WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.710 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.710 --> 00:00:05.210 align:middle line:84% Anyway, I want to read you a couple more of these poems. 00:00:05.210 --> 00:00:08.990 align:middle line:84% That one that I read, which is the first one 00:00:08.990 --> 00:00:14.210 align:middle line:84% in the middle book of these three, 00:00:14.210 --> 00:00:17.720 align:middle line:90% that was called "An Apparatus." 00:00:17.720 --> 00:00:21.380 align:middle line:84% And the next one I'm going to read 00:00:21.380 --> 00:00:26.390 align:middle line:84% is called "Excuse for Festivities." 00:00:26.390 --> 00:00:32.360 align:middle line:84% Alcove to alcove, to enjoy a variety of prospects. 00:00:32.360 --> 00:00:36.740 align:middle line:84% A looming stimulus and a visual cliff. 00:00:36.740 --> 00:00:38.150 align:middle line:90% Attack and exploration. 00:00:38.150 --> 00:00:41.270 align:middle line:84% Ill health and fatigue play a part. 00:00:41.270 --> 00:00:44.950 align:middle line:90% Speed irrelevant. 00:00:44.950 --> 00:00:48.450 align:middle line:90% Apocryphal stories cluster. 00:00:48.450 --> 00:00:52.140 align:middle line:84% Modesty above personal enjoyment. 00:00:52.140 --> 00:00:55.020 align:middle line:84% Responses include, on the one hand, 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:59.610 align:middle line:84% crouching, curling up, taking cover, and on the other, 00:00:59.610 --> 00:01:03.620 align:middle line:90% calling out, escaping. 00:01:03.620 --> 00:01:09.440 align:middle line:84% First there is weariness, then other causes of forgetting. 00:01:09.440 --> 00:01:15.730 align:middle line:84% Then still others, and then there is weariness. 00:01:15.730 --> 00:01:23.220 align:middle line:84% Fur elicits fear, or a pair of staring eyes or something 00:01:23.220 --> 00:01:25.200 align:middle line:90% falling from the sky. 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:30.210 align:middle line:84% Instant flight or sometimes, catalepsy. 00:01:30.210 --> 00:01:35.850 align:middle line:84% In hot haste, beating the charger with a furled umbrella 00:01:35.850 --> 00:01:37.830 align:middle line:90% picked up by mistake. 00:01:37.830 --> 00:01:41.850 align:middle line:84% A quite unnecessary withdrawal that evening. 00:01:41.850 --> 00:01:43.500 align:middle line:90% I detest drama. 00:01:43.500 --> 00:01:46.780 align:middle line:90% 00:01:46.780 --> 00:01:51.760 align:middle line:84% Met by a sudden movement or mysterious sound, few of us 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:54.470 align:middle line:90% learn. 00:01:54.470 --> 00:02:00.710 align:middle line:84% Down a dark passage, patting a dog, or psychoanalyst, 00:02:00.710 --> 00:02:05.165 align:middle line:84% comfort me with toy, charm, talisman. 00:02:05.165 --> 00:02:07.780 align:middle line:90% 00:02:07.780 --> 00:02:10.570 align:middle line:90% Now I remember a party. 00:02:10.570 --> 00:02:14.320 align:middle line:84% Year passed into year, I betook myself 00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:17.140 align:middle line:84% to a belvedere overlooking a garden. 00:02:17.140 --> 00:02:22.300 align:middle line:84% Covering my face with my hands, I can never recall that day. 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:25.420 align:middle line:90% 00:02:25.420 --> 00:02:31.340 align:middle line:84% One clue, universally known, is pain. 00:02:31.340 --> 00:02:37.190 align:middle line:84% Danger has already materialized, experimental, 00:02:37.190 --> 00:02:40.180 align:middle line:90% hard to extinguish. 00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:44.590 align:middle line:84% Safety may lie in one special place or anywhere 00:02:44.590 --> 00:02:47.390 align:middle line:90% in the tops of trees. 00:02:47.390 --> 00:02:50.420 align:middle line:90% The calming effect of contact. 00:02:50.420 --> 00:02:56.000 align:middle line:84% A response learnt as the result of a single violent experience 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:59.440 align:middle line:90% does not die easily. 00:02:59.440 --> 00:03:05.210 align:middle line:84% Common sense doesn't cover everything in my youth. 00:03:05.210 --> 00:03:06.020 align:middle line:90% I was afraid. 00:03:06.020 --> 00:03:09.490 align:middle line:90% 00:03:09.490 --> 00:03:11.980 align:middle line:90% There is no evidence available. 00:03:11.980 --> 00:03:17.490 align:middle line:84% From what I can tell, things are beautiful in the eyes 00:03:17.490 --> 00:03:20.080 align:middle line:90% of those admirers. 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:22.630 align:middle line:90% 00:03:22.630 --> 00:03:28.120 align:middle line:84% The widow of Napoleon plays cards with Wellington, 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:31.360 align:middle line:84% and the coins they play for are napoleons. 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:37.010 align:middle line:90% 00:03:37.010 --> 00:03:41.570 align:middle line:84% I don't know whether I made it clear that I felt perfectly 00:03:41.570 --> 00:03:46.070 align:middle line:84% free to change anything either when it was written 00:03:46.070 --> 00:03:49.730 align:middle line:84% or after it was written, or any old time. 00:03:49.730 --> 00:03:55.850 align:middle line:84% There was a publisher in Paris, strangely enough, who 00:03:55.850 --> 00:03:58.100 align:middle line:84% wanted to publish a book of mine, 00:03:58.100 --> 00:04:03.290 align:middle line:84% and someone who had translated books 00:04:03.290 --> 00:04:06.410 align:middle line:84% by me and by Rosemary, who was a wonderful translator, 00:04:06.410 --> 00:04:09.830 align:middle line:84% said she would translate this book. 00:04:09.830 --> 00:04:11.630 align:middle line:90% And I said, well all right. 00:04:11.630 --> 00:04:12.170 align:middle line:90% Fine. 00:04:12.170 --> 00:04:12.670 align:middle line:90% Fine. 00:04:12.670 --> 00:04:13.880 align:middle line:90% Excellent. 00:04:13.880 --> 00:04:20.269 align:middle line:84% So she started translating it, and she wrote me, 00:04:20.269 --> 00:04:22.100 align:middle line:84% at some point, because she had just 00:04:22.100 --> 00:04:27.537 align:middle line:84% realized that the stanzas were alphabetical, 00:04:27.537 --> 00:04:29.870 align:middle line:84% which is not all that obvious because they don't go ABC. 00:04:29.870 --> 00:04:33.150 align:middle line:90% 00:04:33.150 --> 00:04:36.350 align:middle line:90% It's a very irregular alphabet. 00:04:36.350 --> 00:04:38.870 align:middle line:84% And she said, well this may be difficult, 00:04:38.870 --> 00:04:42.350 align:middle line:84% but I'll try to make the stanzas alphabetical. 00:04:42.350 --> 00:04:45.500 align:middle line:84% And I immediately wrote her back, by no means do that. 00:04:45.500 --> 00:04:51.110 align:middle line:84% Just translate every stanza individually, 00:04:51.110 --> 00:04:52.880 align:middle line:84% as you would translate that stanza, 00:04:52.880 --> 00:04:54.995 align:middle line:84% and then rewrite rearrange them alphabetically. 00:04:54.995 --> 00:04:57.402 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:57.402 --> 00:05:00.750 align:middle line:90% 00:05:00.750 --> 00:05:04.010 align:middle line:90% And this terrorized her. 00:05:04.010 --> 00:05:09.110 align:middle line:84% And she just was exasperated by this 00:05:09.110 --> 00:05:12.500 align:middle line:84% until I was passing through Paris and I went to see her, 00:05:12.500 --> 00:05:15.650 align:middle line:84% and made her sit down at the computer, 00:05:15.650 --> 00:05:21.080 align:middle line:84% and showed her how easy this was to do. 00:05:21.080 --> 00:05:23.990 align:middle line:90% And she said, well, but-- 00:05:23.990 --> 00:05:26.960 align:middle line:84% I also wanted her to change the order of the poems 00:05:26.960 --> 00:05:32.420 align:middle line:84% by alphabetically-- by the new titles-- the titles in French. 00:05:32.420 --> 00:05:36.468 align:middle line:84% And she said, but what if somebody sees 00:05:36.468 --> 00:05:37.760 align:middle line:90% that it's not like the English? 00:05:37.760 --> 00:05:39.220 align:middle line:90% They'll think I changed it. 00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:40.460 align:middle line:90% I said, don't worry. 00:05:40.460 --> 00:05:41.960 align:middle line:84% It hasn't been published in English. 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:43.604 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:43.604 --> 00:05:47.270 align:middle line:90% 00:05:47.270 --> 00:05:52.730 align:middle line:84% Finally, it came out in French years before this, 00:05:52.730 --> 00:05:57.350 align:middle line:84% and I really sort of preferred the French. 00:05:57.350 --> 00:06:00.200 align:middle line:90% 00:06:00.200 --> 00:06:05.210 align:middle line:84% It's very strange to me to go from one to the other. 00:06:05.210 --> 00:06:09.610 align:middle line:84% I was wishing I had written the French rather than the English.