Dreams of France [antikvár]

To dream of France is more difficult than to dream of Chandernagor or Tahiti. The beings and things that surround us, that form the framework and even the substance of our lives, we end up not seeing anymore or no longer understanding them well. We must, therefore, move away from them to obtain a distance of perspective and height. Afterwards, when we approach them again we rediscover or even discover them for the first time. I have flown over France many times returning from other countries, my mind still full of very foreign images —that vast desert in the United States, bordered and sprinkled with zones of the most advanced urban civilizations; the dense, disquieting jungle of Central America; Castile, so ochre, besieged by terribly immobile sierras; and still other visions, or the ever-changing sea which, seen from above, seems flat and motionless—each time, on each return the same evidence is imposed on me: France is a garden. From south to north, from west to east, slipping interminably under the wings of the plane lie juxtaposed rectangles of crops, varying in color according to the seasons, living a moving life—"prayer carpets," said Barrés—and also the prairies, the woods, the lines of poplars, all of which seen from above form an immense garden. The garden does not cover the entire territory for the mountains hold their own and towards the north and the east and around several large cities floats the smoke of industries, and elsewhere, like waves, stretch wooded sections, survivors of the Gallic forest or else created by man, as in the Landes. Nonetheless, the greatest surface of French soil is made up of that pleasing alternation of cultivations, meadows and trees. When the plane coming from afar begins to lose altitude, we can better distinguish the medium and small cities, each with its heart which is the church. We see the towns perched stolidly, squeezed around their protecting castle and on the plains and in the valleys the white châteaux, inhabited or not, so numerous and noble with their parks, their gardens, their mirrors of water. To dream of France is first to once again discover that harmony, that image of happiness springing from wisdom.