Vuillard: “The Mother and Sister of the Artist”

W. D. Snodgrass

(Instructions for the Visit)

Admire, when you come here, the glimmering hair

Of the girl; praise her pale

Complexion. Think well of her dress

Though that is somewhat out of fashion.

Don’t try to take her hand, but smile for

Her hesitant gentleness.

Say the old woman is looking strong

today; such hardiness. Remark,

Perhaps, how she has dressed herself black

Like a priest, and wears that sufficient air

That does become the righteous.

As you approach, she will push back

Her chair, shove away her plate

And wait,

Sitting squat and direct, before

The red mahogany chest

Massive as some great

Safe; will wait,

By the table and her greasy plate,

The bone half-chewed, her wine half-drained;

She will wait. And fix her steady

Eyes on you—the straight stare

Of an old politician.

Try once to meet her eyes. But fail.

Let your sight

Drift—yet never as if hunting for

The keys (you keep imagining) hung

By her belt. (They are not there.)

Watch, perhaps, that massive chest—the way

It tries to lean

Forward, toward her, till it seems to rest

Its whole household’s weight

Of linens and clothing and provisions

All on her stiff back.

It might be strapped there like the monstrous pack

Of some enchanted pedlar. Dense, self-contained,

Like mercury in a ball,

She can support this without strain,

Yet she grows smaller, wrinkling

Like a potato, parched as dung;

It cramps her like a fist.

Ask no one why the chest

Has no knobs. Betray

No least suspicion

The necessities within

Could vanish at her

Will. Try not to think

That as she feeds, gains

Specific gravity,

She shrinks, light-

less as the world’s

Hard core

And the per-

spective drains

In her.

Finally, above all,

You must not ever see,

Or let slip one hint you can see,

On the other side, the girl’s

Cuffs, like cordovan restraints;

Forget her bony, tentative wrist,

The half-fed, worrying eyes, and how

She backs out, bows, and tries to bow

Out of the scene, grows too ethereal

To make a shape inside her dress

And the dress itself is beginning already

To sublime itself away like a vapor

That merges into the empty twinkling

Of the air and of the bright wallpaper.

478

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Snails by Francis Ponge

Unlike the ashes that make their home with hot coals, snails prefer moist earth. Go on: they advance while gluing themselves to it with their entire bodies. They carry it, they eat it, they shit it. They go through it, it goes through them. It’s the best kind of interpenetration, as between tones, one passive and one active. The passive bathes and nourishes the active, which overturns the other while it eats.

(There is more to be said about snails. First of all their immaculate clamminess. Their sangfroid. Their stretchiness.)

One can scarcely conceive of a snail outside its shell and unmoving. The moment it rests it sinks down deep into itself. In fact, its modesty obliges it to move as soon as it has shown its nakedness and  revealed its vulnerable shape. The moment it’s exposed, it moves on.

During periods of dryness they withdraw into ditches where it seems their bodies are enough to maintain their dampness. No doubt their neighbors there are toads and frogs and other ectothermic animals. But when they come out again they don’t move as quickly. You have to admire their willingness to go into the ditch, given how hard it is for them to come out again.

Note also that though snails like moist soil, they have no affection for places that are too wet such as marshes or ponds. Most assuredly they prefer firm earth, as long as it’s fertile and damp.

They are fond as well of moisture-rich vegetables and green leafy plants. They know how to feed on them leaving only the veins, cutting free the most tender leaves. They are hell on salads.

What are these beings from the depths of the ditches? Though snails love many of their trenches’ qualities they have every intention of leaving. They are in their element but they are also wanderers. And when they emerge into the daylight onto firm ground their shells will preserve their vagabond’s hauteur.

It must be a pain to have to haul that trailer around with them everywhere, but they never complain and in the end they are happy about it. How valuable, after all, to be able to go home any time, no matter where you may find yourself, eluding all intruders. It must be worth it.