in this garage that poetry functions best. In fact to understand the surrender of the brother and sister to their innate and, as it were, organic disregard of grace, poetry is at our finger-tips—and I draw closer to the terrible mysteries of love.
Such is the fruit of certain experiments I have made, which I am still carrying out, and which are the sole object of my quest.
As Montaigne says: ‘Most of Aesop’s fables have several meanings and interpretations. Those who make myths of them choose some aspect that accords well with the fable; but for the most part this is only the first superficial aspect, and there are others more vital, more essential and innate, which they have been unable to penetrate.’
* And the capacity for wonder of the spectator. You get nothing for nothing.
ON FRIENDSHIP
THE PRINCE DE POLIGNAC USED TO SAY: ‘ I DON ’ T really like other people.’ But when his wife asks him: ‘Why are you so gloomy?’ and he replies: ‘I like some people and some people like me,’ and adds: ‘Alas! They are not the same people,’ he admits his loneliness. I like other people and only exist through them. Without them the balls I serve go into the net. Without them my flame burns low. Without them my flame sinks. Without them I am a ghost. If I withdraw from my friends I seek their shadows.
Sometimes stupidity and lack of culture take their place. I am taken in by the slightest kindness. But then, how am I to make myself understood? They do not know what I am talking about. So therefore I must find a means of being understood. Do I go too fast? Is it due to syncopation? Are the letters of my words not large enough? I search. I find. I speak. They listen to me. And this is not the need for exercise. It is the taste for human contact.
I have said somewhere that I am better at making friends than at making love. Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship. Friendship between man and woman is delicate; it is still a form oflove. In it jealousy is disguised. Friendship is a quiet spasm. Without possessiveness. The happiness of a friend delights us. It adds to us. It takes nothing away. If friendship takes offence at this, it does not exist. It is a love that conceals itself. I strongly suspect that this passion for friendship that I have always had comes to me from the sons of whom I am cheated. As I cannot have them I invent them. I should like to educate them. But I perceive that it is they who educate me. Apart from the fact that youth, and its presence in our house, compels us never to take any step which could not set it an example, it has weapons suited to its struggles for which ours are out of date. We have to learn from it. It has little to learn from us. Later our essence impregnates it and makes for it a soil in which to bloom. Words are futile. In my school one would hear the flight of a fly. And I’m a chatterbox.
The giving of guidance if asked for is quite another thing. I don’t excel in that either. I talk fluently about something else and it is by this means that I am of service.
Max Jacob used to say to me: ‘You have no sense of companionship.’ He was right. What Wilde said to Pierre Louys suits me better. Failing to understand him, he made a scandal of it: ‘I have no friends. I have only lovers.’ A dangerous construction if it comes to the ears of the police or a man of letters. He meant to say that he always went to extremes. I think in this he was simply putting on side. He might have said: ‘I only have companions.’ And if I had been Pierre Louys, I should have been still more offended.
Where would I find pleasure in companionship? When I trail from café to café, from studio to studio, arm in arm with companions? Friendship occupies all my time, and if any work distracts me from it, I dedicate this to it. It (friendship) saves me from that anguish men
Such is the fruit of certain experiments I have made, which I am still carrying out, and which are the sole object of my quest.
As Montaigne says: ‘Most of Aesop’s fables have several meanings and interpretations. Those who make myths of them choose some aspect that accords well with the fable; but for the most part this is only the first superficial aspect, and there are others more vital, more essential and innate, which they have been unable to penetrate.’
* And the capacity for wonder of the spectator. You get nothing for nothing.
ON FRIENDSHIP
THE PRINCE DE POLIGNAC USED TO SAY: ‘ I DON ’ T really like other people.’ But when his wife asks him: ‘Why are you so gloomy?’ and he replies: ‘I like some people and some people like me,’ and adds: ‘Alas! They are not the same people,’ he admits his loneliness. I like other people and only exist through them. Without them the balls I serve go into the net. Without them my flame burns low. Without them my flame sinks. Without them I am a ghost. If I withdraw from my friends I seek their shadows.
Sometimes stupidity and lack of culture take their place. I am taken in by the slightest kindness. But then, how am I to make myself understood? They do not know what I am talking about. So therefore I must find a means of being understood. Do I go too fast? Is it due to syncopation? Are the letters of my words not large enough? I search. I find. I speak. They listen to me. And this is not the need for exercise. It is the taste for human contact.
I have said somewhere that I am better at making friends than at making love. Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship. Friendship between man and woman is delicate; it is still a form oflove. In it jealousy is disguised. Friendship is a quiet spasm. Without possessiveness. The happiness of a friend delights us. It adds to us. It takes nothing away. If friendship takes offence at this, it does not exist. It is a love that conceals itself. I strongly suspect that this passion for friendship that I have always had comes to me from the sons of whom I am cheated. As I cannot have them I invent them. I should like to educate them. But I perceive that it is they who educate me. Apart from the fact that youth, and its presence in our house, compels us never to take any step which could not set it an example, it has weapons suited to its struggles for which ours are out of date. We have to learn from it. It has little to learn from us. Later our essence impregnates it and makes for it a soil in which to bloom. Words are futile. In my school one would hear the flight of a fly. And I’m a chatterbox.
The giving of guidance if asked for is quite another thing. I don’t excel in that either. I talk fluently about something else and it is by this means that I am of service.
Max Jacob used to say to me: ‘You have no sense of companionship.’ He was right. What Wilde said to Pierre Louys suits me better. Failing to understand him, he made a scandal of it: ‘I have no friends. I have only lovers.’ A dangerous construction if it comes to the ears of the police or a man of letters. He meant to say that he always went to extremes. I think in this he was simply putting on side. He might have said: ‘I only have companions.’ And if I had been Pierre Louys, I should have been still more offended.
Where would I find pleasure in companionship? When I trail from café to café, from studio to studio, arm in arm with companions? Friendship occupies all my time, and if any work distracts me from it, I dedicate this to it. It (friendship) saves me from that anguish men
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