THE TOAST TO A FUTURE DAY
I have climbed to the highest point of the mountain to drink a toast to a future day,—to a new day, to one that will come,—perhaps it will succeed this very night. To the highest point of the mountain, in this cup of ice that it lifts to the very lips of Aurora! I have stripped and rushed into it. It is so full that, when I enter, the water overflows like a cataract. I dance in the ebullition of the source like a grape-seed in a glass of champagne. I cannot distinguish this gushing basin in which I splash from the whirlpool of air separated from me by a narrow brink. Far below me circles the clamorous eagle. Beautiful Aurora, like a shaft thou art sped here from the sea below among the islands! Drink! that I may feel the quivering of thy insatiate lip as deep as the submerged plants to which I sink. Let the sun rise! that I may see the light shadow of my suspended body painted beneath me on the sand of this basin ringed with the seven-colored rainbow.
THE DAY OF THE FEAST OF ALL
THE RIVERS
On this day of the feast of all the rivers we are going to salute our own, which is wide and rapid. It is the outlet of the country, it is the force enclosed in her sides, it is the liquefaction of the substance of the earth, it is the outpouring of the water hidden in the most secret of her folds, of milk under the impulsion of the ocean which suckles her. Here, under the good old granite bridge; between the boats from the mountain which bring us minerals and sugar, and, on the other side, the many-colored junks of the sea, which from their anchorage direct toward the impassive piles their great patient eyes, like those of beasts of burden; the river pours out through sixty arches. What an uproar, what a white foam it makes, when Aurora sounds her trumpet,—when the Evening recedes, to the beating of drums. Here are no piers like those dreary egresses of the Occident. On a level with the river, in a domestic familiarity, each one comes to wash linen, to draw the water for supper. And, in the Springtime, in the turbulence of his joy, this dragon with undulant coils invades our streets and our houses. He effaces with one lick of his tongue the accumulated filth of the village.
But today is the feast of the river. We celebrate carnival with it, in the rolling tumult of yellow waters. If you cannot pass the day in a backwater, sunk to the eyes like a buffalo in the shade of your boat, at least do not neglect to offer to the sun of noon pure water in a bowl of white porcelain. For the coming year it will be a certain remedy against colic. And this is not the time to be avaricious. One may unseal the heaviest jug, drink from a golden bowl or earthenware vessel, one may drink from the very neck of the bottle the tea of the Fourth Month! Let every one, on this afternoon of flood-tide and full sunlight, come to feel, to stroke, to clasp, to ride this great municipal water-beast, which flees with endless coils toward the sea.
Moving throughout its length, trembling from bank to bank with sampans and with boats; where the guests, clothed in silk like vivid bouquets, drink and enjoy themselves; all is light and the sound of drums. From here, from there, from everywhere, pirogues with dragons’ heads appear and defile, propelled by the arms of an hundred naked paddlers, who move to the delirious rhythm of this large yellow man in the midst, as with both hands he beats out a demoniac march. How close together they seem,—in one wave, the very spirit of the current! How active this crowd of bodies, plunged to the waist! On the bank where I embark a woman is washing her linen. The bowl of vermilion lacquer into which piles the clothing has a border of gold that shines and glows in the sun of this festival. Brute glance of reflected brightness; symbolic eye of this day of the honorable River!