That Breeze

What a lovely book is De Waal, 'Brieven aan Camondo' (2021).  Silenced. With bated breath. Sober. Like a Japanese Zen garden. 

Three quotes (translated from Dutch pages 103, 124 and 133):

 

"And I know you too. You wanted to complete things, needed to put things back together, you must have known what separation feels like, dispersion feels.
You started building this house and then your son died. The house changed. He had to come back to it, it became something to give to this mutilated homeland."  

"I noticed that your father's copy of 'Histoire de la poésie des Hébreux' is among the classics. That pleased me. And I was glad to see that you have Charles' book on Dürer, which he wrote many decades ago in his study, in the Rue de Monceau. I'm sure many collectors ordered books for their library by the metre, along with the curtains, but you loved books. "

"That's all delicious stuff and I know that in heaven caviar is eaten to the sound of trumpets, but I want to know more about the date jam sent from Cairo and about buying 'boutargue' from Martigues. That's harder calf salted, seasoned, pressed and dried. That's the taste of Constantinople, childhood, that breeze."

P.S. Father Moïse de Camondo founded  a museum for his son Nissim who died as pilot in World War I: Musée Nissim de Camondo. Moïse died in 1935. His daughter, her (ex)husband and their two children were murdered by the germans in World War II because they were jews.

P.P.S. The three pictures are from rooms of the museum: petit bureau, salon bleu and salle à manger.

P.P.P.S. I read a Dutch translation. The original title of this book: 'Letters to Camondo'.

The Devourer of All Things

What did Helen of Troy see in the mirror when she was old? Ovidius (Metamorphoses, XV, 233): "[A]nd Helen weeps, when in the glass she sees her wrinkled face, and wonders why two heroes fell in love and carried her away. — O Time, devourer of all things."

Was it a coincidence that Homer was blind? Is there a relation of his blindness and the fact that the divine name of God (YHWH) of Judaism was regarded as too sacred to be uttered? Is there a relation of his blindness and a couple of blind men in the New Testament of Christianity? Is there a relation of his blindness and the fact that in Islam it's prohibited to make a visual representation of the prophet Muhammad?

What is "wrong" with the sense organ 'eyes' of the species 'homo sapiens' - and when was this born? Too enchanting? Too blinding? Too much distraction? Do they hold off from what really matters or from the truth? What does really matter? What is the truth? Do they exist in plural?

P.S. Source quote: here. Picture 'Elena' (1814) is from Pelagio Palagi: here.

A Thousand Hints

 "I Wanted to Ask

whether you missed me.
Perhaps you remembered
the smell of my fingers,
times I phoned you for small talk
and you answered
with a thousand pointless questions
but never asked:
How are you?
Do you still love me?
Would you like to go to the movies?

I wanted to say
I never knew
how to find a simple sentence
that could hold my love for you,
my pains and fears,
my shut-eyed, secret wishes
so I gossiped about myself
and all the others.
I dropped a thousand hints
instead of saying:
I love you!
I miss you!
Come!

I wanted you to see
that I am not as beautiful
as I was with you,
as I was in your life
that beauty is a mirror
hung in your hallway.
Now that you don’t know
my address, I’ve covered
my mirrors with black cloth
and laid my dreams
in the middle of the room. I said
Don’t come back!
Don’t meet me!
Don’t call me any more!

but even
as I closed the door
and put my back against it
and slid down to the door
and hoped nobody would enter,
it was you I wanted to phone
ask if there was any way
you could miss me,
if there was any chance ..."

P.S. This is a poem from Salome Benidze: here. Originally written in Georgian: here.

P.P.S. 'I love you!' is in Georgian: „მიყვარხარ!“ („miq’varkhar!“).

P.P.P.S. Mack Lajos made this vase in 1899-1900. 

A Cosmopolitan Friend of Spirit Who Understands Every Shadow of Character

Balasa to Paddy on 17-4-1970:

I have read Nabokov's Lolita. Quote: "Although I realize it is excellent writing, I disliked it intensily. (...) Nabokov has turned the world into a synonim of American coca-cola bred girl-hood. (...) To my mind he [Nabokov] is an unbalanced person and his interest in sexual abnormalisation is not that of a scientist, but that of an addict, which is most unpleasant given the subject."

On 23-4-1970:

"I have just been reading Nabokov's "Speak Memory" /
and am enchanted. I am glad to be able to change my /
mind about him and his mind. He describes in beautiful /
words his lost childhood. He is a magician who can /
evoke the most secret memories of that very young child /
Russian (but cosmopolitan) in his every day life; which /
leaves a stamp on the soft and ungraven texture of /
his mind and character. How I understand him and /
love him for all his description of country houses /
and life in them so Baleni-like and Golasei-like. /
I am so glad to be able to lay on the mound of /
hatred I had accumulated on Lolita, one pure flower of /
love - shall we say a white narcissus on a long /
stalk, smelling of spring which I've just picked. Nabokov has now become /
a friend of spirit. (I still and always shall dislike /
Lolita) one likes to change ones mind about countries or /
people or persons doesn't one? It means that one is /
still alive and a lost ???? unstuborn."

On 24-4-1970:

"I have finished "Speak Memory" by Nabokov and loved /
it. Pomme is reading it now. He describes the same /
cycle of house in the country and Biarrits + Cannes in /
the winter. It is exactly the same that of our childhood /
and as he and I were born in the same year we may have /
played together on the same beaches as I remember several /
small Russian children we played with as well as English /
and American. These last Miss Williamson rather disapproved /
of I can't think for what reason. We called them the Brownies /
because they had brown Wellingtons and Mackintoshes. We overheard /
Miss Williamson saying to Mummy: "We can't have the children /
catching their dreadful accent." It meant nothing to us of /
course, and we went on having them as play-mates for /
digging in the sand, making castles and collecting shells. /
English and Russian children with perfect governesses where /
approved of. Spaniards at Biarrits were considered, /
perfectly allright, but we found them pampered children. /
At the same time fierce and easily hot-tempered and /
also suddenly called by "ama" (nanny) to drink choclate /
and be kissed by mothers. Strange children, very beautiful /
with huge eyes and lovely hair from fair to brown to black."

"Nabokov has brought back so much of childhood. /
The same cosmopolitanism - The same uprooting. /
His complexity of feeling, his understanding of /
every shadow of character are amazing, and his /
[c]ommand of English is wonderful. Of course /
[m]uch of his vocabulary is quite out of my reach /
although I catch the meaning of it more or less./
His philosophical and scientific vocabulary are /
[b]eyond my knowledge. I read his book with great /
pleasure and wonder if I could find another rather /
like this one and unlike Lolita."