Where we discover that true power belongs to that which can be, but can also refrain from being. Power is not the opposite of powerlessness; it contains within itself its own possibility of withdrawal. Perhaps that is why it always remains greater than the act through which it is realized. Where we also witness, during their second journey into the forest, Don Carotte and Warmblood marveling, with almost childlike wonder, at the world that welcomes them.
Excerpt from Don Carotte's Journal
Just before twilight, and before we had been able to recognize anything from our previous journey, the forest rose before us like an ancient architecture, indecipherable and sovereign. Though we felt no anxiety whatsoever, we nevertheless had the curious impression of being suspended outside time. It seemed to us that nothing in that intricate entanglement had been left to chance, an entanglement which, under other circumstances, might well have plunged us into an unsettling reverie. Yet such was not the case here, in this world where, unknown to us, even our shadows had disappeared. Every layer of vegetation, every vine hanging like a suspended rope, every patch of moss spreading over the stones possessed its own logic, its own place, its own role within the dense harmony of living things.
A patient attention gradually revealed its hidden structure, and Warmblood and I deprived ourselves of none of it. The ancient trees, straight as columns, stretched their trunks toward vertiginous heights, their crowns meeting overhead to form an almost hermetic vault. Light, rare and precious, barely pierced the canopy, filtered through countless overlapping leaves into a dust of gold faintly tinged with green, seemingly suspended in the humid air. Beneath our feet, the roots traced labyrinths. Some were as thick as human arms; others as fine as nervous filaments, revealing the forest as a single immense subterranean organism.
The sounds, too, possessed their own logic: the distant cry of a bird, a drop of water falling into a hollow in the rock, the rustling of something unseen within the undergrowth. Yet at the very center of this world there was silence. A living silence that seemed to listen, to keep watch, to hold its breath.
As for the bond between Warmblood and myself, it exerted upon us the most beneficial influence. For more than half of our very long journey, we exchanged scarcely a handful of words, while a delicate and radiant moon, breaking through the canopy of the trees, quietly took possession of the night.
A patient attention gradually revealed its hidden structure, and Warmblood and I deprived ourselves of none of it. The ancient trees, straight as columns, stretched their trunks toward vertiginous heights, their crowns meeting overhead to form an almost hermetic vault. Light, rare and precious, barely pierced the canopy, filtered through countless overlapping leaves into a dust of gold faintly tinged with green, seemingly suspended in the humid air. Beneath our feet, the roots traced labyrinths. Some were as thick as human arms; others as fine as nervous filaments, revealing the forest as a single immense subterranean organism.
The sounds, too, possessed their own logic: the distant cry of a bird, a drop of water falling into a hollow in the rock, the rustling of something unseen within the undergrowth. Yet at the very center of this world there was silence. A living silence that seemed to listen, to keep watch, to hold its breath.
As for the bond between Warmblood and myself, it exerted upon us the most beneficial influence. For more than half of our very long journey, we exchanged scarcely a handful of words, while a delicate and radiant moon, breaking through the canopy of the trees, quietly took possession of the night.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire