0021 Under The Bridge Of Time

Oui, c'est beaux, le jardin... at this time of year; mais... for myself, a little too overgrown – but Monsieur prefers it that way… you see him down there by the lily pond, the nymphées? He’s nearly blind now, yet he’s out all day and nearly every day. He draws life from the garden, je crois; and though there are some who laugh and say, his paintings are now mere daubs, when I see them and then go out into the garden, there’s a truth there, beyond what we see… what passes, what floats serene and unaffected... what floats on time itself... You may find this fanciful, but I’ve watched Monsieur over the years: first he had the garden made, when he could afford it, and the bridge and then the pool that slows the river… then he painted the lilies which we planted, floating on the water, all the colours of sunshine as you see it through a prism…then he painted the sunlight on the water… then he seemed to paint the flow of the water as it passed… and then he seemed to be painting time itself, passing under the bridge where we’re standing here, as if outside time… and now, qu’est-ce qu’on dit? I think he’s painting the philosophy of time – Monsieur Bergson le philosophe agrees with me – in paint; perhaps one might say, painting the future of painting… yet, the flow of time and death came first, they say: Monsieur began to paint his water-lilies after he had seen the photos of the solemn river of corpses in the trenches in that terrible war; even, it's said, the same colours of the unburied dead who putrify are the same colours that he sees in the water-lilies...c'est étrange, n'est-ce-pas? a sort of redemption in the painter's palette... this, I feel, gives these pretty paintings the vision that drives Monsieur to find beauty in its opposite... but it’s cooling now; Monsieur likes to enjoy that glowing light of early evening, the precious departing of the light… the light of life itself... I’ll fetch his rug…these artists seem to lose themselves in what they see… they don’t seem to notice passing time, it’s as if they think they live where time is space; or perhaps, time’s so precious for Monsieur that he paints it running out… but I mustn’t keep you, M’sieur Proust – it was so kind of you to find the time to visit, and you too, M’sieur Debussy – it has been quite a day to remember, n’est-ce pas? … and now for Monsieur’s rug…