Paris Letters #37
C’s family had earned their wealth in porcelain — yes, toilet bowls and sundry. They had houses in various places — including a dramatic villa in San Tropez; but the the more modest part of the family had a house in Correze, not far from porcelain country (Limousine). If you put your finger in the centre of france, that is where the house was, more or less.
Corrèze is what they called ‘profound’ France — profound meaning deeply rural, backwoodsy. Her little village had more goats than human beings, and sat on a small plateau with little red stone houses, sunken deep into the earth. The houses were red because the local stone was penetrated with red iron alluvial soil, and there were nearby dolmen stones. Palaeolithic cave paintings at Lascaux where not so far away. This land was ancient, and somehow protected.
To me this place was pure loveliness—a land without haste, speed, or ugliness. It made one dream of a time before machine consciousness, when there did seem to be some kind of balance between man, beast, and soil. Did such a time ever exist? Of course not—but it that’s not to say it isn’t possible.
Paradise is composed of simple things and relationships: bread with fig jam, goat cheese with thyme, the fruit on the table—nothing lacking. The two lover chased each other around hay bales, went long country walks under stars as bright as childhood—how happy they were, and how that happiness seemed to extend on and on, without a thought that it could ever end!
“Marry me” I begged. “Oui mon amour, bien sur, bien sure. Je t’aimerai toujours.” she purred. The moon rose and there was a gigantic ring around it. That is our wedding ring, I told her. Would she really marry this penniless troubadour, who couldn’t even afford a real ring? Probably not. Our marriage, then, would not be of this world.
I left her laying in the moonlight and got up to pee. Suddenly I realized that the dark shape that I was peeing on was not a wall, but a living creature. The cow cried: ‘MOOOOOOOOO!!!!!’. I saw its eyes were bloodshot and full of flies — it’s teats almost touched the ground, it was so full of milk. It had a tag stapled to ear and a number. It’s days in paradise were numbered and so were ours.
