Mute Objects of Expression (3 page)

No! Stand back! There's something here very like a blaze, whose sparks spray far and wide, with unforeseen trajectories . . . I see in this the perfection of what's attempted elsewhere by these vast hangars, these airfields. But let's take a closer look.

Ouch!
Oh natural winged fervor! It's the assembly of your people sputtering about there, in preparation for a rebellious attack. Go ahead, jab me . . . But already we can see their animosity dissipates in furious excursions . . .

A barbarous swarm is sweeping the countryside. The garden is overrun.

It's also like a stray bullet, but loose, languid, dreamy. Seemingly nonchalant, at moments she regains her virtue, her sense of purpose – and pounces on her target from close range.

It is as though on leaving the gun barrel projectiles experience a sudden rapture that induces them to forget their original intention, their motivation, their rancor.

Like some army that had been ordered to rapidly occupy the strategic points of a city, yet immediately on entering the gates became engrossed in the shop windows, visited the museums, sipped from the straws of customers enjoying drinks at all the sidewalk cafés.

Like buckshot too, with pensive little taps she riddles the vertical panels of worm-eaten wood.

The wasp can be called the musical form of honey. That's to say a major note, sharped, insistent, beginning faintly but not easy to release, clinging, bright, with alternating force and frailty, etc.

Et cetera
. . .

And finally, for the rest of it, for a certain number of fine attributes that I might have neglected to draw out, well, dear reader, be patient! Some fine day a critic will surely happen along, perceptive enough to REPROACH ME for this
eruption
into literature by my wasp in a manner that's
importunate, annoying, impetuous,
and
trifling
all at once, to DENOUNCE the
halting
pace of these notes, their
disorderly, zigzag
presentation, to FRET over the taste for
brilliant discontinuity,
for a
sting
without depth though not without danger, not without the
venomous tail
which they disclose – in short, with great arrogance, to CALL DOWN UPON my work ALL THE EPITHETS it merits.

 

NOTES FOR A BIRD

 

 

L'oiseau.
Bird.
Les oiseaux.
Birds. It's very likely that we understand birds better since we've been making airplanes.

The word
OISEAU: it contains
all the vowels.
Very good, I approve. But instead of the S as the sole consonant, I would have preferred the L of
l'aile,
wing: OILEAU, or the v of the breastbone, the v of spread wings, the v of
avis:
OIVEAU. The colloquial is
zozio.
I can see clearly that the S has the look of a bird profile in repose. And
oi
and
eau,
on either side of the S are the two plump filets of meat surrounding the breastbone.

Deployment requires their moving in the air, and vice-versa. That's when one can notice the full wingspan they attain (not just for display). They astonish both by their flight (beginning abruptly, often capricious, unexpected) and by the full expanse of their wings.

Hardly have we had time to recover from our surprise when there
they are, set down again, settled back (settled back into their simple, their most simple, shape of repose). There's actually a perfection of form in the refolded bird (like a penknife with several blades and tools), which contributes to prolonging our surprise. Their members are concealed, the topping feathers lapped in such a way that no articulation remains visible. You have to rummage around to find the joints. Beneath this heap of feathers there are certain places where the body exists, others where it is absent.

Some birds live alone, or with their immediate family only, others in small flocks, still others in vast flocks. Some in close-packed company, others in widely separated flocks, which seem undisciplined. Some fly in straight lines, others are fond of carving great circles, still others go any which way, capriciously. There are those that appear to be guided, more than others, by some pernicious instinct or misbegotten habits.

There are few that one can approach to within less than a few meters, some that flee at thirty to fifty meters. Some citified species become accustomed to the close presence of man, and under certain circumstances, occasionally beg food from a few centimeters away.

But it is only the features common to this whole class of animals that I wish to acknowledge. Beasts of feather. Faculty of
flight. Particular skeletal characteristics. Characteristic attitudes or expressions.

So far I haven't said a whole lot about their skeleton. It's a thing that gives the impression of great levity and extreme fragility, with a predominance of the abdomen and a marked disproportion between this skeleton and the volume of the living animal. It is really little more than a cage, a very light, very airy chassis: a round skull, extremely small with an enormous eye socket and large beak, a neck generally long and attenuated, the lower limbs insignificant, the whole very easily ground up, without the slightest resistance to a mechanical press, protected by very little, and at most a rather slight bit of flesh, flesh that is in fact minimally elastic or shock-absorbing. The skeleton of fish is probably finer and still more fragile, but incomparably better protected by its flesh.

The bird takes comfort in its feathers. It is like a man who would never part with his comforter and down pillows, who carries them around on his back and could at any moment nestle down in them. In actual fact, the whole thing is often heavily bug-infested. Upon reflection, nothing resembles a sparrow more than a tramp, or an aviary more than a gypsy camp.