The main island stood out through its austerity.
It bore nothing of those verdant lands where life flows abundantly. It was a mass of dark, basaltic rock, at times vitrified by fire… Its ground was uneven, often sharp, bristling with scoria where, even now… one can discern the trace of the eruption that shaped it. The rocks, matte black or of a ferruginous grey, are fissured, streaked with faults that exhale a warm vapor, sometimes sulfurous. They carry that smell of egg, of rusted iron and wet ash that one breathes in the volcanic crevices of the Andes cordillera.
The mirror gives the impression of an absolute immediacy. It reflects what is there, in the instant, without delay. Nothing seems to settle in it. Nothing appears to remain. It has no thickness, no past. It offers a pure presence, or at least, that is how it presents itself.
Memory, by contrast, seems to be the very opposite. It preserves, it retains, it accumulates. It introduces time where the mirror seemed to abolish it. It is never immediate: it returns after having transformed. Often… it alters.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire