“But those here, those who live here, are completely different. They possess a physical strength; their breath brushes against any human who passes through; their gaze detects the intruder as though it had spotted its prey. As though they possessed obscure, prehistoric, magical powers. Just as abyssal creatures reign in the ocean depths, in the forest it is the trees that dominate. If they wished, the forest could reject me, or swallow me whole. A healthy amount of fear and respect would be a good idea.”
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
Excerpt from Félix’s notebook
In my memories of reading the tale Sleeping Beauty, the “enchanted” forest that forbids or isolates access to the castle by rendering it impenetrable had taken on enormous proportions. Rereading it many years later made me aware of the extreme malleability of memory, endlessly reconstructing and transforming. I then realized that there were, unless I am mistaken, only two passages concerning this forest in the tale: “Within a quarter of an hour there grew all around the park such a quantity of great trees and small, of brambles and thorns intertwined with one another, that neither beast nor man could have passed through; so that one could no longer see anything but the tops of the Castle Towers, and even those only from very far away.” “Hardly had he advanced toward the wood when all those great trees, those brambles and those thorns drew apart of themselves to let him pass: he walked toward the Castle that he saw at the end of a great avenue into which he entered, and what surprised him somewhat was that none of his people had been able to follow him, because the trees had closed together again as soon as he had passed.”
The gigantic forest had propagated itself within my mind… and there I heard something like an echo of Don Carotte’s story which might… which should perhaps remain only a hypothesis… but it is far more than that…
The being began to move a little more distinctly. The trunk, vast and weathered, seemed to come alive all around it, as though the presence of the tiny animal activated its deep fibers. Don Carotte narrowed his eyes. He had always possessed, despite his thinness, a certain nobility in his gaze, that faculty of awaiting the impossible without ever doubting that the world would eventually bend to his expectations.
But this time, what he saw… surpassed everything he could have imagined, and yet he did not understand.
The tiny animal — for now one clearly recognized that it was indeed an animal — moved along the bark with surprising agility. Its little hooves, as delicate as seeds, made no sound. It had long supple ears, a small tufted tail, and a gentle snout whose movements were slow, almost dreamlike.
— Sang Chaud… is it some kind of rodent? A spirit of the woods? A vegetal mirage?
Sang Chaud Pansa coughed softly. He tapped his belly, as he always did before delivering a truth stranger than expected.
— No, my lord… it is a donkey.
— A donkey?!
— A donkey, yes, but of a particular species… To tell the truth, it could become your future riding companion. They are arboreal donkeys. A species unique in the world. No one knows them yet. You would be, if you accept — and if they accept this mission of noble science — their inventor… well, I mean: their discoverer.
Don Carotte slowly turned his head toward him. His gaze, at first incredulous, gradually became glacial.
— Sang Chaud, have you been drinking? Smoking some peculiar herb? Conversing with stones? Do you lead me through this absurd forest toward the one animal that can neither be saddled nor followed with the naked eye without the help of a magnifying glass? Is this your proud steed?
Unperturbed, Sang Chaud continued, as though reciting an ancient knowledge once whispered to him in a dream.
— They live their entire lives in this tree. From cradle to final leaf. They are born in the hollows of the branches and never touch the ground. It is their world. Their sky. Their kingdom.
— But it is only a tiny donkey! cried the knight, spreading his arms wide.
— And that is not all, said Sang Chaud. The older they become, the more they shrink. That is their most remarkable characteristic: old age refines them, contracts them, distills them. Some have been found so small that they live within a single flower.
— I could not place even the smallest of my toes upon such a creature!
There was… and there still is… a little storm in Don Carotte’s voice. A kind of restrained rage, like a child discovering that the long-awaited gift was nothing but a hollow figurine. He scrutinized the tree, perhaps hoping to see another animal there, larger, more dignified, more “rideable.”
— Is this… where you are leading me?
He turned around himself, pointing at the trunk, the high branches, the clearing, the green grass, all at once, as though denouncing a vast masquerade.
— Is this the proud steed destined for me? he repeated, almost with a note of tragedy in his voice.
— A tiny… arboreal… senescent donkey!
Sang Chaud, as always, remained serious. He was not a man to be troubled by the incongruity of any situation. Deep down, he knew that the greatest knight on Earth might also one day ride a donkey no larger than the smallest almond.
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