What is the point of creating life outside of life? Fauns, you have had your day: the poet now wants to talk to the tree.

In order to do certain crazy things, it is necessary to behave like a coachman who has let go of the reins and fallen asleep.

How many people, after deciding to commit suicide, have been satisfied with tearing up their photograph!

1889

I can’t get around this dilemma: I have a horror of troubles, but they whip me up, they make me talented. Peace and well-being, on the contrary, paralyze me. Either be a nobody, or everlastingly plagued.

JR’s son, Jean-François, is born in Chitry. In November JR and nine others collaborate in founding the literary review, Mercure de France, originally named La Pléiade, the first issue of which appears December 25. Many of JR’s short stories are to be published in this review.

JANUARY—Chitry

One thing has always astounded me: the universal admiration of the élite of the world of letters for Heinrich Heine. I must admit I can make nothing of this German who—a big mistake—tried to pose for French. His “Intermezzo” seems to me the work of a beginner attempting to do something poetic.

What must the life of a justice of the peace be like among the peasants, who pull him in all directions with their inexhaustible pigheadedness! They catch him even on the street. But the surest way, it seems, of getting at the truth with one of them is to say: “Will you take an oath on it?” This frightens the man. Awed, he hesitates. For all his slyness, he feels put off. He has a mind to lie, but would like to do it some other way. A Christ on the cross impresses him more than any amount of reasoning.

Once he has come home at night, the peasant possesses hardly more movement than a sloth. He is addicted to darkness, not only out of thrift, but out of preference. It rests his eyes, burnt by the sun. In the center of a circle of shadow, the stove roars through its little door, open like a red mouth.

A peasant must be twice sure of a fact before he will bet on it.

The mother has felt the first pains. The doctor is never called. One seldom has recourse to a midwife. Most often, a village woman presides at the lying-in. She knows herbs, and how to bind up a belly. While she performs, the others watch. It is an occasion for getting together. In order not to disturb the patient, they leave their wooden shoes near the door. Everything goes off well. The mother makes hardly more fuss than a cow.

The cradle must not be bought beforehand: in the first place, it is unlucky. And then, if there is a mishap, what will you do with it? Only the bassinet part comes from the basket-maker. The rockers come from the carpenter. They are made out of pine and properly trued, and he suggests that a strip of leather be attached underneath to muffle the sound. The wicker is painted to keep out the bedbugs. There is discussion over the color. The choice falls upon an “Easter-egg red,” easily obtained from onions.

Once the child is born, it is entirely swaddled up, even to the arms, which are bound down.