The mountain never rises in a single gesture. Its movements are slow. It is obstinate, though almost reluctant to appear. Before being form, it is tension. Before being a summit, it is invisible pressure, accumulated in the mineral darkness of the Earth’s depths. Here, facing these dark, jagged walls, Lucian, a solitary walker, accustomed to these heights, is preoccupied by what is happening with Igniatius. It is in this wild environment that he tries to recover his calm.
— Mountain relief is a solidified memory… he tells himself each time. These purple and black rocks bear the trace of ancient, vanished oceans. They were sediments, fragile deposits of silts and microscopic lives, before the planet’s internal forces—those colossal slownesses that humans mistake for immobility—raised them, folded them, fractured them. The mountain is an upheaval of time: each layer is an era, each fissure an event. The abrupt breaks tell of tectonic jolts, those deep convulsions in which the Earth, far from being stable, reveals itself as an organism in perpetual metamorphosis.
As one progresses along these narrow ledges, the human step becomes more humble. The mountain imposes its own scale: here, centuries are worth seconds, and the human instant dissolves into geological thickness. Silence is not the absence of voices, but the saturation of stories too vast to be heard all at once. The wind, gliding along the ridges, seems to resume a dialogue begun long before the appearance of any consciousness.
Scientifically, these landforms are the result of an unstable balance between endogenic forces and erosion. But philosophically, they are something else: proof that nature aims neither at immediate harmony nor at human utility. It experiments, it tries, it destroys in order to begin again. The mountain is not a frozen monument; it is a process underway, an unfinished work continually reworked by the elements—sun, wind, rain, frost, and gravity.
Lucian, like an explorer, standing on a promontory, steps out of his story and becomes a mediator between two temporalities. His gaze unites the rigor of scientific observation with the emotion of a consciousness struck by the sublime. He measures angles, recognizes lithologies, but also senses that these mineral masses act upon the soul: they broaden thought, shift certainties, force one to conceive the world as a network of deep relations between matter and vital energy.
Thus, the mountain is not merely an object of study; it is a school. It teaches patience, continuity, the power of invisible causes. It reminds us that human history is only a thin layer deposited on the surface of a far older narrative. And in this dark, silent verticality, beneath this austere sky, the explorer understands that to know nature is not to dominate it, but to learn to think at its measure.
— Mountain relief is a solidified memory… he tells himself each time. These purple and black rocks bear the trace of ancient, vanished oceans. They were sediments, fragile deposits of silts and microscopic lives, before the planet’s internal forces—those colossal slownesses that humans mistake for immobility—raised them, folded them, fractured them. The mountain is an upheaval of time: each layer is an era, each fissure an event. The abrupt breaks tell of tectonic jolts, those deep convulsions in which the Earth, far from being stable, reveals itself as an organism in perpetual metamorphosis.
As one progresses along these narrow ledges, the human step becomes more humble. The mountain imposes its own scale: here, centuries are worth seconds, and the human instant dissolves into geological thickness. Silence is not the absence of voices, but the saturation of stories too vast to be heard all at once. The wind, gliding along the ridges, seems to resume a dialogue begun long before the appearance of any consciousness.
Scientifically, these landforms are the result of an unstable balance between endogenic forces and erosion. But philosophically, they are something else: proof that nature aims neither at immediate harmony nor at human utility. It experiments, it tries, it destroys in order to begin again. The mountain is not a frozen monument; it is a process underway, an unfinished work continually reworked by the elements—sun, wind, rain, frost, and gravity.
Lucian, like an explorer, standing on a promontory, steps out of his story and becomes a mediator between two temporalities. His gaze unites the rigor of scientific observation with the emotion of a consciousness struck by the sublime. He measures angles, recognizes lithologies, but also senses that these mineral masses act upon the soul: they broaden thought, shift certainties, force one to conceive the world as a network of deep relations between matter and vital energy.
Thus, the mountain is not merely an object of study; it is a school. It teaches patience, continuity, the power of invisible causes. It reminds us that human history is only a thin layer deposited on the surface of a far older narrative. And in this dark, silent verticality, beneath this austere sky, the explorer understands that to know nature is not to dominate it, but to learn to think at its measure.
Lucian’s notebook
Anatole… how had that word come to my mind when Igniatius seemed surprised during our next session, when I spoke to him about it…
Anatole… had I said it almost as a provocation… to see what effect it would produce?
Nothing… Félix had not reacted. Not even a sign.
He could have, I am sure… he too… provoked—he knows what that is…
— It is not a proper name, I had said afterward, as if I wanted to correct myself without Félix asking. It is… what remains when none of the three truly speaks.
I search again through my notes, which I nevertheless know by heart… If I do so, it is not to remember, but to feel again how it came to me and why I said and noted it. It is in this movement that something true is hidden…
— Anatole… is not someone who speaks. It is what happens when speaking is no longer enough. It may be that very silence which, like that of the mountain, begins to create a bond.
Anatole… had I said it almost as a provocation… to see what effect it would produce?
Nothing… Félix had not reacted. Not even a sign.
He could have, I am sure… he too… provoked—he knows what that is…
— It is not a proper name, I had said afterward, as if I wanted to correct myself without Félix asking. It is… what remains when none of the three truly speaks.
I search again through my notes, which I nevertheless know by heart… If I do so, it is not to remember, but to feel again how it came to me and why I said and noted it. It is in this movement that something true is hidden…
— Anatole… is not someone who speaks. It is what happens when speaking is no longer enough. It may be that very silence which, like that of the mountain, begins to create a bond.
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