Sun and tradition. A dazzling light and the firm intention not to let yourself be blinded, etc., etc.

Symbols need not limit their scope to this pendulum swing of images. But a well-balanced mind won’t try and roost on a swing of antithesis that, at the height of its arc, would only look down on treacherous metaphors and promenades strewn with wolf traps that snare innocent beige fawns in flight, rather than large carnivores.

Here, today, the herd of cavorting ideas would hardly seem threatened. Fog-toothed melancholy can only sink its teeth into moonlight. And presently, it is high noon. So much for time. As for place, the Roman Empire passed through. It even stayed, blended with the dirt on this hillside, disciplined it, militarized it, metamorphosing amorphous terrain into terraces.

One of the mighty of this earth, one of the opinion makers whose sense of order takes pleasure in evoking the grand classical past, not for vain regrets but for quite virile resolutions, is jaunting merrily along — although there is nothing merry about the thoroughfare in question—snuggly ensconced in a motorcar worthy of the Roman road. This brand-new car is French-made, for if the ear of the Caesars, including the subsequent period, was the age of hippic locomotion, it is important, when purchasing motor vehicles, to observe a certain solidarity which, if not specifically French, is Latin, or at the very least, European, but strictly European, for after all of the tricks they have played on us, those sons of Uncle Sam with their Bonus Armies, their gangsters, their crashing and crashed millionaires—they can go hang themselves elsewhere.

With a light breeze tickling the white hairs on his chest and those which serve as a nest for a certain bird and its septuagenarian eggs (fresh as a daisy, moreover, thanks to Voronoff), the man who rejoices in the title of the Prince of Journalists savors the joy of living.

Here, in the hollow of a small valley, is a ruin used to transport water before the birth of Christ. Thus, to the paradoxical and nearly imperceptible accompaniment of an almighty motor, thoughts can let themselves float along. It won’t be long before they reach the banks of reverie. They won’t, moreover, lose any of their moderation in the process. Mustn’t forget that, if Fragonard and Hubert Robert measured up to this landscape, then any French mind worthy of the name can and must, out of the greatest disorder, out of a certain shambles, indeed out of a complete mess, compose a garden, a French garden, to be exact.

And to think that the great redheaded barbarians sung (though not in earnest) by Verlaine dare to return to our countryside, to our beaches, to attack our spas, to talk about how old this country is, and even spend their money on the rags that insinuate, with each venture undertaken by the Prince of Journalists, that this time it could be his swan song. A Prince of Journalists’ song, if he is aware of his national rights and duties, can only come out as a cock’s crow. The Gallic cockerel’s. His head is bursting with bugles. He is always ready to sound the charge. Even his dreams are dedicated to his country—only last night, he dreamt he was the Unknown Soldier’s widow! Ah, that cadaveric stiffness!

But to be aware of one’s rights and duties as a Frenchman is first of all to be liberal. Thus, the Prince of Journalists agreed to have lunch today with an Austrian woman. An archduchess, of course. And if other compatriots of our former enemies should try to slip in behind the grand dame, he will take care of them. And above all, watch out for so-called philosophers, poets, and filmmakers from Central Europe. Each morning, the director of a large daily dutifully reminds the editor of his Arts and Letters column that an intellectual invasion never fails to foreshadow the other kind. So guard and watch all frontiers—the frontiers of the mind no less than those in the north and the east. Defend the moral heritage of France, French culture, the culture of French thought, French gardens, French-style gardens, the French woman’s gardens, with boxwood-lined paths, the wood itself being carved into a darning egg; for the owner, the Frenchwoman, the bourgeoisie Frenchwoman (any Frenchwoman worthy of the name being a bourgeoisie), even athletic or a touch brainy, is and will remain, until the end of time, thrifty enough to keep both the wooden stocking, wherein lies the family nest egg, and her own nylons from unraveling, mending them as soon as they begin to run.

Sitting at her window, with a song on her lips, a flower in her bosom, but never with a fire down below, this guardian of traditions, next to a table adorned with the tastiest fruits of her orchard—isn’t it something out of Chardin?

The Prince of Journalists is moved. He melts. And not only from the midsummer heat but from the warmth, far more touching, of memory. In his mind’s eye, he sees his father, his mother, the decent people who spent their lives growing old. By the time they procreated him they were in their twilight years, hoping that very solid experience would compensate for certain congenial and perhaps hereditary handicaps. The good souls had no reason to worry. Their son, although he is short and lively tempered, holds himself straight as a ruler, and, at bottom, always masters his reflexes. Actually he turned out well enough, both mentally and physically, to savor with his utmost gratitude, in the scene before him, the memory of the ruin which had been built, on his father’s orders, near a pond whose waters were confined by exquisite little banks. The wise old man, after having asked the valet who never left him for a second to set up his folding stool and cover his shoulders with a Scottish plaid, was ready to sit down, aim, shoot (wasn’t this firearmed fisherman an expert on refraction?) one, two, three, four times. He killed the father, the mother, the little boy, the little girl bleak-fish.

Only the most genuinely French virtues had caused this carbine fisherman to become an Olympian statue of warm fabrics at the edge of autumn’s waters. Beneath such majesty he was hiding a painful secret. Our firearmed fisherman’s mother, in the days when she was carrying him, had been assaulted on a dark night and, before she even had time to catch her breath, got hosed—and, what’s worse, from the flip side. How could the unborn child have possibly avoided the repercussion of this heinous violence? Expecting his offspring to bear a double original sin which no amount of baptism would wash away, the husband of the woman sodomized in spite of herself, a great friend of Cambronne, used his connections to get enlisted and heroically killed immediately, at the head of a small troop which had only recently bestowed upon him the proud title of commander.

Every sin, even unintentional, can be forgiven. Of course, the orphan paid for this forgiveness with congenital epilepsy. He was all but deprived of the joys of childhood. He can still remember his mother’s mustached nieces sitting in a circle all around her, the woman sodomized in spite of herself. These cousins, if distant memory serves him well, were neither fish nor foul, neither hide nor hair, but salt and pepper and more bitter than sweet. They were going to prevent a further accident at all costs, which is why they lived on the plains of Beauce.

On the horizon, there wasn’t a single grove that could conceal a satyr. As soon as the wheat reached a certain height, the young widow was confined to the house until the last row had been gleaned.

As a result of her adventure, she had become prone to melancholy. The sweet, desperate automatism of certain gestures which she repeated indefinitely made her guardians conclude that she was eccentric or even obsessed. For days upon end she would caress her hair, which was naturally wavy, but straightened each morning. She hardly ever opened her mouth. On one exceptional evening, however, she was talking a great deal when, perhaps, she was frightened by a reproving stare from one of the old women? In any event she jumped up and took off running. Since one of the jailers had just made sure that all the doors and windows were securely locked, none of them bothered to follow her. The young woman didn’t get far, of course, no farther than the dining room; but there, out of a Dutch candelabra she pulled a purplish candle (everything was mourning and half-mourning in her charming little interior) and, in pious kiss, brushed her lips against its wax, which was softer than the softest human skin.