Somethiing New

We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.      

THE INTERVIEW ROSE by Elizabeth Smither (Auckland University Press, $NZ 24.99); BLUE IS A CRACKED VASE IN MEMORY: POEMS 2000 – 2025 by Riemke Ensing (Cold Hub Press, $NZ33:00); THE GUM TREES OF KERIKERI by Lynn Jenner (Otago University Press, $NZ30); PEACE & QUIET by Dinah Hawken (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $NZ25)

            It is an interesting fact that both Elizabeth Smither and Riemke Ensing, well known poets, are both now in their 80’s. But while their interests are very different,  they are both still producing some of the best poems New Zealand has. I start with Elizabeth Smither.

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To call Elizabeth Smither erudite would be an understatement. As well as writing six novels and six collections of short-stories, she has produced 19 collections of poetry. The Interview Rose is her 20^th collection. Reading widely, Smither’s knowledge of literature is connected to the fact that she has worked as a part-time librarian. The title poem of this collection The Interview Rose has her facing “The week of interviews, twenty minutes each / to face a panel for my disappearing job…” But she is buoyed by the bright rose-coloured hat she is wearing. Next to this poem, there is The Interview Confession, concerning the problems of having to deal with “a difficult borrower” complaining about a book. Six of her poems deal with women in novels by Jane Austen, not always seeing them as honourable people. And then, as often, there comes her interest in Catholicism. Thus there are such poems as The Travelling Reliquary of St. Teresa of Avila , A Room of Madonnas, The Angel of Death, and In the Sacred Heart College Library (where girls are praying). But if this intimidates you, Smither does not at all preach. She is interested in the aesthetic side of religious ceremonies, the colour, the style.

More important than all this, Smither’s poetry is compassionate. There is no anger. There is no asking us to join a cause. Instead there is an acute way of telling us about how important everyday things are. Take the poem De-Stringing Beans, a poem about the homely thing of taking pleasure in stringing and slicing runner beans. Is this a small thing? But surely every-day things can be an achievement.  And in the last poem of these 49 poems, there is Mark Doty: a footnote, about a well-known poet who showed that he could take as much pleasure in football as in poetry. Nothing snobbery there.

Compassion goes to animals and nature itself. Her opening poems in this collection has her considering a frog that is struggling, the death of a fish on the beach, and cows listening to music… and later daisies bearing up in the rain. But all is not tragedy. Elizabeth Smither is obviously an ailurophile as many poets have been [check your Baudelaire, T.S.Eliot etc.]. Thus we have her The Cat and the Wittgenstein Quotes, wherein we are given both an amusing tale and some hardy philosophy. Thus when the cat has “an hour in the sun and then a leap leaving /  some words scrunched. Where of one / cannot speak, there of one must be silent. / Such simplicity to a cat who will not leap / onto a chair and then the carpet until / something better offers…” Ah! the fickleness of cats. And right next to it there is the poem 100 Brushes of a Cat, showing how wonderful and luxuriant the coating of a well-kept cat is. Be it noted too that the poem Degas and the Dancers shows Smither’s interest in movement itself.

But after I have noticed all these fine poems, there is one that stands out for me. This is Love at the Gare de Nord. I mentioned the thread of compassion that runs through Smither’s work, but this poem caps them. The poet sees a messy couple, dirty and shunned, sitting on the steps, annoying… but when she sees them embrace and kiss, she understands  that they have the right to love and live too. Sentimental? Not at all. Read the poem and you will see what I mean.   

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            Riemke Ensing’s collection called Blue is a Cracked Vase in the Memory / Poems 2000 – 2025 is made up of four parts. The first three, called Storm Warning, O Lucky Man and If Only, were published in limited editions by a craft publisher and hence were not widely seen. They make up almost half of  Poems 2000 – 2025. However the fourth part Blue is a Cracked Vase in the Memory takes up more than half of the collection, so we now have all Ensing’s more recent work.

Over the years, whenever I read the poetry of Riemke Ensing, I immediately have in my mind an image of her as a woman walking along a beach – any long beach in New Zealand, like Muriwai – and looking out to sea, enjoying the view but also seeing a sort of magic and reading much in the sea and the sky. Perhaps she is thinking about how far she is from the Netherlands whence she came when she was a girl. There is, in some of her poems, a thread of loss. But note there is also, in the very first poem in this collection, a sense that there is a greater force than nature to guide us. Says her poem Muriwai “Wind brushed / water washed / the sand / grained with signatures of gulls / temporary as moments / flicking their feet into the sky / waiting for gusts/…../ spirits wail and leave in the sand / a watermark. At the water’s edge / gods breath the lifted wave into song.” Naturally, as one who is interested in nature, she also writes about places other than beaches, as in her Waitakere River Valley, or in her poem Lament looking at Lake Kawaupaku. In full it reads “Hills hunker down and slide / into the belly of lake cradling sites / ancient as wings finding no resting / place in the remembered past. / Silver slips into clouds / shivering through water, / stroking out landscapes / buried in sorrow and loss.” And she is also enchanted by trees.  Her Fourteen Ways of Looking at Pohutukawa is following Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

By the way, it is fair to say that some of her shorter poems are as crisp and short as haiku, but they are not haiku. Much later, for example, there is After Loss which reads in full “Storm windows / are put up / for winter. / The light / mourns / then finds itself / in the moon / touching / the lamp.” Or later there is Top of the Morning reading in full “A dress of bright flowers / almost flies across the street. / An instantly uplifting poem / quickly disappearing into the bustle of day. / Carpe diem.”

But what of sorrow and loss? She has two poems sitting side-by side called War- Childhood and War-Biography which apparently could have to do with her childhood in the Netherlands… or any other child who had to go through a war. In a different sort of sorrow there is Pretending to be in Paris without You.  And much better there is Birds, rain & plum, which opens with the stanza “ It is winter. Rain insinuates itself / in the damp corners of the house, / tries to get in covers of books / standing a little listless in the depressed grey / the sky has cast into the room” But the real sorrow comes in the next line which is  “It is many years since your death….”

 

Ensing does not usually deal with protesting, but she does record one example of miscarriage of justice, in “Out of Dark” where she recalls the incarceration of Ahmed Zaoui; and in “A Piece of Glass” she joins the protesters against the building of yet another jail.

 Having noted all that, two of Ensing’s greatest interests are painters and other poets. Very carefully, she writes poems about poets, from Baxter to Charles Brasch to Hone Tuwhare to many, many others; and from Tony Fomison and Don Binney and many, many other painters.

In writing all this, I have dealt with only a small part of Riemke Ensing’s Blue is a Cracked Vase in the Memory / Poems 2000 – 2025. I have read every poem, but if I were to examine in detail every poem, I would be filling many more pages.

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            Lynn Jenner lives in the Far North of New Zealand, now an old woman,  and she opens her 56 prose poems with these words: “The land I live on was a kauri forest for centuries; then in the late nineteenth century it was a kauri gumfield, then a mandarin orchard; part of a dairy farm in the 1950s, a tamarillo orchard in the 1970s, and a lavender farm in the 1980s: now it is a home for four people, lots of ornamental trees, a vegetable garden, two old plum trees, travellers from New Zealand and other countries….”  Immediately she is reminding us that land changes and people use and re-use the earth in many ways. She is in no way chastising our ancestors for doing so. At the same time, she is very concerned about nature. In another poem she writes of a farmer who has moved to planting trees. He no longer herds sheep because wool now does not make a profit. In another poem she identifies with the trees where she writes  “In spring the poplar trees in the Ness Road have soft new leaves; I stop walking and listen to them gossiping.” Surely every sensitive reader would respond in the same way. In yet another poem she sees leaves as fabric, thus: “Walking up through the Hongi Hika reserve from Kororipo Pa is peaceful and cool. Red and yellow gum leaves cover the path and I picture them as a fabric…”

            But while her interest in nature is important, she has many other interests as well. In various poems… She takes part in a “Free Palestine” protest. When in a line where the police are doing their breath-tester, she wonders about that blood-red tattoo which one of the police has. She meditates over her great-grandfather who came to New Zealand from Poland in the 19^th century, and as a result his legacy was about 420 descendants. She is clear in her feminism and she pleasures as women do, saying “Standing on the grass in my tee-shirt, I am part of a long chain of women drawn to the moon. I bathe in the cools silver light, my skin pleasure and my night wonder.” Twice she writes poems about paintings by Colin McCahon, in each time given her of interpretations  of his work. In this, one understands that she is an atheist, but she still has her beliefs. And she speaks of climate change when “ People talk about the degradation of the earth, but mostly they do not spell what they see coming so as not to scare the rest of us..” She hopes for peace, and looking at doves she says “And now, with the sun on my face, I think these six doves on the lawn in Kerikeri might be an omen of peace somewhere peace is needed. Sun and doves against monsters and tanks.” One always hopes. The Gum Trees of Kerikeri is a thoughtful collection, touching on many interests.

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Peace & Quiet readily shows us that Dinah Hawken can produce very persuasive images, showing us the glory of sea and general nature while at the same time warning us that evil might come our way. Take for example one of best poems “Trembling” which reads in full “A spring morning and you can see the wind / has no bravado. Over the island / a winged cloud moves towards you / out of a truly sweet blue. / Surrounded by gentleness, the swoop of a tui, / the repressed threat of a warming world. / From the sidelines a leafiness arises / and it trembles. It’s like standing / under the outdoor shower / with the sound of a piano paying upon / your stiff, wingless body.” Notice how we move from “truly sweet blue” to “the repressed threat of a warming world”.

Peace & Quiet is divided into three sections.

Brief Scenes comes first. It presents us with an island [perhaps meaning us] is being overwhelmed  by the tide and the ocean, though it is still majestic. The poem The assessment asks “What if there is nothing wrong? / What if there is nothing wrong with you? / What if there is nothing wrong with me: /  I’m not even too quiet, / too old, too forgetful? / Just old, quiet and forgetful.” Is there a sense of desperation here? Yet there are some things that are positive. The poem Each side says “Care for the children, he said, / care for them with both hands, / one each side of each small head, / their trusting and trustworthy eyes / looking up at you.” Perhaps humanity will continue as suggested. But there is hanging a sense of menace. What is it?

Next comes Speaking of Peace. Dinah Hawken is a pacifist and she writes in detail of a possible war. Part of the poem Solar says “Dark clouds wipe out / the highest peak of the island. / The wings of tyranny and downpour / hover over the global landscape…” Who could she possibly be thinking about?  She quotes from Mozi (c. 470 – 391 BC) who said “To kill one man is to be guilty of a capital crime, to kill ten men is to increase the guilt ten-fold,…  The rulers of the earth all recognise and yet when it comes to the greatest crime – waging war on another state – they praise it.” So in many poems she refers to Te Whiti and Parihaka  and she quotes Simone Weil and Siegfried Sassoon and Archibald Baxter and Gandhi and Rebecca Solnit and other worthies who opposed war.

Finally comes Brief Scenes where the poem October morning tells us “We are a slip of a country in a vast ocean. / The laws of war were a safeguard. / A lighthouse and its light.” How fragile we really are when it comes not only to the polluting of the sea, but also to the fact that New Zealand is a small country and one that cannot really save itself from the aggreson of other greaer nations.

In her final (and longest) poem she says “… there is singing / birds and breeze and laughter: and / even though we have weapons / of mass destruction    even though / we are filling the oceans with poisons and plastic / even though out long-held agreements are breaking up like sae ice / two hands play the cello    and / can you believe it        all is well:       / still we welcome / each newborn child into this rare world…”

            There is much idealism in these poems and much to be admired.    

Something Old

   Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published year or two ago. 

“SOUS LE SOLEIL DE SATAN” by GEORGES BERNANOS (first published 1926). English version first published in 1940 as “STAR OF SATAN”, translated by Pamela Morris.

 

            There is a strong possibility that English-speaking readers have not come across the works of Georges Bernanos, so please forgive me if I give you a basic idea of who he was… and I’m partly writing this because I am determined to read all his novels and I will be reviewing them all on this blog. So watch out for the next four months.

Georges Bernanos (born 1888 – died 1948) was a devout Catholic. As a young man he fought in both Verdun and the Somme in the First World War. He was appalled by the carnage and like many others he knew the evil of war. He was a Royalist, meaning he was one of those extreme conservatives who wanted to restore the King and abolish the French Republic. In the 1920s he joined Charles Maurras’s Action Francaise, but he left it as soon as Pope XI criticised Action Francaise severely for being too extreme, too involved with politics, and ignoring charity. During the Spanish Civil War, Bernanos at first thought Franco was right in staging his coup and uprising. But Bernanos changed his views radically, especially when one of his sons – who was in Majorca – had seen members of the Falange shooting unarmed civilians. Bernanos looked deeply into the matter, read as much as he could, and concluded that Franco was allowing barbarism to take over. So in 1938 he produced a non-fiction book called Les Grands Cimetieres Sous La Lune [meaning something like Thousands are Buried in Cemeteries Under the Moon]. Only later was it published in English under the name A Diary of My Times. He was strictly opposed to both Fascism and  Naziism as well as Communism. Later he was to write essays on the necessity of both freedom and  democracy. But of course he was always a devout Catholic. In the late 1930’s, he was so concerned with the rise of Nazism, that he moved from France to Brazil with his whole family – wife, three daughters and three sons - and he lived there until returning to France in 1946 where he lived until he died in 1948. Two of his sons fought in the Second World War. By then, his novels were regarded by many in France as classics. And so to his first novel…. Sous le Soleil de Satan (Star of Satan… which has also been translated as Under the Sun of Satan). 

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            The novel is divided into three parts, quite distinct in tones.  The first is called The Story of Mouchette.  It is set in the mid-19^th century in Artois, and in a small town. Germaine Malorthy is 16 years old. She seems to be a loner, or at least her parents have not seen her being with other young people. “ Sometimes Madame Malorthy deplored the fact that their daughter had no friends, and seldom went outside the small garden with its dreary, clipped yews.” [Pg. 21] Her father, a brewer, is often an angry man. He discovers that Germaine is pregnant. She refuses to say who had impregnated her but her father guesses it was the wealthy, and raffish, Marquis le Cadignan, and he is right. So he confronts the Marquis saying that he should marry her. The Marquis admits that he had slept with her but it was common knowledge that she had had other bedfellows. The Marquis says he will pay him and surely it would be best for the girl to marry a boy nearer her age – and besides, the Marquis is of a higher class. It was the Marquis who had given Germaine the frivolous nick-name Mouchette. Raging, the father goes home and tells Germaine to stay in her room, for she really is Mouchette, looking for excitement and sex.

            But in the night Mouchette runs away, in her night clothes, and she too confronts the Marquis. They have a very long conversation. She does not ask him for pity and does not beg him to marry her, but she – a wild adolescent - does suggest he should give her enough money to go to Paris and set herself up there. With all manner of suave reasoning, the sophisticated Marquis fends her off, but she is remarkably loquacious. And she has at least a spark of honour and self-respect. There is a long tussle between the two. Finally she picks up one of the Marquis’s firearms and shoots him dead. So she is now a murderer. The narrator [Georges Bernanos] remarks “ He who fancies he can follow the capricious trail of passion – passion mightier and more elusive than lightning – and prides himself on his acute observation, often knows nothing of humankind beyond his own solitary contortions in a mirror.” [ Pg. 39] 

The night is still dark [where all angry ideas bubble up] and the light of the small town’s only doctor is still shining. Dr. Gallet is a sort of charlatan, claims to know more than he does. She wants his help. Where should she go? Who can help her? He is not much help. At one point the matter of abortion [not that that word is used; and besides, then abortion was both difficult and illegal] but it is not possible. The doctor begins to talk about psychology and asks about her moods and feelings. Mouchette says “ Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, all alone in my room, with that fat old fool snoring away a few yards off, and I get out of bed. Everybody condemns me, and I can’t say why, and I don’t care. I get up and listen, and feel strong and slim , and my breasts just fit into the palms of my hands. I go to the open window as if somebody was calling me from outside, I’m waiting and ready. And there isn’t just one there isn’t just one voice calling, you know. There are hundreds, thousands. Men are just babies, really, full of wickedness, but they are only babbies. You see, I feel the thing calling me – only I don’t know where it is  - but somewhere, in the rustling night, there’s another, there’s always another calling me… another enjoying me and feeding his vanity – man or beast. You think I’m mad! I am mad! Is it a man or a beast holding me, holding me tight, you horrible darling?”

After the doctor tells her she has a form of insanity “Terrific rage was beating in her breast, but she stifled it. The flames of her thwarted pride were consuming all that was left in her of wild and pitiless adolescence. In that instant she became aware of the indomitable hearts and cold calculating intelligence of a woman, the tragic counterpart of the child she had once been” [Pg.74] The doctor was able to speak with others, made it clear that Mouchette had committed murder, and because she was both a minor and unbalanced she was sent to a “nursing home”… and “A month later she came out completely cured, after  the premature birth of a stillborn child.” [Pg.79]

And that may seem a complete novel… but it’s nothing of the sort and only one third of the novel. The second part is called The Temptation of Despair and we are in a completely different environment. Two aging priests, Father Demange  and Father Menou-Segrais are discussing the problem about a young, fragile and naïve priest Father Donissan. He is just out of the seminary and he is not ready to deal with a small congregation, mainly simple people in a rural eria – in other words peasants. He is to be the Cure of Lumbres. Later, speaking to his superior Father Menou-Segrais, Father Donissan says that he is not cut out for “parochial work” declaring “it is beyond me altogether. My superior thought so, and so do you, I know. In a place like this I would do more harm than good. The lowest peasant in the parish would be ashamed of a priest like me, without experience or knowledge or dignity. However hard I try, how can I hope to make up for it?” [Pg. 97] Father Donissan mortifies himself [punishes himself]. He regularly whips himself, leaving blood all over his back. Father Menou-Segrais is appalled when he learns this, saying it is a barbarous thing to do. Father Donissan is humbled, saying he is not worthy of helping and careing people, but Father Menou-Segrais  says that he has real and worthy work ahead of him, God’s work. So Father Donissan becomes a hard working priest, doing his rounds in a spread-out area, visiting his mainly peasant congregation. Some of what should be his congregation are sceptical, but even they listen to him with respect. He comes to enjoy his work, even if it means trudging long distances. Yet there is an element of pride in his work. Is his pride a sort of sin?  The narrator [Bernanos] notes “Father Donissan  let fall by chance, many years later, which shows a strange light on this obscure period of his life. ‘When I was young’ he admitted, ‘ I did not know evil. I only learned to know it from sinners themselves.” [ Pg.114] At the same time he sees himself as a sinner, enjoying his work. And he thought “This causeless joy can only be illusory. Such a secret hope, suddenly born, in the deepest, most intimate part of his being – an indefinite joy without an object – it is all too like the presumption of pride. No! The stirrings or grace have none of this sensual attraction. This joy must be plucked out by the roots.”  [Pg. 123]. And he falls back to chastising himself. “ His mind , numbed as it were by the intensity of physical pains, had only one vague thought – to reach and destroy the very principle of evil in his own intolerable flesh.”  [Pg. 125]

The great crisis comes when he takes a very long walk, many miles, and then he realises that he will have to walk all the way back and he might be late when he should be saying Mass. He gets lost in the forest and the night is dark. Which road should he take? Suddenly an obliging horse-dealer joins him and tells him which is the right road. At first the  horse-dealer speaks with him in an amicable way, suggesting that he can find him bed and warmth in the dark night. But then the horse-dealer begins to ridicule both the Church and God… and the priest realises that the horse-dealer is in fact Satan…. And, dear reader, at this point you are probably thinking that this is a foolish fable. But there is a twist in it. For in one moment Satan presents himself as the Priest … and then he vanishes. Father Donissan realises that there is evil within us.

[And here I break off my synopsis to give an opinion. Bernanos is making it clear that in all of us there is the potential to do evil. This does not mean that we are all cursed and horrible sinners, but it does mean that we are all capable of hurting others, doing negative things, deluding ourselves about what we have done and frankly anything that can be called evil, from murder, rape, torture and genocide; to lying and cheating and things that might seem trivial but belittle other people. We are all the same species. I add that the works of William Golding [nearly all Golding’s novels I have reviewed on this blog] are essentially saying the same thing. We are all flawed – or what Christians would call Original Sin. But I digress… so back to the novel.]

As he continues his journey he meets a quarryman coming home from his work. An ordinary man, not pretentious, obviously one who does hard work. He talks with the priest, talks about his family, and guides the priest to the right road. Father Donissan thanks him and thinks for a moment that he has seen a miracle – the goodness of the ordinary man. But his journey is far from over… for at last he meets Germaine Malorthy, that is Mouchette. She is no longer an adolescent but a woman who has been worn out by her own hedonism and no longer has any purpose in life . Remember, the second part of this novel is called  The Temptation of Despair.  Father Donissan has gone through moments of despair but has come through them. Mouchette sees the priest and at once says “I hate you” and the priest  replies “Don’t be ashamed”. But she is always angry about her life, curses him in many ways,  and she says “You’d better pray that you may never have to travel the road I’ve been.” [ Pg. 188]. Mouchette has gone through sanitoriums and has faced doctors who want to analyse her, but she holds her bitter pride. So she passes the priest. She goes back to her parents home. And there she tries to commit suicide by slashing her throat. Complete despair. In a very long conversation, Father Menou-Segrais tries to understand the events that Father Donissan has gone through – his time of despair, his meeting Satan, being shown by the quarryman that there is good in the world, and the despair and pride that sent Mouchette to suicide. When Father Donissan hears of Mouchette’s attempted suicide he at once makes sure that her dying body be taken to the church, where she dies. Had he “saved” her? Maybe not. It is ambiguous. But of course in those days it was common to put those who had committed suicide in an obscure, distant part of a graveyard, ostracized. Mouchette was at least buried ceremoniously; and Father Donissan prays for her. The priest is ordered to enter a monastery for a while to pray and think things over. Five years later, now no longer filled with pride, he becomes the priest in charge of Lumbres.

So to Book Three The Saint of Lumbres. Over many years and up to old age, he has heard thousands of confessions. He knows what evil is. He knows what good is. He knows he is dealing with a mainly peasant congregation, not people who need complex theology. He has heard many voices in his confessional. The congregation regard him as a saint, but he does not see himself that way. Of the priest the narrator says “He knew what man is in reality; a big child full of boredom and violence. Was there anything new the old priest could learn? He who had lived a thousand lives – lives all alike. Nothing would surprise him again. He could die. There were brand new systems of morality, but sin can never be new!” [Pg.235] No. This does not mean despair. It means, once again, that we homo-sapiens-sapiens are flawed… and tragedy is inevitable. With another priest he has a long, complex conversation about the nature of God [very difficult for me to follow]. Sometimes his peasant congregation think he can perform miracles. He knows he cannot do that. Towards the end of his life, a distraught  woman has a very sick boy and sends for the old priest, expecting him to cure the boy with his touch. By the time the priest arrives, the boy is dead. The mother wants him to perform a miracle.  The priest soothe her a little saying “God will only yield to love.”

Father Donissan lives a very, very frugal life as an old man. A sceptic doctor describes the priest as “Hardly enough to eat, no exercise, a mildewed presbytery, a damp church, no light or air in the confessional, the sort of hygiene that was usual in the thirteenth century… apart from angina pectoris, it needs no more than that to finish off an already overworked constitution.”  [Pg. 293] Yet the priest keeps working, and when he is not praying, visiting his flock and hearing confessions, he is meditating in the church. Comes the day when an intellectual atheist comes to see why so many people worship the old man. [Bernanos creates the visitor as somebody like sceptical Emile Zola – an enemy of the Church.] Yet when the visitor enters the church he understands how soothing the quietness is. He also has time to think about the things he has done in his life, and all the wrong things he has done. Somehow it seems good for him, as if he has a sort of interest in evil and good. But he remains an atheist.  He wonders where the priest is. He goes over to the confessional, and discovers that the priest is sitting there, dead. And here the novel ends.

There is much, much more in this novel. As always, I have simplified. There is more of theology that I have not explained.

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Some Notes. (1) In France in 1987 a film of Sous le Soleil de Satan was made. It was directed by Maurice Pialat. Pialat was an atheist. He was asked why he chose to make a film which was so Catholic. He replied “I don’t believe in God but I do believe in Georges Bernanos”. I have not seen the film. It won many prizes in France… but I had misgivings when I saw photos which showed that the timid saintly priest was played by beefy Gerard Depardieu. Bad casting I think… but then I haven’t seen the film.

(2) The title Sous le Soleil de Satan can be interpreted in many ways. Under the Sun  of Satan is one title, and the most correct. Star of Satan is misleading. Of course the Sun is a star looking down on us, but let us remember that, according to the fable, Satan was the bright angel who rebelled against God. Bernanos pits the Goodness of the Sun against the Evil of Satan. Good and Evil are both temptations in us.

(3) Many people have suggested that the saintly priest Father Donissan was based on the life of Jean Vianney.

Something Thoughtful

  

                                             FROM PARADISE TO PAIN

            As some of the readers of this blog probably know, I sometimes guide visitors around the open bird sanctuary Tiritiri Matangi. The week before last I guided. The day was fine, the sea was calm as the ferry took me from Auckland to Gulf Harbour and then across to the island.      How beautiful the day was. Sometimes I have guided, around the island, groups of school children accompanied by teachers and/or parents. Sometimes I have guided people from other countries with foreign languages but at least we could communicate. And sometimes I have guided ordinary Kiwi and Aussie blokes and sheilas. But on this blessed day I was directed to guide only two people. They were newlyweds – a young Aussie and his Sri Lankan bride. They were, in our two-hour walk, excellent company. They were really interested in the trees and the birds and the history of the island and (oh mercy!) they even laughed at my corny jokes. They were such happy people that I asked their permission to take a photo of them and they obliged. As I left them and they had their lunch, I happily whistled as I walked back to the wharf where we wait to board. What a happy day. Perfect. As the ferry took me back to Auckland, I bought a Peroni, happily drank it, and looked forward to a happy evening. This was paradise.

            Alas, along came pain. I had to catch two buses to get back home. I caught one bus. No problem. But I had to run when I tried to catch the second bus – and running was a big mistake. I tripped over and fell straight onto the hard concrete. Bang! My left knee was grazed. My left eye just missed being damaged, but I was bruised near my left eye.  My glasses almost broke apart. One lens popped out. Two men, waiting for another bus, helped me to get up as I scrabble to get my broken glasses. I thanked them, put the glasses in my deep pocket and just made the bus. But all the way home I was holding my handkerchief against the bleeding near my left eye. The handkerchief became redder and redder. I groaned a little and walked home slowly. Here’s the pain after the paradise. I don’t imagine this unpleasant episode was a great disaster. The bruises became darker near the left eye and the knee was still stinging for a while. But after a few days there was no pain at all. When I look in the mirror now I see a mildly grumpy face annoyed that the bruises are taking some time to clear up, but no real damage. Within a few days my glasses were fixed for a small price. People have suffered much, much more pain than I have ever known.

            But I still can’t help thinking that some devil had deliberately sabotaged my perfect day.