The ground is white. Trees are white. About two years ago, on our long ride from Milan, we stayed at the Pericord Monastery; snow was falling. Outside my one-eyed cell lay a deep drift. A path led nowhere through the snow.
While at Pericord, most of us ate in the refectory or the kitchen. Were there thirty monks at the monastery? All of them were dirty and resentful. This hermitage wanted no outsiders. Although we paid, we were gross intruders. This order had the Biblical fish engraved on its coat-of-arms but these men no longer remembered what that symbol meant.
Bread, cheese, dried fruit, sunflower seeds, eggs, wine, herbal tea—they offered us these and we tried to express our thanks.
Each enormous deal table had IHS chiseled in its center. IHS...smoke from cheap table candles mixed with kitchen smoke as we ate with shutters closed against the snow and cold.
Painted black, a large wooden cross leaned against a corner of the refectory.
Fealty far from any hamlet—what is this monastic fealty?
As I stayed there, recovering, troubled, I compared those thirty faces with the faces of the disciples in my Last Supper: I understand more about human nature now than I did twenty years ago. So did the artist who had painted a primitive fresco of demons in the Pericord Library. His demons are Borgian nightmares.
We have more snow this winter than in many winters, I am told. The Loire has frail ice edges and some of that ice traps leaves and twigs and resembles tortured stained glass. I like to walk alone, along the river—snow tracking: fox, rabbit, deer, raccoon, and boar.
Snow crystals in my hand, on my glove, I analyze their geometry.
In the comfort of my studio I sketch from memory: I am able to reproduce plants, birds, people, machines. Years ago I lost an important sketchbook and was able to reproduce more than fifty drawings. Any capable artist should be able to do this.