Without Lifting A Finger

 

SILK OF A SOUL  Never did I speak—with her  either about love  or about death  only blind taste and mute touch  used to run between us  when absorbed in ourselves  we lay close  I must peek inside her  to see what she wears  at her centre  when she slept  with her lips open  I peeked  and what and what  would you think  I caught sight of  I was expecting branches  I was expecting a bird  I was expecting a house by a lake  great and silent  but there on a glass counter  I caught sight of  a pair of silk stockings  my God I’ll buy her  those stockings  I’ll buy them but— what will appear then  on the glass counter  of the little soul  will it be something  which cannot be touched  even with one finger of a dream Note: Line breaks are mine Translators of Herbert's "Collected Poems": Milosz, Dale, Valles

 

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonourably, foolishly, viciously. The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly. Flaubert always sides with minorities, with ‘the Bedouin, the Heretic, the philosopher, the hermit, the Poet’. In 1867 forty-three gypsies pitched camp in the Cours La Reine and aroused much hatred among the Rouennais. Flaubert delighted in their presence and gave them money. No doubt you wish to pat him on the head for this. If he’d known he was gaining the approval of the future, he’d probably have kept the money to himself.

A very eclectic museum. Housed in part of the old Hotel-Dieu (Flaubert's father was a doctor, Flaubert was born there), the museum is full of medical oddities from the 19th century, objects re Flaubert's life and work, this and that. Today I'm just posting the possible Loulous (side-by-side in the museum) that hovered over Flaubert and his story, "A Simple Soul."

Connections: Hockney's original artwork was used to illustrate Flaubert's story "A Simple Heart/Soul." Later (1984) it was used for the dust jacket of the first edition of Julian Barnes' novel, Flaubert's Parrot. A copy of the dust jacket used for Barnes' novel: