Philippe Lanson
L'Alligator est Leger
L’ ALLIGATOR EST LEGER
Pas plus que la mort, je n'avais de ma vie vu
un alligator en liberté d'aussi près. De loin, comme dans Tintin, on dirait un
bout de bois flottant. Une légère courbe au niveau du museau et de l'arcade
permet, a mesure qu'il s'approche, de
deviner autre chose; puis apparait le relief bien sculpté de cette peau épaisse
et sombre, ces créneaux qui l'apparentent pour l'homme a une sculpture ou a un
jouet, et alors, plus de doute, la bête que j'ai devant moi et qui pourrait
avoir a peu près mon age descend de celles qui, ici même, en Caroline du Sud,
ont du manger quelques esclaves quand l'eau stagnante de cette rivière
irriguait les rizières ou ils pataugeaient. Cette bête est une réalité que je
découvre, comme toujours, peu a peu: tant l'homme se plait a imaginer toutes
sortes de choses, du moment qu'il ne voit pas celle qu'il a sous le nez.
Il fait chaud et
avec Catherine, dessinatrice que les lecteurs de Charlie connaissent bien, nous contemplons cet animal, immobile
entre les herbes à deux mètres. Nous le contemplons avec une fascination non
dénuée d'extase, car s'il fait peur, si on peut même-dire que son calme, sa
lenteur et ce regard intense et froid et mortellement endormi le rendent
effroyable, on ne peut nier qu'il correspond a ce phénomène qui, depuis
l'attentat, nous occupe: l'apparition de la beauté.
Université Duke,
j’ai enseigné viola sept ans, autrement dit dans une autre vie, nous a invités
pour parler de La Légèreté. Catherine
m'avait demandé de préfacer son introspection graphique. Au centre, il y a
cette recherche de la beauté, de paysages en musées, dans le moindre détail,
pour échapper a ce qui, a partir du 7 janvier, aurait pu la rendre folle. Je la
comprends d'autant mieux que, de mon coûté, d'hôpitaux en kinés et de blocs en
salles de réveil, j'ai essayé de faire entrer chaque jour un peu plus l’art
dans ce qu'il fallait reconstruire de vie. Je ne l'ai ni programmé ni pensé: je
l'ai vécu et je le vis. Nous parlons de ca pendant deux jours avec les
professeurs, les étudiants, et, quand nous avons fini de parler, nous allons
boire des cocktails puissants et raffinés, parce que c'est le Sud et parce que
nous avons soif. Nous avons souffert d'être survivants; nous sommes heureux d'être
vivants.
GIVERNY SOUS LES
TROPIQUES
Notre
conversation se poursuit dans les-rues de Charleston, ou nous marchons pendant
des heures, et dans l’obscurité. Pas un chat, pas un bruit, et partout cette
odeur entêtante d'oranger du Mexique et ces vieilles maisons splendides, en
briques ou en bois, qui datent des siècles passés et a l'intérieur desquelles,
quand c’est allumé, on croit voir plutôt qu'une habitation un mussée. Nous
parlons dans la nuit subtropicale et comme malgré nous de nos amis morts, un
par un et au fil des souvenirs, lentement, joyeusement, précisément, au pied
des glycines. Les palmiers ressemblent à des réverbères Eteints. Nous faisons
revivre Charlie a l'autre bout du
monde, au cour de cette ville née de esclavagisme, cette ville ancienne et
restaurée ou continue d'éclater, cent cinquante-deux ans après la fin de la
guerre de Sécession, le bon vieux paradoxe insurmontable : la beauté est
sans rapport avec la morale. Ou, plus exactement: sa seule morale est dans
l'usage des moyens appropriés pour l'obtenir et la répandre. Et nous finissons
par tomber un matin, à vingt kilomètres de la ville, sur cet alligator. Nous le
contemplons, il nous observe. Nous pourrions lui dire: « Qu'avons-nous
fait pour mériter ca ? » S'il pouvait parler, il répondrait: « Délicate
petite paire de crépins, je ne suis pas votre juge et encore moins votre
avocat. Je ne suis que votre prédateur. »
L’endroit ou nous
le trouvons est une ancienne plantation que les touristes américains visitent
volontiers: la plantation Magnolia. Elle date de 1672. C'est l’un des fleurons
bien conservés de la civilisation des planteurs. Assez vite après la guerre de
Sécession, comme elle a été préservée de.la destruction par les armées
nordistes, la famille qui la possède l'ouvre aux visites: il faut faire entrer
l'argent quand tout a disparu, esclaves et rizières. Aujourd'hui, selon un
guide, c'est la troisième destination la plus visitée après les chutes du
Niagara et le Grand Canyon du Colorado. Symboliquement, c'est autre chose: un
choc suave entre ce dont la nature est capable et ce dont l'homme est capable.
Les touristes ont
remplacé les esclaves. La plupart sont gros, parfois obèses. Il suffit de
marcher quelques centaines de mètres pour leur échapper. , On rejoint le
silence, les oiseaux, cette violente chaleur du Sud qui s'abat sur avril comme
la mélancolie sur les premiers esclaves. Les maitres les avaient assez vite
classés par tribus. Certaines tribus avaient, selon eux, des tendances au
suicide; d'autres, non. Il arrivait qu'on coupe une oreille, un orteil ou le
sexe d’un fuyard. En regardant alligator,
j’essaie d'imaginer leurs conditions de vie. Non, pas d'imaginer : de voir,
aussi précisément que possible, Mais je ne vois que la réalité et la beauté de
l’instant. Le reste est sans doute cache, comme un secret, au fond d’un livre
ou dans la gueule de I ‘alligator. Il ne l’a pas ouverte et il ma fallu un
excellent livre pour l’approcher: Slaves
in the Family. D’Edward Ball.
Autour de la bête,
c'est Giverny sous les tropiques: une splendeur luxuriante et fleuri. admirablement
composée, d'un baroque naturel et extravagant. Il y a de petits ponts en bois
qui enjambent des étangs, de petites statues sous les frondaisons, ces grands
arbres sudistes dont les ombres vous paralysent et vous transforment presque
aussitôt en souvenirs de vous-même. La nature dégouline pour rejoindre l’eau plus
ou moins stagnante. On ne sait plus où sont les reflets. Des serpents
invisibles et mortels circulent dessous. Bientôt viendront les moustiques. Des
hommes ont vécu et souffert ici. Le paradis et l'enfer, ces jumeaux, jouent nos
destins à pile ou face.
Translation:
The Alligator is light
Just as I've never come so close to deah, I have never in my life seen an alligator in freedom so closely. From a distance, as in Tintin, it looks like a floating piece of wood. A slight curve at the level of the muzzle and the forehead makes it possible, as it approaches, to guess something else; Then the well-sculptured relief of this thick and dark skin appears, those battlements which seem to give it the appearance of a sculpture or a toy, and then, there is no more doubt, and I have before me the beast who could have roughly my age, a descendent from those who here in South Carolina had to eat a few slaves when the stagnant water of this river irrigated the rice paddies or they were floundering. This beast is a reality that I discover, as always, little by little: such is man, pleased to imagine all sorts of things, as long as he does not see the one he has under his nose.
It's hot, and with Catherine, a cartoonist whom Charlie's readers are familiar with, we contemplate this animal, motionless between the grass two meters away. We contemplate it with a fascination not devoid of ecstasy, for if it is frightening, if one can even say that its calm, its slowness and that its intense, cold and mortally asleep look make it appalling, one can not deny that " It corresponds to the phenomenon which, since the attack, has occupied us: the appearance of beauty.
Duke University, it's been seven years since I taught years there, ie in another life; invited us to talk about The Lightness. Catherine had asked me to preface her graphical introspection. In the center, there is this search for beauty, from landscapes to museums, to the smallest detail, to escape from what, from the 7th of January, could have made her crazy. I understand it all the better because, as for me, from hospitals to physiotherapists and from operating rooms to wake-up rooms, I tried to bring art every day, a little more art in what it was necessary to rebuild life. I have neither planned it that way, nor thought: I lived it and I saw it. We talk about it for two days with the professors, the students, and when we have finished speaking, we are going to drink powerful and refined cocktails, because it is the South and because we are thirsty. We suffered from being survivors; We are happy to be alive.
GIVERNEY IN THE TROPICS
Our conversation continues in the streets of Charleston, where we walk for hours, in the darkness. Not a cat, not a noise, and everywhere the heady smell of Mexican Orange trees and those splendid old houses of brick or wood, which date back centuries ago and which, when the inside is lit, seem more like a museum than a dwelling. We speak, in the subtropical night, and in spite of ourselves, of our dead friends, one by one, remembering the memories, slowly, joyfully, precisely, at the trunks of the wisteria. The palms look like extinct street lamps. We revive Charlie on the other side of the world, in the heart of this city born of slavery, this ancient city, restored, where there continues to pose for us, one hundred and fifty-two years after the end of the Civil War, the good old insurmountable paradox: beauty is unrelated to morality. Or, more exactly: the only morality is in the use of the appropriate means to obtain it and to spread it. And we end up falling one morning, twenty kilometers from the town, on this alligator. We contemplate it, it observes us. We could say, "What have we done to deserve this?" If he could speak, he would reply: "Delicate little pair of misfits, I am not your judge and even less your lawyer. I'm just your predator. "
The place where we find ourselves is an old plantation that the American tourists readily visit: the Magnolia plantation. It dates from 1672. It is one of the well-preserved jewels of the civilization of the planters. Pretty soon after the Civil War, since it had been preserved from destruction by the northern armies, the family which possesses it opens it to visits: money must be brought in when all has disappeared, slaves and rice-fields. Today, according to a guide, it is the third most visited destination after the Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon of Colorado. Symbolically, it is something else: a suave shock between what nature is capable of and what man is capable of.
Tourists have replaced the slaves. Most are fat, sometimes obese. We just walk a few hundred meters to escape them. One joins the silence, the birds, that violent heat of the South which falls on April like the melancholy on the first slaves. The masters had soon classified them by tribes. Some tribes, according to them, had a tendency to suicide; others, no. Sometimes an ear, a toe, or the sex of a fugitive was cut off. Looking at alligator, I try to imagine their living conditions. No, not imagine: to see, as precisely as possible, But I see only the reality and beauty of the moment. The rest is undoubtedly hidden, like a secret, at the bottom of a book or in the mouth of the alligator. He did not open it and it took me an excellent book to approach it: Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball.
Around the beast, it is Giverny in the tropics: a lush and flowery splendor. Admirably composed, of a natural and extravagant baroque. There are small wooden bridges spanning ponds, small statues under the foliage, these tall trees in the south, whose shadows paralyze you and transform you into memories of yourself. Nature drifts to reach more or less stagnant water. We no longer know where the reflections are. Invisible and mortal serpents circulate underneath. Soon the mosquitoes will come. Men have lived and suffered here. Paradise and hell, these twins, play our heads or tails destinies.
traduction Arabe (partial Arabic translation)
التمساح خفيف
كما أنني لم أكن قريبا جدا من الموت، لم يسبق لي في حياتي ينظر إلى التمساح في الحرية عن كثب. من مسافة، كما هو الحال في تانتين، يبدو وكأنه قطعة عائمة من الخشب. ومنحنى طفيف على مستوى كمامة والجبهة يجعل من الممكن، كما يقترب، لتخمين شيء آخر؛ ثم يبدو من النحت المنحوت جيدا من هذا الجلد السميك والظلام، تلك السدود التي يبدو أنها تعطيه مظهر من النحت أو لعبة، ومن ثم، ليس هناك شك أكثر، ولدي من قبل الوحش الذي يمكن أن يكون تقريبا عمري، نسل من أولئك الذين هنا في ولاية كارولينا الجنوبية كان يأكل بعض العبيد عندما راكد المياه الراكدة من هذا النهر المروية حقول الأرز أو أنها تعثرت. هذا الوحش هو حقيقة أن أكتشف، كما هو الحال دائما، شيئا فشيئا: هذا هو الرجل، ويسر أن نتصور كل أنواع الأشياء، طالما انه لا يرى واحد لديه تحت أنفه.
انها ساخنة، ومع كاترين، رسام الكاريكاتير الذي كان القراء تشارلي على دراية، ونحن نفكر هذا الحيوان، بلا حراك بين العشب مترين بعيدا. ونحن نفكر في ذلك مع سحر لا يخلو من النشوة، لأنه إذا كان مخيفا، إذا كان يمكن للمرء أن يقول حتى أن هدوئه، وبطءه وأن نظرة مكثفة وباردة ونائما نائما جعلها مروعة، لا يمكن للمرء أن ينكر أن "يتوافق إلى الظاهرة التي احتلتنا منذ الهجوم، وهي ظهور الجمال.
alttimsah khafif
kama 'annani lm 'akun qaribaan jiddaan min almaut, lm yasbiq li fi hayati yanzur 'iilaa alttamsah fi alhurriat ean kathb. min masafati, kama hu alhal fi tanitayn, ybdw waka'annah qiteat eayimat min alkhshb. wamanhunaa tafif ealaa mustawaa kamamat waljabhat yajeal min almimikin, kama yaqtaribu, litakhmin shay' akhar; thumm ybdw min alnnaht almunahhuat jayidaan mn hdha aljulad alssamiik walzzalami, tilk alssudud alty ybdw 'annaha taetih mazhar min alnnaht 'aw laebat, wamin tham, lays hunak shakk 'akthar, walday min qibal alwahsh aldhy ymkn 'an yakun taqribaan eamri, nasil min 'uwlayik aldhyn huna fi wilayat karwlyna aljanubiat kan yakul bed aleubayd eindama rakad almiah alrrakidat mn hdha alnnahr almarawiat huqul al'arz 'aw 'annaha taetharut. hdha alwahsh hu hqyqt 'ann 'aktashifa, kama hu alhal dayima, shayyanaan fashyya: hadha hu alrrajulu, wayassir 'ann natasawwar kl 'anwae al'ashya'i, talama 'annah la yaraa wahid ladayh taht 'anfih. 'innaha sakhanat, wamae katirina, risam alkariakatir aldhy kan alqurra' tasharili ealaa dirayati, wanahn nufakkir hdha alhuywani, bila harak bayn aleashb mitrayn bieida. wanahn nufakkir fi dhalik mae sihr la yakhlu min alnnashuwwati, li'annah 'iidha kan mukhayifa, 'iidha kan yumkin lilmar' 'an yaqul hatta 'ann hudawayahi, wabit'uh wa'ann nazratan mukaththafatan wabaridatan wanayima nnayima jaealaha mirwaeatan, la yumkin lilmar' 'ann yunkir 'ann "yttawafiq 'iilaa alzzahirat alty ahtallatna mundh alhujumi, wahi zuhur aljamali.
Translation:
The Alligator is light
Just as I've never come so close to deah, I have never in my life seen an alligator in freedom so closely. From a distance, as in Tintin, it looks like a floating piece of wood. A slight curve at the level of the muzzle and the forehead makes it possible, as it approaches, to guess something else; Then the well-sculptured relief of this thick and dark skin appears, those battlements which seem to give it the appearance of a sculpture or a toy, and then, there is no more doubt, and I have before me the beast who could have roughly my age, a descendent from those who here in South Carolina had to eat a few slaves when the stagnant water of this river irrigated the rice paddies or they were floundering. This beast is a reality that I discover, as always, little by little: such is man, pleased to imagine all sorts of things, as long as he does not see the one he has under his nose.
It's hot, and with Catherine, a cartoonist whom Charlie's readers are familiar with, we contemplate this animal, motionless between the grass two meters away. We contemplate it with a fascination not devoid of ecstasy, for if it is frightening, if one can even say that its calm, its slowness and that its intense, cold and mortally asleep look make it appalling, one can not deny that " It corresponds to the phenomenon which, since the attack, has occupied us: the appearance of beauty.
Duke University, it's been seven years since I taught years there, ie in another life; invited us to talk about The Lightness. Catherine had asked me to preface her graphical introspection. In the center, there is this search for beauty, from landscapes to museums, to the smallest detail, to escape from what, from the 7th of January, could have made her crazy. I understand it all the better because, as for me, from hospitals to physiotherapists and from operating rooms to wake-up rooms, I tried to bring art every day, a little more art in what it was necessary to rebuild life. I have neither planned it that way, nor thought: I lived it and I saw it. We talk about it for two days with the professors, the students, and when we have finished speaking, we are going to drink powerful and refined cocktails, because it is the South and because we are thirsty. We suffered from being survivors; We are happy to be alive.
GIVERNEY IN THE TROPICS
Our conversation continues in the streets of Charleston, where we walk for hours, in the darkness. Not a cat, not a noise, and everywhere the heady smell of Mexican Orange trees and those splendid old houses of brick or wood, which date back centuries ago and which, when the inside is lit, seem more like a museum than a dwelling. We speak, in the subtropical night, and in spite of ourselves, of our dead friends, one by one, remembering the memories, slowly, joyfully, precisely, at the trunks of the wisteria. The palms look like extinct street lamps. We revive Charlie on the other side of the world, in the heart of this city born of slavery, this ancient city, restored, where there continues to pose for us, one hundred and fifty-two years after the end of the Civil War, the good old insurmountable paradox: beauty is unrelated to morality. Or, more exactly: the only morality is in the use of the appropriate means to obtain it and to spread it. And we end up falling one morning, twenty kilometers from the town, on this alligator. We contemplate it, it observes us. We could say, "What have we done to deserve this?" If he could speak, he would reply: "Delicate little pair of misfits, I am not your judge and even less your lawyer. I'm just your predator. "
The place where we find ourselves is an old plantation that the American tourists readily visit: the Magnolia plantation. It dates from 1672. It is one of the well-preserved jewels of the civilization of the planters. Pretty soon after the Civil War, since it had been preserved from destruction by the northern armies, the family which possesses it opens it to visits: money must be brought in when all has disappeared, slaves and rice-fields. Today, according to a guide, it is the third most visited destination after the Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon of Colorado. Symbolically, it is something else: a suave shock between what nature is capable of and what man is capable of.
Tourists have replaced the slaves. Most are fat, sometimes obese. We just walk a few hundred meters to escape them. One joins the silence, the birds, that violent heat of the South which falls on April like the melancholy on the first slaves. The masters had soon classified them by tribes. Some tribes, according to them, had a tendency to suicide; others, no. Sometimes an ear, a toe, or the sex of a fugitive was cut off. Looking at alligator, I try to imagine their living conditions. No, not imagine: to see, as precisely as possible, But I see only the reality and beauty of the moment. The rest is undoubtedly hidden, like a secret, at the bottom of a book or in the mouth of the alligator. He did not open it and it took me an excellent book to approach it: Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball.
Around the beast, it is Giverny in the tropics: a lush and flowery splendor. Admirably composed, of a natural and extravagant baroque. There are small wooden bridges spanning ponds, small statues under the foliage, these tall trees in the south, whose shadows paralyze you and transform you into memories of yourself. Nature drifts to reach more or less stagnant water. We no longer know where the reflections are. Invisible and mortal serpents circulate underneath. Soon the mosquitoes will come. Men have lived and suffered here. Paradise and hell, these twins, play our heads or tails destinies.
traduction Arabe (partial Arabic translation)
التمساح خفيف
كما أنني لم أكن قريبا جدا من الموت، لم يسبق لي في حياتي ينظر إلى التمساح في الحرية عن كثب. من مسافة، كما هو الحال في تانتين، يبدو وكأنه قطعة عائمة من الخشب. ومنحنى طفيف على مستوى كمامة والجبهة يجعل من الممكن، كما يقترب، لتخمين شيء آخر؛ ثم يبدو من النحت المنحوت جيدا من هذا الجلد السميك والظلام، تلك السدود التي يبدو أنها تعطيه مظهر من النحت أو لعبة، ومن ثم، ليس هناك شك أكثر، ولدي من قبل الوحش الذي يمكن أن يكون تقريبا عمري، نسل من أولئك الذين هنا في ولاية كارولينا الجنوبية كان يأكل بعض العبيد عندما راكد المياه الراكدة من هذا النهر المروية حقول الأرز أو أنها تعثرت. هذا الوحش هو حقيقة أن أكتشف، كما هو الحال دائما، شيئا فشيئا: هذا هو الرجل، ويسر أن نتصور كل أنواع الأشياء، طالما انه لا يرى واحد لديه تحت أنفه.
انها ساخنة، ومع كاترين، رسام الكاريكاتير الذي كان القراء تشارلي على دراية، ونحن نفكر هذا الحيوان، بلا حراك بين العشب مترين بعيدا. ونحن نفكر في ذلك مع سحر لا يخلو من النشوة، لأنه إذا كان مخيفا، إذا كان يمكن للمرء أن يقول حتى أن هدوئه، وبطءه وأن نظرة مكثفة وباردة ونائما نائما جعلها مروعة، لا يمكن للمرء أن ينكر أن "يتوافق إلى الظاهرة التي احتلتنا منذ الهجوم، وهي ظهور الجمال.
alttimsah khafif
kama 'annani lm 'akun qaribaan jiddaan min almaut, lm yasbiq li fi hayati yanzur 'iilaa alttamsah fi alhurriat ean kathb. min masafati, kama hu alhal fi tanitayn, ybdw waka'annah qiteat eayimat min alkhshb. wamanhunaa tafif ealaa mustawaa kamamat waljabhat yajeal min almimikin, kama yaqtaribu, litakhmin shay' akhar; thumm ybdw min alnnaht almunahhuat jayidaan mn hdha aljulad alssamiik walzzalami, tilk alssudud alty ybdw 'annaha taetih mazhar min alnnaht 'aw laebat, wamin tham, lays hunak shakk 'akthar, walday min qibal alwahsh aldhy ymkn 'an yakun taqribaan eamri, nasil min 'uwlayik aldhyn huna fi wilayat karwlyna aljanubiat kan yakul bed aleubayd eindama rakad almiah alrrakidat mn hdha alnnahr almarawiat huqul al'arz 'aw 'annaha taetharut. hdha alwahsh hu hqyqt 'ann 'aktashifa, kama hu alhal dayima, shayyanaan fashyya: hadha hu alrrajulu, wayassir 'ann natasawwar kl 'anwae al'ashya'i, talama 'annah la yaraa wahid ladayh taht 'anfih. 'innaha sakhanat, wamae katirina, risam alkariakatir aldhy kan alqurra' tasharili ealaa dirayati, wanahn nufakkir hdha alhuywani, bila harak bayn aleashb mitrayn bieida. wanahn nufakkir fi dhalik mae sihr la yakhlu min alnnashuwwati, li'annah 'iidha kan mukhayifa, 'iidha kan yumkin lilmar' 'an yaqul hatta 'ann hudawayahi, wabit'uh wa'ann nazratan mukaththafatan wabaridatan wanayima nnayima jaealaha mirwaeatan, la yumkin lilmar' 'ann yunkir 'ann "yttawafiq 'iilaa alzzahirat alty ahtallatna mundh alhujumi, wahi zuhur aljamali.
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