Эрнст Юнгер - A German Officer in Occupied Paris - The War Journals, 1941-1945

In the afternoon, we entered our old Saint-Michel again. Madame Richardet welcomed me with such delight that I found it touching. She said that the time since we had last seen each other had passed so slowly. After the milking was over, Ma Tante [9] Mme. Richardet’s aunt. came by with her little basket as usual and asked me whether I had experienced the coup de foudre in Paris. In this mood of mutual domestic familiarity, we all then drank a bottle of wine with Rehm.

Read my correspondence; among it a letter from Höll sent from Rue Montreuil in which he recalled the rainbow. It bears a postscript from Germaine, expressing the hope of seeing her two captains again, who had turned up at a crossroads in her life. In general, I have to say that one reason my stay in Paris was so fruitful was that it brought me such a wealth of human contact. People still preserve much of their seed corn, which can sprout again as soon as the weather becomes milder and returns to more humane temperatures.

Lovely letters from Perpetua. I note the following from 10 June:

Last night I had a strange dream again. In association with young Meyer and Lahmann I caught a burglar who had hidden in our armoire during the night as you were coming upstairs. Your face, when you heard those men’s voices, was the one you usually put on when you encounter unpleasant things. I showed you the thief and you had a good laugh. Then, after you had a good long look at me, you said, “You will recall my remark about Hölderlin, when he says that the fear that holds all our senses in extreme tension gives a person’s expression a strange demonic look. When that dissipates, the expression relaxes and a happy serenity spreads over the face. That is what’s happening to you at this moment, and I like you better than ever.”

I am writing these lines at the semicircular table where I have so often read and worked before. Madame Richardet has picked some peonies from her garden and placed them in a tall vase among the letters, diaries, magazines, and manuscripts. Once in a while, one of the dark red or pale purple petals falls from one of the open blossoms so that the material disorder of the space is exaggerated by a second, colorful one, but at the same time that disorder is negated.

Incidentally, I don’t usually update my notes until the following day, and I do not date them on the day of their writing but rather the day they occurred. Nonetheless, it happens that some overlap can occur between both dates. That remains one of the imprecisions in perspective that I don’t attend to very strictly. This applies all the more to what I have just said about the flowers.

Spent Saturday on the banks of the Glandbach stream, where I have organized sports for the men, the first time this year. While they were doing that, I hunted for subtiles along the beautifully tree-lined banks. In a tree fungus where I once found a reddish-brown Orchesia [darkling beetle] before our stay in Paris, this time I discovered a related species with orange spots, and a little bit later on the stump of an old alder tree, a variety Eucnemidae [false click beetle]. I also glimpsed the dark, otherwise inconspicuous Staphylinidea [rove beetle]. In the bright sunshine, they danced with their abdomens pointed upward like black flames upon the fresh crust of river mud in a wild celebration of life. When their armor glistens, the nobility of their black color becomes obvious.

I gave some more thought to my project about Black and White. For a long time, it has seemed that I must still establish a method before beginning it.

For anyone who wants to pursue this. A youth once came to an old hermit and asked him for a rule to guide him through life. The hermit imparted this advice: “Strive for the attainable.”

The youth thanked him and asked whether it would be immodest to ask for a second word of wisdom as sustenance for his journey, whereupon the hermit added another piece of advice to his first: “Strive for the unattainable.”

In the evening, in Madame Richardet’s garden. A bee approached a pink lupine and alighted upon the lower lip of the blossom, which drooped obligingly under its weight. In this way, a second narrow sheath, deep dark red at its tip, opened up. This section holds the pollen receptacles. The bee feasted on this sideways, right at the point indicated by the dark shading.

I stood for a long time before an iris with a tripartite crown. Entry to its chalices lay across a golden fleece leading to an amethyst cleft.

You flowers, who dreamed you up?

Höll arrived late by car. Because it was my sergeant’s birthday, I took him along to see the junior officers. It was a hearty feast. At around two o’clock, we pledged our close friendship over toasts.

He brought along the photograph from Rue Montreuil. The likenesses and also the view had come out well, but the rainbow was missing, that symbol of our attachment. The inert lens does not capture those authentic and miraculous qualities.

In a dream I was sitting with my father at a table heaped with food. It was at the end of the meal where others were present. He was in a good mood and posed the question to what extent every gesture—especially a man’s gestures in conversation with a woman—carries erotic significance. In doing so, he revealed the structure of gestural language and produced a cynical effect, yet this impression was mitigated by his astonishing erudition. Concerning the gestures, he mentioned those men use to indicate their experience and prowess; he cited Juvenal’s reference to the two books of Anticatones. [10] Reference to a work by the Roman satirist Decimus Junius Juvenal that mentions a satirical book (possibly two, now lost) by Caesar answering eulogies on Cato—the so-called Anticato or Anticatones. The implication is to a gesture indicating a man’s penis as big or as long as these works, which would have been written on papyrus rolls.

Before the roundtable broke up he passed a goblet holding bright red wild strawberries on a mound of white ice cream. I heard him comment on it, but I have unfortunately forgotten what he said, although it was rather more profound than jocular.

Departure to Paris in the very early morning. I was warmly embraced on Rue de la Bovette by Madame Richardet and her aunt, who warned me again about the coup de foudre .

Laon again with its cathedral, which I love especially. In the woods, the place where the chestnut bushes are beginning to bud marks the boundary of a growing zone. Just on the outskirts of the city there are tall stands of marvelous wild cherries that glowed the color of coral as they ripened. That surpasses the limits of the gardener’s art, encroaching into the realm of precious stones and jewelry—just like those trees that Aladdin found in the grotto of the lamp.

For three days now we have been at war with Russia—strange how little the news has touched me. But the ability to absorb facts in times like these is limited unless we do so with a certain callousness.

Standing in front of La Lorraine again on the Place des Ternes. I reencounter the same clock that has so often been the focus of my gaze.

When I take up my position in front of the troops to say goodbye, as I did on Monday, I notice the urge to stand off-center. That is a trait that denotes an observer and a prevalence of contemplative leanings. In the evening, bouillabaisse with Ziegler at Drouant. I waited for him on Avenue de L’Opéra in front of a store displaying rugs, weapons, and jewelry from the Sahara. Among these were heavy silver armbands and ankle bracelets, fitted with locks and spikes—ornaments common to lands where slaves and harems are found.