behave, but how to be?”
“Yes. It claims to teach people how to be what it wants them to be.”
“Come off it!” Eagle protests. “Ethics didn’t just happen! It was created by people!”
“Which people?” chips in Bluesky. “The ones who talk to us every day or the ones who talk to us from the core of our books?”
“At school we’re told it’s the ones from our books,” answers Gentian. “The one I’ve just been reading tells me who my behaviour says I am. The teacher won’t add anything to that.”
“Teachers give commentaries,” points out Eagle.
“Yes, but will they tell me after the lesson to do the opposite of what the book says?” replies Gentian.
“And which way should I decide if my parents tell me to do the opposite of what the book says?” asks Bluesky.
“And what if your cow tells you to do the opposite of what the book says?” answers Eagle.
She looks at him but says nothing. He goes on:
“You can’t not milk your cow, whatever the book says.”
He nods his head:
“There are other things you can’t not do.”
He ponders:
“Eating, for example...”
“No-one’s stop...”
Bluesky breaks off suddenly then goes on:
“Yes, it’s true, not everybody has enough to eat.”
She pauses for a moment:
“But that’s not a question of ethics.”
Gentian speaks up:
“Eating isn’t, but providing food may be.”
She adds slowly:
“And air to breathe, too...”
No-one says anything. A thought is circling around me. I look out at Bluesky’s village in the distance below me. How peaceful it looks... I seem to hear breathing – you can sometimes hear much more extraordinary things in dreams... The thought circling around me is coming in to land:
“Is it ethics that exists, or only those who make it?”
“If it’s those who make it, each one has their own!” exclaims Eagle.
“That’s what the book I finished reading yesterday says,” agrees Gentian, nodding.
She goes on scathingly:
“I have to learn each writer’s opinion; then I have to recite them.”
On a sadder note:
“And then, what am I supposed to do next?”
“And then, someone will tell you what to do next,” declares Eagle.
He goes on sarcastically:
“It’s all about knowing whether your life depends on that someone.”
Bluesky says angrily:
“What about me? Aren’t I allowed to have my own ethics?”
Eagle gives a disillusioned little laugh:
“On the contrary: just as long as you yourself are a writer and do nothing more than write. It will be a work of literature.”
He adds ironically:
“Gentian will learn about it at school.”
I speak up:
“But all the same, there are writers who have managed to have their ethics put into practice.”
“Yes, but perhaps by those who could take some advantage from it.”
All four of us are beside the motionless tarn. Bluesky came back with us yesterday; she will spend a few days at Gentian’s.
“It’s alive,” says Bluesky, pointing to the tarn. “Where I live, up there on the other side of the mountain we went to, there’s a very cold lake which won’t let anyone come near it. It looks like a plate filled with water; it’s an attraction for the people we were talking about, who pass by without stopping, maybe in a hurry to see other plates.”
It’s sad but we can’t help laughing. For lunch we have brought the delicate wild strawberries picked yesterday evening. Stuffed, we can’t eat anything else.
“I’ve never eaten…”
Gentian interrupts me with a smile:
“… strawberries like them!”
“Or even just wild strawberries!”
We laze, tracking the little white clouds… which hardly move anyway.
“I’ve always dreamt of walking on the clouds,” says Bluesky pensively.
“And me, of flying on a cloud,” declares Eagle.
Bluesky is still pensive:
“Who made the clouds?”
She gives a sigh:
“I know it’s only water; but such beautiful water… and it keeps us alive, too.”
She adds very quickly:
“I would have a workshop where I would make clouds. ‘Do you want a nice round one? Or one with a little bump on the side?’ I would give them to the birds so that they can make their nests in them.”
I dream of birds who go visiting, from one cloud to another… I think we all dream, because no-one says anything.
“Make… clouds…”
In the silence that surrounds us, Eagle has uttered the words like an incantation. Has the mountain listened to him? The river runs peacefully, the little white clouds are asleep on the distant mountain-tops, big birds are circling slowly way up high, way up high…
“If you make clouds,” goes on Eagle more deliberately, “people will tell you they’re not as well made as by nature.”
He has emphasised the word “nature”. Bluesky laughs:
“I’ll wait for the birds to tell me.”
Eagle strikes a professorial pose:
“Birds do not possess the necessary knowledge to make a judgment…”.
A chorus of boos and cries of “School’s out!”
Eagle is unperturbed:
“School, maybe, but not people. People are never ‘out’. And they know that no-one can do better than nature. Or at least that’s what they say. And when they say it, watch out!”
It’s a depressing prospect. Gentian is concerned:
“If people can never do better than nature, what’s the point of…”
She breaks off, shrugs helplessly, and goes on hesitantly:
“I don’t know… of reading yesterday’s book… that one or another one… since…”
She breaks off again. Bluesky also seems troubled:
“Do you think the birds won’t want my clouds?”
Gentian gives her a slightly sad smile. Bluesky shakes her head:
“No, no, that’s silly, it’s just a game.”
She stops for a moment then goes on more brightly:
“I’m sure they will want them. In any case, my clouds are more beautiful than real ones because I’ve made them just for them.”
She thinks, then says:
“It is silly, isn’t it?”
She pulls such a despondent face that we all laugh.
“And why shouldn’t we do better than nature?”
My question has surprised the laugh, which has prudently fled. Gentian offers an answer:
“Yesterday’s book says that we come from nature…”
She corrects herself:
“No, it isn’t exactly that… I don’t know if I really understood… We are made of nature… or by nature… Oh, I don’t know…”
Nobody mocks her hesitations. Are we willing to offer a better explanation? Apparently not, given the deafening silence. She goes on:
“I can’t put any more water in the pot; that’s roughly what I think it was getting at.”
Eagle hasn’t got it at all. Nor me, for that matter. Bluesky, on the other hand…
“You mean if nature has made a pot filled by six glasses, you can’t pour in a seventh?”
Yes, that’s it; now everyone has got it. Eagle is sceptical:
“Nature doesn’t make pots. People make pots.”
I point out:
“If nature hadn’t made you the way you are, you wouldn’t be able to make pots.”
“Pots don’t grow up; and they don’t learn philosophy either.”
Gentian chips in:
“They don’t have thoughts.”
Bluesky nods:
“And they don’t have feelings.”
All, tragically:
“Poor pots!”
We decide to console ourselves with the now-traditional walnut cake, that Bluesky still makes just as deliciously. I compliment her… philosophically:
“Nature may have made the ingredients you used, but the cake is definitely your handiwork!”
“And one that will not last for ever…” says Eagle pointedly, seeing the cake disappear.
“We made it for us, we’ve eaten it,” comments Gentian.
She adds with conviction:
“We didn’t make it to last for ever, but to eat ourselves. What does nature do with the ingredients? If it has made us, it has eaten them through us; like the cake, they don’t matter for themselves.”
Eagle exclaims sarcastically:
“If nature has made us to eat us it’s missed the target because we’re not pots, we grow up and we learn philosophy!”
He catches his breath:
“And as Gentian and Bluesky said, we have thoughts and feelings!”
We sit in silence for a while. I launch into a peroration:
“A pot will always be a pot. The person who made it can use it whenever they like; it will be obliged to do what is asked of it. It depends on the person because it stays the same, and that person can recognise it and find it just the way they made it. Our thought is not motionless and nature will not find it just the way it made it. And it cannot know what we feel because our feelings are part of ourselves and it cannot find us just the way it made us.”
The shadows are lengthening on the mountain-side opposite us, on the other side of the river. A few luminous silver clouds appear as the sun touches the peaks. The slight breath of warm air that rose from the valley has slowed and the cool of evening is starting to spread around us. The heady scents of the larch trees have invaded our mountain. We go home.
Shortly after lunch we go to Gentian’s house. Her parents don’t just provide us with milk, eggs and cheese – they make cheese. I look at the big discs – “wheels”, Gentian tells me – from which the small piece I will eat will one day be cut. “How long would it take me to eat a whole wheel?” “Oh, at least a week,” Gentian replies with a laugh. Making cheese is not exactly a sinecure. There is something to do every day: suspend the copper vat, break up the curds, keep a close eye on them as they are warmed until they take on a lovely yellow colour, put the cheese in pine molds… And that’s not the end of the process. After that, you have to rub the wheels for years with salt and good white wine.
“Cows eat all day; what mind do they still have left?” Eagle had asked.
The sun, on its way to bed, has left only a pale gleam that is gradually fading behind the mountain. We are at the bottom of the hamlet, sitting around a crackling fire; a deep and mysterious red colour has already penetrated the smaller branches, whose glowing embers have shrivelled the potatoes that we pluck out of the fire, trying more or less dexterously not to burn ourselves. A wonderful feast, the like of which I have never been invited to in my city.
“It’s good to eat nature,” mumbles Eagle with his mouth full.
He goes on, barely more distinctly:
“And nature won’t be able to eat us because it won’t find us by our thought!”
Gentian nods:
“If nature can’t find us any more, we no longer have any link with it. We’re independent.”
Bluesky smiles happily:
“There’s nothing nature can tell us any more, not about anything. And our feelings are ours and ours only, they don’t depend on some influence or other.”
She repeats firmly:
“What I feel belongs to me. Nobody and nothing can tell me what I ought to feel.”
The potato she was holding on the end of an extinguished brand has gone cold:
“No, you won’t make me eat you,” she expostulates. “You shouldn’t have gone cold! Go back to where you come from!”
Into the fire goes the potato. Bluesky picks out a nice hot one.
“Aren’t you going to say thank you to nature, then?” remarks Eagle sarcastically. “It’s nature that made the potatoes.”
“It’s me that cooked them!”
“It’s nature that made the fire too!”
“Yes, to burn the potatoes,” Gentian protests indignantly, “not to cook them! Nature doesn’t issue invitations to lunch!”
I moderate her indignation:
“Nature offers fruit…”
“Which can be poisonous. And it doesn’t tell you which. Eat and see!”
I summarise:
“Without our craft, no lunch!”
“Yes, as long as the craftsman doesn’t mess up…” Eagle slips in.
“In that case it’ll be his fault; nature will have nothing to do with it.”
“If it’s a hit, it’s nature; if it’s a miss, it’s us!” scoffs Gentian.
Bluesky picks up the thread:
“And nature will tell us that if we’ve messed something up once, it means we’re capable of messing up; we’re messer-uppers!”
“Messer-uppers?” I say, startled. “What’s a messer-upper?”
“Someone who has to think of only one thing: whatever they do, they can mess it up; so they’re messer-uppers above all!”
“They can take care.”
“No point. If they don’t mess up, nature will say it helped, or even that it did it all by itself. He or she is a messer-upper and that’s an end to it. The only feeling they should have is fear, fear of messing up; because if they mess up, they can bring down the universe – even though they don’t know what it is – that nature had made so well, themselves included. And if they bring down the universe, they will be punished…”
I interrupt:
“That’s normal.”
“Yes, of course it’s normal. And as they’re capable of doing it, they might as well be punished in advance; that way the fear will never leave them and nature will be able to carry on doing what it does so well!”
She takes a deep breath:
“As for the universe, it should never have let itself be brought down, so it will be punished too!”
We have gone down into the little valley; bread and chocolate restore our strength, exhausted by races and leaps over the rocks in the river.
“No thinking for me today,” announces Eagle solemnly.
I think we’re all of the same mind.
“Do I think as often as all that?” Bluesky wonders. “There are so many things prepared in advance that I have to do, either because I’m told to or of my own accord.”
A thought comes to me:
“Perhaps life is prepared in advance…”
Gentian sounds worried:
“The book on ethics I’m reading tells me what to do. Is it preparing my life?”
Eagle says admonishingly:
“It’s nature that wants to prepare your life for you.”
“Nature didn’t write my book.”
“It makes you eat, makes you sleep…”
“It doesn’t make me think.”
Bluesky gives a helpless shrug:
“If I can’t think all the time, does that mean my life is simply prepared?”
I feel worried too:
“I’ve already been told I ought to prepare myself for life… or for my life…”
Gentian fails to reassure me:
“If it’s for your life, it’s so it can make what it wants of you. If it’s for life in general, it’s so that you accept what it wants.”
“Oh, what a nice distinction!” Eagle says admiringly.
Bluesky gives another helpless shrug:
“And yet I can’t refuse to do…”
Eagle interrupts her:
“You can refuse anything! But…”
He leaves his sentence hanging. I think we can all easily guess the consequences of refusing.
Bluesky turns to me; her eyes are veiled with sadness:
“Then you’re right; life is prepared in advance.”
She pauses for a moment, then asks anxiously:
“Who prepares it?”
“My book?” says Gentian slowly.
“Your book!” Eagle snorts. “It doesn’t exist, your book! Everyone tells us what to do; your book is just one more. In any case, as no-one ever says the same thing, we have to do what… those we live with… tell us to do, and they don’t say the same thing either!”
I am somewhat disconcerted:
“You mean it’s those we live with who prepare our life?”
“Who else would it be?”
“You said yourself that no-one said the same thing. And yet everyone does the same thing.”
He gives me a look of surprise. I go on:
“You said it was nature that made us eat and sleep.”
Bluesky butts in:
“So our life would just be eating and sleeping?”
“As far as nature is concerned, yes. The rest is up to us.”
“Well!” exclaims Eagle. “I…”
I interrupt him:
“You were talking about those we live with or the book on ethics, but I’m talking about ourselves…”
It’s his turn to interrupt me:
“So you’d refuse everything?”
Gentian joins in:
“If we want to be ourselves, it’s difficult to accept everything.”
Eagle protests:
“We don’t live in isolation…”
Bluesky states firmly:
“If, apart from eating and sleeping, the rest is up to us, we can refuse everything.”
“Nature isn’t the only thing; once again, we don’t live in isolation. If we don’t do what those we live with tell us to do…”
“We may die of hunger but we will be ourselves.”
“Our dead selves. What a triumph!”
“The one who’s book I’m reading is dead,” says Gentian.
Eagle doesn’t answer. No-one says anything. After a long silence I try to summarise:
“Nature has prepared us in advance and we have escaped through thought. We are our own masters. To do what? And how?”
Gentian comments:
“We’ve talked about the how: ethics, a moral code that we have to construct on our own if we want to be ourselves.”
I express a doubt:
“Construct a moral code on our own, without taking into account those we live with?”
“On the contrary,” she replies fiercely, “we have to take into account everything around us; but we have to refuse whatever doesn’t belong to nature. Though for all that we shouldn’t prevent those we live with from eating and sleeping.”
“How very reassuring!” cries Eagle.
We start to laugh, without really knowing why. Bluesky picks up the thread again, turning to me:
“And what are we our own masters for? To do what?”
“Perhaps to make those we live with masters of themselves. If everyone is themself, no-one can say ‘It wasn’t me, I was told to do it.’”
After breakfast, our little band has gone with Gentian’s father to run a few errands at the little market in the little town. The river’s flow has made way for a flow of people. Of course I am used to seeing more people in the city where I live; but the recent days of untroubled idleness had caused me to forget it. People come and go, others wait for them; those who wait do the bidding of those who come and go. “A smock, please…” The ones who come and go need the smock; if those who wait don’t give it to them, they won’t be able to do their task, the task given to them by those who… Those who wait are not masters of the tasks of those who come and go, so how could they be their own masters? There are too many people, too many tasks… Gentian’s father has gone into an ironmonger’s; very carefully he chooses a spade to replace the rather chipped one he already has. He knows what he needs, but all the same he listens attentively to the advice given by the sales assistant, who knows what he’s talking about. Who is themself in this conversation – I was going to say, this study? The spade, certainly… Gentian’s father needs the spade; he could get by without it, of course, but… as Eagle had said. We go from one shop to another; Gentian and Bluesky know… All I do is look on, with an explorer’s curiosity… A new world is not necessarily at the other end of the world!
The first day of August. The light has become softer over the last few days. The sun is no longer in such a hurry to wake us so early in the morning, and departs from us leaving behind perhaps a slight feeling of surprise at seeing it already disappear.
Where shall we go today? Bluesky suggests the tarn she liked so much. “And the larch trees smell so good!” she tells us. It’s true, there aren’t any on her mountain, which is much too high.
We reach the tarn; the water is so transparent I can believe there is another sky, down there, in the unknown. Here, time has stopped while we have been away; the brightly coloured flowers are waiting for us, the white clouds are sleeping on the distant peaks and the river flows peacefully without having moved.
Lunch. We are hungry after our long hike. Ham, cheese, fruit… and water from the cool spring that has called us with a soft murmur. We sit there, doing nothing, dreaming no doubt…
“Ah, the joys of doing nothing,” says Eagle, stretching.
“I see with pleasure that you are yourself,” comments Gentian with gentle sarcasm.
Eagle is unbothered:
“Absolutely. I refuse everything. My myself has nothing to fear as long as I don’t move.”
I also comment with gentle sarcasm:
“Watch out, you may find the Universe separated from the Rest when you wake up!”
He stretches again:
“I’m already in the Rest and have no intention of budging. The Universe has ceased to exist and I no longer have anywhere to go.”
We laugh, we tease him, I pummel him, to no effect; slumped he was, slumped he remains. Gentian tries a flanking manoeuvre:
“Well then, rest in the Rest. We have things to do.”
And we busy ourselves, ostensibly hiding what we are doing. We don’t have to wait long. Eagle raises his head, can’t see anything, lies back down, looks up again, and finally says in an indifferent drawl:
“Gosh, what a lot of to-do. No rest for the wicked here, eh? What on earth are you up to?”
“We’re eating,” Bluesky replies smoothly.
“Eating? But we’ve already eaten.”
“We hadn’t had afters.”
That sits him upright:
“Afters? What afters?”
Bluesky couldn’t be smoother:
“The wal…”
He doesn’t let her finish, but jumps up crying:
“The walnut cake? Where?”
A burst of laughter greets his enthusiasm. The cake is revealed. Gentian offers it to him:
“We brought it from the other end of the Universe. But watch out, you may have to leave the Rest!”
Eagle snatches the cake with a grunt but ends up laughing with us too. Then he says in a mysterious voice:
“Here I am, back from the Rest, where I’ve seen things you would never believe…”
“Such as cake?” I ask curiously.
I just have time to finish my question, but not to avoid the pummelling that follows.
Having finished the cake, Eagle starts to think.
“I was myself just now. So why should I refuse something, anything, and make an effort to be my own master?”
I shrug:
“You were a wreck just now.”
The girls giggle. Eagle chooses sarcasm:
“And what if I liked being a wreck?”
I assume a disdainful look:
“I could no longer converse with you about the Universe and the Rest.”
“In that case, I give in. I consequentially refuse to be a wreck.”
Energetic applause from the girls:
“He’s back!”
But Eagle starts thinking again:
“And what if I hadn’t been able to?”
The laughter suddenly stops. Apparently it’s not a joking matter any more. Now it’s our turn to think. Bluesky is the first to react:
“So you can be a wreck by being yourself and not be able to do anything about it…”
Gentian expresses surprise:
“Why shouldn’t you be capable of not being a wreck? All you need to be is your own master.”
“But that’s precisely what you’re not capable of being,” insists Eagle.
“Why?”
“How should I know? I said a few days ago that a cow that spent all day eating had no mind left. If a person does the same…”
“People don’t eat all day!” Bluesky protests.
I step in:
“You can eat more or less; you can eat more than you need to satisfy your appetite.”
“You mean the more you eat, the less mind you have?”
Eagle is seized with remorse:
“Farewell, sweet walnut cake!”
His crestfallen look makes us laugh. Gentian goes on:
“If cows have no mind it’s not because they eat, but because they have no time to do anything else.”
She pauses for a moment:
“And, of course, they’re cows.”
“OK. People have no time. Does that make them cows?” Eagle asks pointedly.
General hesitation. Bluesky is concerned:
“It’s difficult to suppose that some people are cows.”
“Difficult but not impossible: an error of nature…”
Eagle’s answer leaves us speechless. Gentian is horrified:
“That’s horrible, what you’ve just said!”
Silence. I try to put it another way:
“Sometimes you tell someone ‘You’re dumb!’ but it’s an analogy, you don’t mean to…”
Eagle interrupts me brusquely:
“Don’t mean to what? Say horrible things? Or think them, rather?”
Silence. Bluesky says softly:
“Is it enough to be your own master? What self do we have to be in order not to be taken for a cow? Or for there not to be people who don’t want us to exist?”
She breaks off suddenly, then adds anxiously:
“If Eagle’s right, if some people are cows, how are we supposed to live with them?”
“And how, among people, are we to recognise those who are cows?” Gentian asks.
“You can’t,” replies Eagle abruptly.
“So… what do we do?”
“Whatever occurs to you.”
“Those people who are cows will do the same.”
“Of course.”
I open my mouth to say something but Bluesky gets there first:
“What occurs to us depends on what self we are.”
I point out:
“Whatever our self may be, if there are people who are cows we can’t do anything but live with them.”
Gentian concludes:
“Which means that we have to live with people about whom we can’t know whether they’re cows or not, and that we have to be a self we don’t know anything about in order to know what occurs to us.”
We sit for a long time in silence. The river still runs in the valley; what else can it do?
A hard-working morning. We didn’t help Grandmother much yesterday. “I’m happy to see you take a bit of time off for yourselves,” she told us affectionately. At lunch we recount our hikes. The grandparents are familiar with the tarn; they used to go there too when they were young. “We even went there in the winter; walking through the snow was hard work but we loved the view of the tarn with the ice glinting in the sunshine.” They look at each other and dream…
We meet up with Gentian and Bluesky after lunch; their morning was no less hard-working than ours. We settle down in our usual spot on the patch of grass at the bottom of the hamlet.
“When we were milking the cows this morning we asked them if they were people; they looked at us without seeming to understand.”
“I asked people the same question,” says Eagle sarcastically to Gentian. “They looked at me without seeming to understand.”
A moment’s hesitation. Bluesky grins:
“You didn’t see anyone this morning.”
I am seriously doubtful:
“And even if you had, I don’t believe you would have asked them if they were a cow.”
“I wouldn’t have asked them if they were a cow, I would have asked them if they were a person.”
“In that case, I reckon they would have understood.”
A ripple of dutiful laughter. Gentian goes on:
“We’re talking nonsense…”
Eagle interrupts here:
“What if it wasn’t nonsense? Being a person is not enough to be a person.”
A general outcry. He remains unmoved:
“A cow behaves like a cow. It gives milk and gores with its horns…”
“What do you mean, gores with its horns?” Gentian protests. “My cows don’t gore with their horns!”
“Keep your hair on! I was talking about ordinary cows, not your cuddly cows…”
“Let’s see who has the last laugh. I won’t give you any more milk.”
“I’m sure you will. I’ll give them sugar lumps.”
“They’re not dogs, you know. And in any case, even with dogs, it’s not good for their teeth.”
“All right, all right, I’ll only give sugar lumps to the hens.”
“Didn’t I say we were talking nonsense?”
Bluesky interrupts the highly philosophical discourse:
“Eagle’s right: cows give milk; what do people have to give for us to know they’re people?”
I answer cautiously:
“Books are full of that kind of advice. Everyone’s always telling us what to do, whether at school, at home or in some shop or other where we thought we could just go in and buy a pencil.”
Gentian backs me up:
“That’s exactly what the book I’ve just been reading does. Mind you, it doesn’t even have the right to do otherwise, given that it’s a book on ethics.”
Eagle pulls a face:
“Admit that it’s all your fault. You have a strange choice of reading matter for the holidays.”
“But it’s all stuff I’ll have to know when I’m at school…”
“Why don’t you wait till you’re there to read your book?”
“Why don’t you wait till you’re there to talk about thought, about…”
Eagle interrupts her sharply:
“I talk about what… Well, that’s exactly it, about what occurs to me. There’ll be time enough at school to parrot what I have to give instead of milk for people to know I’m a person!”
Gentian is downcast:
“You may be right. But I’m afraid of being taken by surprise, at school…”
“Taken by surprise?”
“Yes, by things I’m not expecting; things that could be frightening…”
“What could be frightening at school?” asks Bluesky, sounding worried.
Gentian hesitates:
“I don’t know… The ideas we’ve been talking about, for example... that occur to us, as Eagle says; if those ideas are presented to us as a lesson, how free will we be to contradict them?”
“Or not to contradict them, or not to not apply them in our own lives,” finishes off Eagle.
He adds darkly:
“I’m sure you’re right; it’s always better to be on guard against the enemy.”
“School isn’t an enemy!” Bluesky protests.
“Maybe not school. But people are always so friendly in their relations with each other wherever they are, aren’t they? And it’s really difficult not to notice that schoolteachers and writers of books on ethics are people.”
Things are getting complicated. I step in:
“If you look at it that way, it’d be better for no-one to know we are people.”
“Would you rather they thought you were a cow?” Eagle slips in sarcastically.
“Sometimes I wonder!”
“Cows that don’t give milk get eaten.”
Things are going downhill. Bluesky continues:
“If we give what’s needed for there not to be those who don’t want us to exist we won’t be the people Eagle’s talking about.”
“And yet ‘those’ will stay just the way they are,” comments Gentian.
Turning to me she adds:
“And as you said, we can’t do anything other than live with them.”
The situation is critical. Eagle says in a serious voice:
“We’re going to get into trouble if we carry on thinking…”
A long silence has followed. Have we stopped thinking?
Sunday. Gentian is busy with her parents. Bluesky has gone off with her father, who needs her; we’ll go and see her tomorrow, and bring her back with us in the evening. Friends of the grandparents have come for lunch. We lunch. The usual questions and answers. Do they give us… advice? Probably. After lunch we go down to our usual spot. We’re not alone; the friends have come with their daughter, hardly older than us, and she is there. Does she give us advice? No, she tells us about herself. It’s nice to listen; I was going to say, it’s restful. She tells us of her everyday life – that’s the usual expression, but is there an other-days life? Her life is like ours: school, family, friends, hikes, parties, entertainment… I’m all surprised by the list; and yet that’s what we do… every day, Eagle and I. Yes, I know, we talk about “the Universe and the Rest”, but is it so certain that it’s as often as I like to believe? Talking of which, I’m thinking, I’m no doubt going to get into trouble…
“Are you always such a dreamer?” the girl suddenly asks me.
A dreamer?... I wasn’t dreaming. I was being a… thinker! But I can’t tell her that, I’d have to explain.
“No, no, I was listening to you.”
I don’t add that I was listening to her through the fine droplets of my thoughts… I’d have to explain. What I do add is that I love listening to other people’s lives and that I really enjoy listening to her. Eagle has glanced at me quizzically but he’s wrong, it’s not a lie… at least, not really…
“You ain’t half complicated,” the girl tells me, smiling kindly.
Eagle too talks to her about what we do – hikes… She’s from another valley, she hardly knows the places we’ve been, she would have loved to come along with us but… reasons follow that I haven’t really listened to, it’s a long way, she’s busy… no, I don’t think it was that, but no matter since she won’t be coming. Eagle hasn’t talked about our conversations and I don’t really know what to say; I listen…
Sitting in the garden next to the stream, I look out… The three little white clouds are still over the three great peaks that stand out on the horizon. Have they stayed there waiting for me? The three great peaks couldn’t do otherwise, of course. Is it so certain? They weren’t there not so long ago. Yes, a very long time for me, but for nature? What do they give for us to know they are peaks? The clouds, I know, give rain, the rain that the grass needs to live, the grass that the cows eat. But the peaks? Perhaps they don’t give anything. In that case, how can we know they’re peaks? And they weren’t peaks when they weren’t there yet. What about us? Are we like the clouds or like the peaks?
“Don’t you want any more?”
Don’t I want any more what? Oh, yes. The sausage Bluesky is holding out to me.
“Oh! Yes, yes…” I answer distractedly.
She hands me the sausage. She says nothing. No-one says anything. No-one spoke as we were clambering up the stream. I know it’s a hard climb but still… I eat the sausage, distractedly. Who would point it out to me? We’re all distracted. And Eagle is grumbling under his breath so that we can’t understand a word he says. I finally ask him, without really realising it:
“What are you mumbling about?”
He gives me a surprised look:
“Mumbling?”
“Mumbling.”
He looks down, ponders, looks up at me again, looks at the two girls, then exclaims loudly:
“How silly we are to think!”
He stops, then goes on resolutely:
“We are right to think. It’s our life, after all.”
He stops again, then goes on more calmly:
“There’s always going to be trouble, whether we think or not. We have to do what we were saying last week: be our own masters so as to make those we live with their own masters. The people it’s dangerous to live with are those who say ‘It wasn’t me; I was told…’, because you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
He takes a deep breath, like someone who’s found his way again in an impenetrable forest.
“All the more dangerous,” interjects Gentian, “in that they may be those who tell us how we ought to live.”
“And who make us do it, too,” rounds off Bluesky.
I conclude:
“So as Eagle said, we have to be on guard.”
I give a bitter smile:
“What’s more, we have to live with an enemy we don’t know.”
Bluesky says slowly:
“Although we live with a life we don’t know.”
“D’you mean life’s an enemy too, then?” Gentian asks her urgently.
“I don’t know… If it was our enemy, it would be a mortal enemy; we’d have to fight it and kill it, and it would be our own life we were killing.”
Eagle steps in firmly:
“Life is there. If it was our enemy, it would already have killed us at birth.”
The three little white clouds are still over the three great peaks that stand out against the horizon; the stream talks to us in its mysterious voice and plays with the sun; the grass caresses us. Life is there.
The milk, breakfast, the little jobs to do to help Grandmother, lunch, Grandfather talks about what he used to do when he was young, we talk about our hikes… we don’t talk about our conversations. Why not? I have no idea; nor does Eagle. There are no secrets in our conversations. The grandparents… yes, it’s true, the grandparents never ask us what we talk about. It’s probably not through lack of interest, though; perhaps they don’t know that we talk amongst ourselves about all those things that don’t get talked about at table.
Afternoon. On our way to Gentian’s we meet some neighbours. The neighbours are busy with something or other. When I’m not on holiday I too am busy with something or other; but I know what it is, it’s my something, I have to do it. Do the neighbours have to do whatever it is they’re doing? Yes, clearly they have to do it otherwise they wouldn’t. Why does what they’re doing seem strange to me? No, not strange, but not part of the world I know. Yes, yes, I don’t know their world, but that’s not it, it’s… Does everything that isn’t me seem unreal to me? In that case why do our conversations, which are about matters that are not me, not just me, seem entirely real to me? The neighbours tell us about what they’re doing, ask us what we’re doing, listen to our hikes… We don’t talk about our conversations. The neighbours… yes, it’s true, the neighbours never ask us what we talk about. It’s probably not through lack of interest, though; perhaps they don’t know that we talk amongst ourselves about all those things that don’t get talked about when you meet neighbours. Does that make them part of an unreal world? Are the grandparents part of an unreal world too? Like the stars, the other night?
Gentian and Bluesky are waiting for us. We head down until we reach our familiar patch of grass; until we reach the real world.
Gentian knows a path, way above the hamlet. Is it on earth, is it in the sky? I don’t know, I have no idea. Only the far distances surround us. Where does the path go? I don’t know. Does it go somewhere? No doubt – it’s a path, after all. I think Gentian even told us. Why do I get that impression of the unknown when I look down to where the path seems to lead? Unknown because I don’t know? No, it’s something else. It’s not the place the path leads to that is unknown to me – you can see the place on a map – it’s the life that’s there. A life where you’re on your own, as Gentian has explained to me. Who do you talk to when you’re on your own? I’ve already read that people talked to the sky, to the clouds, to the trees… I believe I can continue the list for a long time; each author has found who they wanted to talk to. Did the author stay on their own for a long time? Some did, it’s said. And how do we know what they looked at? They wrote, will be the answer. So they weren’t on their own, just as I wasn’t on my own when I was looking at the three little white clouds that had come to while away the time over the three great peaks that stand out against the horizon. So they weren’t on their own, just as I am not on my own either when, in my room, I write a letter to a distant friend, or even just do homework for school. What about those who didn’t write, who never knew how to write? Animals don’t write either. Eagle had said that cows ate all day. What about the sky, and the clouds, and the trees? They’re animals, of course! And what about the man on his own, tending the animals all summer long, who has so much to do, as Gentian has told me?
“Who does a person talk to when they’re on their own?”
“Who cares? They don’t talk!” Eagle replies.
This time we’ve got absolutely soaked. Having had the brilliant idea of jumping from rock to rock towards the top of the river, we didn’t see the sudden swirl in time, before it broke unannounced with the express intention of showering us with spray. Now all we have to do is dry off quietly in the sun, with bread and chocolate as our companions in misfortune.
“I don’t know if you’re like me,” says Bluesky reflectively to Gentian, “but I always feel uncomfortable when I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes, I am like you; I’ve got so much to do… when I stop, I feel as though what I have to do escapes me and I could never get it done.”
“I never feel uncomfortable when I’m doing nothing,” exclaims Eagle with a laugh. “If I’ve finished my homework…”
I mention a memory:
“One day while I was doing some homework it occurred to me that my life was flowing away despite me, getting away from me without me being able to do anything about it.”
“Doing homework is useful,” Gentian argues.
She adds after a short pause:
“I mean doing it well, of course.”
I nod:
“Yes, I get it; doing it well, without having any idea that it has no point, or even that it’s harmful. Yes, I get it. And that’s how it was, in fact, and what’s more I found it interesting and even – why not admit it? – useful. But my life was running away all the same.”
No-one says anything for a long while. Bluesky finally breaks the silence:
“I feel uncomfortable when I’m not doing anything; you feel uncomfortable when you are doing something. Is it possible to neither do nor not do?”
“I read a book about that,” replies Gentian, “but it was a bit complicated and I didn’t understand everything.”
“If you didn’t understand, what chance is there for me?” mutters Eagle.
I don’t feel capable of understanding either:
“Let’s start by considering that you can’t either do or not do.”
“I don’t think we ever consider anything else,” Eagle mutters again.
Bluesky is of the same opinion:
“A sentence, or even a single word spoken at random that has no known meaning will not cause anything to exist; and if something as yet unknown comes into existence, the word will be spoken afterwards.”
Gentian goes on:
“Well, in that case I think I can explain why I feel uncomfortable when I’m not doing anything; it’s probably because I’m afraid of not doing something important.”
Bluesky nods her head:
“Yes, that’s true.”
She thinks for a moment, then adds:
“Or something that’s expected of me.”
She thinks some more:
“Maybe I’m always needed…”
“By just anyone?” I ask.
“How am I supposed to choose?”
Eagle speaks up:
“I’ve already said: whatever occurs to you.”
“We don’t live at random,” Gentian protests.
I object:
“I hadn’t chosen the homework I was set.”
“You’d chosen to go to school.”
I’m about to contradict her. And yet… She has followed my thought:
“That’s right – you remember what Eagle said: you can refuse anything.”
I don’t know what to say:
“You’re right. But I didn’t agree…”
No, that’s not right:
“Yes, I even agreed to do the homework.”
She doesn’t say anything; no-one says anything. I go on uncertainly:
“Did I also agree to be born?”
I go on straight away, resolutely:
“Even if I did agree to be born, I can’t agree to experience everything.”
“To experience everything?” Bluesky asks, surprised.
“Yes: not to agree to all the lives I’ll be offered, all the homework I’ll be set.”
I turn to Eagle:
“I know: ‘But…’”
He is silent. I say in a hollow voice:
“I’ve seen my life running away…”
The milk. Morning life. There is nothing to accept, nothing to refuse. Nothing in particular, I mean. Or else does accepting the milk already mean agreeing? I accept the milk so as to drink it; if I accept life, it’s so as to live it. I don’t throw the milk away; should I let life run away?
Where are we going today? Bluesky likes our tarn, so we’re off.
I am a seasoned hiker now; I climb up the slope, not any less steep than it was before, almost without a thought. The valley soon falls behind, the river still glitters between the trembling leaves on the trees that cover the mountainside. We soon reach the top. All we have to do now is descend easily – would I have said “easily” the first time I climbed down, holding tightly onto each branch, each tree trunk, from fear of losing my balance and slipping down towards what then looked to me like an abyss? The descent is not very long and we soon reach the cover of the venerable larch trees, crossing as usual the soft carpet of needles with their heady scent. Now here we are beside the tarn, among the brightly coloured flowers. The river and the white clouds are there, as if everything had remained unchanged since the last time we had come. “Life is there,” Eagle had said.
Picnic. The usual good things. Walnut cake. Nonchalant conversation. Eagle does not complain:
“The Universe and the Rest are on holiday this afternoon. I won’t answer a single question.”
“Hypocrite! After finishing the cake!” cries Gentian.
We leave it like that. Eagle, sprawling on the grass, has made no answer and no-one seems any more inclined to take part in either the Universe or even the Rest. Doing nothing isn’t as uncomfortable as all that…
“We’re not doing nothing,” argues Bluesky.
“That’s a bit feeble for someone who’s doing… And what are you doing anyway?” Gentian responds critically.
“I’m listening to the murmuring of the river…”
“Pull the other one!” counters Eagle. “You can’t hear the river from here.”
“Do you need to hear in order to listen?”
That’s a clincher. It shuts us up. The nonchalant conversation starts up again… nonchalantly. My voice finally returns:
“Bluesky is listening to the sounds of the house.”
“Of the house?” repeats Gentian in surprise.
She adds very quickly:
“It’s true, you told Eagle the mountains were like a great big house and that you felt at home there, in peace.”
“That’s right. You no longer hear the sounds of a house you’ve been living in forever, they’re part of you; you listen to them to know if they’re there, if nothing has disturbed them, if nothing’s threatening us. I must have listened to the sounds of the river, of the mountains, without realising it, when I first came, and it’s those sounds that made me feel at home, in peace.”
We clamber up the stream. The same stream; just as it’s the same sun, just as it’s the same rocks, just as it’s the same multicoloured stones that light up through the transparent water. Why do I never get tired of looking at them? The sun no longer has the same colour, in a sky that looks paler; a great weathered boulder has appeared – it was certainly already there, I just hadn’t seen it; the green stone I had noticed has made itself even more beautiful, having slid below a smooth patch in the stream that the current has arranged for it. Gentian has spent a long time watching a sheep that has embarked on a perilous climb, though probably not so perilous for the sheep. Bluesky runs her eyes slowly over everything around her – she is at home. Eagle has stopped and is contemplating the three great peaks that stand out against the horizon – now he’s set off again to make up the lost ground.
The garden; the same garden, of course. Sausage; oh – no, it’s not the same sausage at all, it’s ham.
“Would you have preferred sausage?” frets Bluesky.
“Oh, no, not at all. Ham like that…”
“… is the best you’ve ever eaten!” Eagle teases me.
“At least he knows how to appreciate good things,” says Gentian. “That ham comes from one of my pigs.”
Our picnic continues in all tranquillity; we’re just as lazy as yesterday.
“I don’t feel at all uncomfortable today,” declares Bluesky in a calm voice.
After a moment’s meditation that no-one has any notion of disturbing, she adds:
“I like talking with you about… all those things… philosophical things…”
She pauses again:
“Gentian’s always reading that kind of thing; I have less… opportunity… no, perhaps I just don’t want to…”
She adds quickly:
“Here, with you, it’s not like it’s philosophy; I feel as though we’re talking about everyday life…”
A short silence:
“… although no-one ever talks about that sort of thing. It’s a shame.”
“Yes, that’s true enough, it is a shame,” confirms Gentian.
She goes on:
“And yet you’re right, they are things about everyday life, only maybe books don’t often present it that way.”
Bluesky expresses surprise:
“Why not? Aren’t philosophers interested in everyday life?”
“Philosophers perhaps; those who read them, maybe not so much,” says Eagle sarcastically.
“Come off it!” protests Gentian.
“When I like something, I don’t do it because it’s a duty.”
Bluesky goes on:
“You mean it’s people… everyday people, who aren’t interested in everyday life?”
Eagle sketches a quick smile:
“You said yourself that people just passed by in the mountains. And that they were in a hurry to leave one plate filled with water to go and see other plates filled with water. When they’re taken up with plates full of water like that, however are they supposed to take an interest in everyday life?”
Bluesky sighs:
“They say that everyday life is boring, that they don’t enjoy it, but I think it’s life itself they’re running away from.”
She turns to me:
“You see your life running away and nobody even wants to take it…”
We fall silent. I remember the very cold lake up there on the other side of Bluesky’s mountain which won’t let anyone come near it… Beside my friends, in the great big house of the mountains, it’s not cold.
Sunday. The grandparents are going to spend the day with Bluesky’s parents. Bluesky had stayed at home yesterday evening; she will come back to Gentian’s the day after tomorrow. We return to the little stream with green stones. Settled comfortably in our garden, we get ready for lunch. Sausage…
“Nope, no sausage today,” Gentian interrupts me with a laugh.
“Ham, then?” I laugh back.
“Not either!” cries Bluesky with a mysterious smile.
The secret is revealed. Bluesky has made a dish of potatoes… but like…
“… you’ve never…” starts Eagle.
“… eaten before in your life!” finishes Gentian.
We all have a good laugh. The dish is a real feast. A delicate whiff of chervil leads me to a crispy, golden blanket which covers the potatoes soaked in good milk that can only have come from Gentian; the potatoes melt in the mouth…
“It’s the eggs and butter that give them that taste; they come from Gentian too,” explains Bluesky.
After lunch is over, we laze on the grass with no qualms. Holidays…
“I’ve never talked so much about school as with you,” declares Bluesky suddenly.
We look up at her with surprise. Eagle is the first to react:
“School? When did we ever talk about school?”
She smiles:
“We haven’t talked about what they tell us at school; we’ve talked about our ideas, our feelings… We’ve talked about our school.”
“I don’t know if they’d let our school into school,” scoffs Eagle.
“Why not? We’ve been told that school teaches us what we need to know in order to live.”
“School maybe, but not ourselves!” Gentian points out.
Bluesky shakes her head:
“No, they do ask us for our ideas. And how can we give them if we just accept those we’re taught at school? They’re not our own ideas.”
I nod:
“And without our own ideas what will we do later, when school has left us to our own devices?”
“We’ll be good children!” scoffs Eagle again.
“No, we won’t,” interjects Gentian. “We won’t be children. We’ll be grown-ups.”
“Really? Well, I don’t know whether we’d be good grown-ups!”
“Becoming a good grown-up can’t be easy. I don’t find many in the books I read.”
Bluesky continues:
“I don’t read as many books as you do, but I still feel as though I’ve learnt more from our conversations than at school.”
She ponders briefly:
“After all, it may be thanks to your books.”
Another short silence:
“I learn things at school too, and I like that very much.”
She stops again:
“I think I learn more at school. I said I’d learnt more from our conversations… no, that’s not…”
She hesitates:
“School is where I learn things; here, I discover my thought.”
I step in:
“There are books that study thought. You can read them yourself. Gentian reads them. At school too, the teachers comment on them, explain them.”
I go on after a brief pause:
“And yet it’s not the same…”
Eagle cuts me short:
“At school you’re not supposed to talk nonsense.”
“We don’t talk nonsense!” Gentian protests.
“Oh no, we only exchange propositions of the utmost profundity!”
“And you reckon you can come back up from the depths?” I comment sarcastically.
He tilts his head in an attitude of pride:
“Nothing is impossible for great men!”
The girls applaud. I raise my hands in a sign of impotence:
“He’s not usually that modest, you know!”
Our laughter covers the depths glimpsed momentarily… I continue:
“Eagle’s not wrong; we’re not at school here, we can talk nonsense if we want to. And more than anything else, we can speak without fear.”
Gentian expresses surprise:
“Without fear? Without fear of school?”
“No, not of school, of our thought. Thought doesn’t know where it’s going, it shouldn’t be left alone. That’s why Bluesky wants to discover her thought. You can’t learn a thought.”
The dining room. The grandparents are having lunch with friends. The friends have come with their grandson. He is a little older than us. He’s bored. No, not bored with us, not bored with the mountains, not bored with the holidays, not bored with school; no, he’s just bored. Bored for no reason, everywhere, all the time.
“Haven’t you ever found…”
He interrupts Eagle with a pleasant smile:
“Looking’s boring…”
I can’t think of anything to say. But as Eagle has already spoken, it’s definitely my turn now:
“You can sometimes find without looking.”
Wow! That’s original!
“Finding would be boring.”
Now both of us have a come-back. Eagle is a syllable ahead of me:
“Not possible! You don’t know what you’ll find.”
He answers calmly, with his pleasant smile:
“I don’t know why I’m bored either.”
I think I’ve found an opportunity:
“And would you like to know?”
The pleasant smile will always be back:
“Why should I?”
“To find out whether you’re capable of knowing or not!” Eagle exclaims with a tinge of impatience.
He ponders:
“I ought to ask again what for, but that would stop the conversation…”
Eagle thinks he’s found a chink:
“Oh, so you want to continue the conversation? So it isn’t boring!”
He has patiently listened to the end, but could clearly have answered much sooner:
“No, that’s not it. I didn’t want to be unkind to you. I think you’re very nice.”
You sometimes see people’s jaw drop in cartoons, and so it was with us – though quickly shut again so as not to seem rude. Seeing that we have nothing to say, he continues calmly:
“Why look, since I can know what all people know?”
It’s my turn to show impatience:
“How can you be sure you know everything?”
“What I don’t find doesn’t exist…”
“Or you haven’t been able to find it!” exclaims Eagle in a rush.
His smile has become soothing:
“You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say: doesn’t exist for me.”
I can’t help protesting energetically:
“It exists for others!”
He gives me a slightly reproachful look:
“Of course. Others also know what they have been able to find.”
“And they talk about it!” exclaims Eagle.
He looks surprised:
“Yes, I know people talk to each other.”
“Well then, in that case you can know things that don’t exist for you.”
He laughs silently:
“For me and for others. Do you mean I can know everything that people know?”
We play fair and admit he has scored a point. Yet he goes on again:
“What people know is boring.”
Eagle doesn’t give up:
“When people found out what they know now, they brought into existence things that hadn’t existed before then. You can do the same.”
He ponders, still calmly:
“I don’t know if I can do the same; all I can do is try.”
I press him:
“Well then, why don’t you?”
“What for? I’m a person; what I find will be of the same nature as what people have already found. I would find it just as boring.”
We remain for a good while without speaking. He goes on in his calm voice:
“Lots of people are bored. I’m not the only one.”
He goes on after a pause:
“I don’t try to forget that I’m bored. If I wanted to forget, not thinking would be enough.”
“Not thinking isn’t easy,” Eagle comments.
“Oh, but it is. You only have to do things that don’t involve people.”
I am surprised:
“What things?”
“Things that aren’t known.”
“If they aren’t known, how can one do them?”
“One does that which a person can’t do.”
Eagle throws up his hands:
“What do you…? And yet you don’t look like someone who’s joking.”
He gives a small smile:
“People only joke so as to avoid talking when they have nothing to say. When I have nothing to say, I keep my mouth shut.”
He adds after a short silence:
“It happens a lot.”
We keep our mouths shut. Curiosity nevertheless makes me ask him:
“What does one do that a person can’t do?”
“One tries to live another life than one’s own.”
He nods several times:
“A person can’t do that…”
Another little silence:
“And yet they do.”
His pleasant smile has suddenly disappeared. His voice has become desperately sad:
“I can’t. I prefer to be bored.”
Sitting by the tarn, we finish our lunch, feasting on the delicious pie Gentian made this morning with raspberries picked from along the old wall behind her house. We have recounted yesterday’s conversation. The raspberries mingle with our meditation.
“The river doesn’t get bored,” says Bluesky pensively.
She turns to Gentian:
“You didn’t get bored making your pie.”
“Oh, no! I had too much to do.”
“Like the river,” interjects Eagle.
I speak up:
“The river doesn’t know how to do anything else. Gentian wanted to make us a lovely pie.”
“Do people know how to do anything else?” asks Eagle.
“Anything else than what?”
“Make pies.”
Now there’s a question. Yet no-one protests.
“Maybe that’s what bores your chap,” remarks Gentian.
Bluesky nods:
“Making pies bores him, and he says he can’t live another life than his own.”
I go on:
“You don’t have another life than your own; but as he says, you can forget it… and no longer live for yourself. That’s what we’ve been talking about these last few days.”
“If being yourself only involves making pies…” Eagle exclaims.
Bluesky interrupts him:
“Without pies people will die. You have to make them first. It’s life that your chap doesn’t trust.”
“What other than pies will life bring us?” retorts Eagle.
Gentian smiles:
“Perhaps we can hope for something else. I’ve read strange stories in my books. Not made-up stories, but scientific theories.”
She sighs:
“Not that I understood very much, but it was extraordinary. The universe isn’t made the way we think it is; and in any case, we can’t understand how it is made. What is extraordinary is that things really can exist that we can’t understand.”
We fall silent. Are we dreaming of those things? Bluesky says slowly:
“When you don’t understand, trust is all that’s left; the trust that you may understand one day. And since our life depends on it, what can we trust in if not in life itself?”
T H E E N D
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