Orpheus and Morgan

Abstract

I picture him again, hunched over in the parallelepiped of a leather armchair. Next to an Anduze vase, in full sunlight before the mas, he sends his letters. A black felt hat, carefully tilted, lets only the tip of a long nose and an almost military toothbrush moustache appear, but, below, the swollen lip of a sensual child and connecting slightly doll-like cheeks is the chin that made Rickie so sad. On the edge of his knee, the pen makes the words run, tiny mice. From time to time the felt hat straightens and squinting eyes look at the hill, the clump of pines near the well, a cluster of irises, two butterflies worthy of leniency. The left hand strums the air — a pianist’s hand articulated on a frail wrist. Morgan sings: Dâa-ddi-Dâa-didâ. Suddenly he puts his letters on the ground and gets up. At that moment one becomes aware that he is wearing a raincoat on top of pyjamas whose pants are a little short. He goes into the sun and one is astonished by the nape of a young man’s neck. At fifty, his back suggests a fifteen year old’s. Having hailed with surprise, an Avignon for miniature popes over there in the distance and, nearby, a procession of caterpillars in single file, he comes back, picks up his mother’s daily postcard, reads it from a little distance, at the edge of elegant fingertips, suddenly giggles and stamps: ‘Silly, silly!’ Becoming thoughtful again, he opens large, tender eyes, goes in and sits down at the piano.

‘Quelques traits de E. M. Forster’, Le Figaro littéraire, 10 January 1959, p. 4. Translation by J. H. Stape.