flower in the woods. Your hand is torn on the bushes gathering the mulberries and strawberries you refresh yourself with. You run to catch the young hares that you flay with stones from the rocks to cut them up and eat all hot and bleeding. You know how to avoid meeting a bear on the track. You know the winter fear when you hear the wolves gathering. But you can remain seated for hours in the tree-tops to await morning. You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.
They speak together of the threat they have constituted towards authority, they tell how they were burned on pyres to prevent them from assembling in future. They were able to command tempests, to sink fleets, to destroy armies. They have been mistresses of poisons, of the winds, of the will. They were able to exercise their powers at will and to transform all kinds of persons into mere animals, geese pigs birds turtles. They have ruled over life and death. Their conjoint power has menaced hierarchies systems of government authorities. Their knowledge has competed successfully with the official knowledge to which they had no access, it has challenged it, found it wanting, threatened it, made it appear inefficacious. No police were powerful enough to track them down, no paid informer so opportunist, no torture so brutal, no army so overwhelming as to attack them one by one and destroy them. Then they chant the famous song that begins, Despite all the evils they wished to crush me with/I remain as steady as the three-legged cauldron.
The progression continues simultaneously with the completion of the cycle. But that is to say too much or too little. The women say that, to complete a cycle, a series of brilliant deeds or extraordinary and baleful events is required. Charlotte Bernard says that they are not concerned. Emmanuela Chartre says that it is no longer done to marvel at this kind of cycle. Marie Serge says that in any case the cycle may relate to myth and may not mention acts that have any semblance of reality. Flaminie Pougens says that for the women to be wholly engaged it is necessary to invent these. Then they laugh and fall backward from force of laughing. All are infected. A noise rises like the rolling of drums under a vault. The bricks of the ceiling fall one by one, uncovering through the openings the gilded panelling of lofty rooms. The stones of the mosaics fly out, the glass panes clatter down, there are shafts of blue red orange mauve.
NU-JUAN BAHISSAT VLADIA
EMILY MEROPE DOMITIA
ANNABEL SELMA MUMTAZ
NUR-JAMAN OUADA ARTHIS
ARIANA LEONTINE CAROL
GURINNO GONGYLA ARIGNOTA
The laughter does not lessen. The women pick up the bricks and using them as missiles they bombard the statues that remain standing in the midst of the disorder. They set about bringing down the remaining stones. There is a terrible clash of stone against stone. They evacuate those among them who are injured. The systematic destruction of the building is carried through by the women in the midst of a storm of cries shouts, while the laughter continues, spreads, becomes general. It comes to an end only when nothing remains of the building but stones on stones. Then they lie down and fall asleep.
In Hélène Fourcade's story, Trieu has deployed her troops at daybreak. She is seated motionless on a white elephant. One by one the women, the captains, come to salute her. They hold out their bare hands before her, palms open towards the sky in token of loyalty. Then each of the armies marches past, heads turned towards the motionless Trieu. The last units execute a wheeling movement on the spot. The garments of the combatants are blue, without ornament. Trieu is dressed in red. When all are still and have placed their weapons at their feet Trieu removes the silk band that binds her head. Her black hair uncoils and falls abruptly over her shoulders. Then the combatants utter a
They speak together of the threat they have constituted towards authority, they tell how they were burned on pyres to prevent them from assembling in future. They were able to command tempests, to sink fleets, to destroy armies. They have been mistresses of poisons, of the winds, of the will. They were able to exercise their powers at will and to transform all kinds of persons into mere animals, geese pigs birds turtles. They have ruled over life and death. Their conjoint power has menaced hierarchies systems of government authorities. Their knowledge has competed successfully with the official knowledge to which they had no access, it has challenged it, found it wanting, threatened it, made it appear inefficacious. No police were powerful enough to track them down, no paid informer so opportunist, no torture so brutal, no army so overwhelming as to attack them one by one and destroy them. Then they chant the famous song that begins, Despite all the evils they wished to crush me with/I remain as steady as the three-legged cauldron.
The progression continues simultaneously with the completion of the cycle. But that is to say too much or too little. The women say that, to complete a cycle, a series of brilliant deeds or extraordinary and baleful events is required. Charlotte Bernard says that they are not concerned. Emmanuela Chartre says that it is no longer done to marvel at this kind of cycle. Marie Serge says that in any case the cycle may relate to myth and may not mention acts that have any semblance of reality. Flaminie Pougens says that for the women to be wholly engaged it is necessary to invent these. Then they laugh and fall backward from force of laughing. All are infected. A noise rises like the rolling of drums under a vault. The bricks of the ceiling fall one by one, uncovering through the openings the gilded panelling of lofty rooms. The stones of the mosaics fly out, the glass panes clatter down, there are shafts of blue red orange mauve.
NU-JUAN BAHISSAT VLADIA
EMILY MEROPE DOMITIA
ANNABEL SELMA MUMTAZ
NUR-JAMAN OUADA ARTHIS
ARIANA LEONTINE CAROL
GURINNO GONGYLA ARIGNOTA
The laughter does not lessen. The women pick up the bricks and using them as missiles they bombard the statues that remain standing in the midst of the disorder. They set about bringing down the remaining stones. There is a terrible clash of stone against stone. They evacuate those among them who are injured. The systematic destruction of the building is carried through by the women in the midst of a storm of cries shouts, while the laughter continues, spreads, becomes general. It comes to an end only when nothing remains of the building but stones on stones. Then they lie down and fall asleep.
In Hélène Fourcade's story, Trieu has deployed her troops at daybreak. She is seated motionless on a white elephant. One by one the women, the captains, come to salute her. They hold out their bare hands before her, palms open towards the sky in token of loyalty. Then each of the armies marches past, heads turned towards the motionless Trieu. The last units execute a wheeling movement on the spot. The garments of the combatants are blue, without ornament. Trieu is dressed in red. When all are still and have placed their weapons at their feet Trieu removes the silk band that binds her head. Her black hair uncoils and falls abruptly over her shoulders. Then the combatants utter a
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