REMY DE GOURMONT
303
III
I see a luminous task, irregular, sown with colors and shadows. It is of white pearl in which rose and yellow blend, and, wholly according to the surface, velvet gold, like the changeable wings of those beautiful butterflies
Of Columbia, which show different tints according to their inclination. But white is fundamental, not that livid sugar-white of porcelain, a white of vital appearance, network placed upon elastic flesh.
This makes the surface round here and there, not by chance, but according to very precise curves which enchant a geometrical eye.
Nature is geometrical, beauty is geometrical. I have concluded: the body my reason constructs is natural; it is located in space like all bodies.
IV
Like all living bodies, this one stands upon a base; she is formed of two tapering columns which grow into two plump roots, their bonds with the earth and the kindest mediator of their earth-knowledge.
All bodies depend upon the earth except light, that water which comes from above and does not fall below, but which hovers over and envelopes life with an airy mantle, where it cowers a time near death
And near the earth it fears. But it is necessary that bodies become familiar with the earth, and that is why nature has willed that they support themselves fondly upon her
By their feet or by their belly, until her bounty opens a little, and opens finally with a mutual love and receives her children into her breast.
V
But this shows me clearly that such is not the beginning. The beginning is that which is nearest the light, which smiles first to the light, which bathes there, floats there, swims there, scatters itself there with simple joy.
Then I shall begin my topography with the hair. Just so it shares with the sun its color and with the air its lightness. One
