"The Emperor has been to see the tomb of the great Frederick. The remains of that great man are inclosed in a wooden coffin, covered with copper, placed in a tomb without ornaments, without trophies, without any objects which recall the great actions which he performed. The Emperor has made a present to the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, of Frederick's sword, his order of the Black Eagle, his general's sash, as well as of the flags borne by his guard in the Seven Years' War." After thus despoiling Prussia of her most cherished and sacred treasures, he adds that the "old soldiers of the army will receive with a religious respect everything that belonged to one of the first captains of whom history preserves the remembrance." What a thief what an actor How much did he respect those relics? In the same bulletin he amuses the Parisians by telling a ridiculous story of Lord Morpeth, the British Ambassador, who, he says, was "near enough to the field of Jena to hear the cannons. "When news was brought him that the battle was lost, though he was eighteen miles from the scene, "he took to his heels," says Napoleon, " crying out, ' I must not be taken.' He offered as much as sixty guineas for a horse; got one at last, and saved himself." October the twenty-seventh, the Emperor, surrounded by his marshals, his magnificent staff, and the leading officers of his court, made what he styles his entree solennelle into Berlin, followed by the Imperial foot guard, and by a splendid body of horsemen and grenadiers. Alighting at the royal palace at three o'clock in the afternoon, after having received at the gates the keys of the city, he held a grand reception. He treated the city, in all respects, as the spoil of war; paying his troops from the city treasury, taking all the wine from thecellars, public and private, for the supply of his various armies, assigning a half bottle of wine a day for each soldier of the two corps who had particularly distinguished themselves at the battle of Jena. The nobility had abandoned their houses at his approach. He ordered all the mattresses and furniture to be taken from their houses which might be required for the comfort of his officers. He ordered also, that the city should furnish, at once, the cloth for a hundred thousand uniforms, a hundred thousand pairs of shoes, and a hundred thousand caps. "My intention is," this order concluded, "that Berlin should furnish me abundantly all that my army needs, and that nothing is to be considered except that my soldiers should have an abundance of everything they require." "They tell me that there is a great deal of wine at Stettin. Take all of it, though there should be twenty millions' worth."
He says, " This gives confidence "......
Sunday, April 25, 2010
" Miss Me Yet?" Of the Mind,Of The Self,Freedom of Thought and Being
"They are not capable of a dialogue ; they don't believe in it.
The believe in force".
On this gray wet morning, I look out the window ,hoping to see some streaks of blue, the cerulean blue,with a tinge of pink, that will inspire me to draw a happy image.Thoughts crisscrossing my mind, after reading since early morning the news around the globe.
My ginger plant, my alter ego,standing there with its leafs guiding me to be its mirror.
Two of my birds flying around, landing on my head,chirping and greeting me.My lovebird Venus, sits here on top of me,on my Hindu cloth on the wall,and my cockatiel Josie, asking for rubs on her beautiful lemon yellow crest.
I imagine myself five hundred years back in history, walking in Firenze, then wayback in
the time of dinosaurs, dinosaurs????? aiaiaia, and then back to Catherine the Great times,,and then when Marco Polo finding noodles in China,which become pasta in Italy, or better walking along with an Aboriginal in Australia ,in their walkabout searching for the eternal songlines.
and then as an Indigenous from a tribe in the Amazon, after meeting the Mysterious Man in the New York Subway.
Days ago, when I was riding in the subway, I got into a conversation with an interesting man who would not identify himself, beyond telling me that he is a writer and a scientist.
So we engaged in a fast and dense exchange of words about the environment, the Icelandic volcano, while the crackling up and down of the subway train running through the underground.
We get out on the platfrom,he goes his way and I go my way,oh no,not the song, Frank Sinatra sings,which brings me back to Sydney, in Australia,when I was so young and full of dreams, still am, still so young and full of dreams,if not very conscious that my body,this incredible machine,which keeps us either moving or stopping serving me with notices ,which i will ignore till eternity does me part.This body that
reproduced and enjoys making love.
This mind of mine, always wondering ,why this,why that.
For years I would intersperse words through my art,as I rather wished my art to convey through images my vision of life,than by words which I thought could misrepresent in fact what I had imagined or wanted to imagine.
That state of mind,come after I observed my father,a man of words who left in me a very strong impression.
I cannot remove from my memories,the image of him lying peacefully speechless.
I saw Death.
Death come between me and my father and set us apart.
My father was calling my name gently,Mar, Marg,Marguerita, I will always look after you,as i could not do so in Life.... mar I am going away ..... Ma hold my hands.
I see him in profile,like the Sleeping Giant Mountain I saw in Zakopane, in Krakow,years ago.
But my father, the image is closer to me now as ever.
My father taught me to be strong.
My mother too.
No college,no university could teach me more then both of them.
They saw it all.
My mother was in Auschwitz ,tearing grass from the snow, to eat and drink.
Barefoot in the creepy shreds, that the Nazi dressed her with.
No Manolos, no Pradas,no Guccis.
She saw humankind,bare and all.
Stick and Bones, Skull and Bones.
No special effects.
Although Hollywood was making films.
Imagining human suffering or ignoring it all,altogether.
So,here am I.
From the ashes.
How can I remain silent?
I am a part of that reality.
On my skin.
As I was born five years ,few days after my mother was released
from Ravensbrueck.
She walked barefoot through the Skagerak to Sweden.
There upon arrival the few walking skeletons were served with
a smorgarsbord.
My mother stood at the door watching.
The crazed,famished running towards the food.
Their stomachs shrunk by years of famine.
They eat and dropped dead.
My mother just looked.
She was 36 kilos.
And then fro Sweden to Switzerland.
In a bookstore she found a book by Confucius.
"He says in one of his pages, "If You Hate, your Liver gets Sick"....
The Real Suff, The Real World.
After that, one can only see Light.
Fiat Lux.
My father,
Like an outline,a graphic symbol, reminding me of that creative being,who once was touching with affection, strands of my hair and infusing in me a strength to face life and all its challenges.
I like nowbetter how the word challenge sounds in Portuguese, desafio.
Yes, DESAFIO, is my name.
Yes I miss you, my father, as I miss you my mother. I miss you both every moment,day and night.
I returned to my writing.
I return to my school days when I would publish in the school newspaper my stories and then get published in O Estado de Sao Paulo, my essays about Madame de Stael,who Napoleon was struggling with and censoring .She dared to speak out.De Stael would go on to say :" I cannot separate my feelings ,from my thoughts" something like that.This was the man whom Madame de Stael saw and understood in 1805, as well as we can in 1883. She had known him when he figured as a vain young soldier of the Republic, and discerned his true character even then. There was danger in such a woman. The conqueror felt it, and owned himself unable to cope with her by sending her to reside a hundred and twenty miles from Paris ! If she ventured to approach nearer, he wrote with his own hand (as we see in his published correspondence,) an order to his chief of police to make her keep her distance. " That she crow," he styles her in one of these fierce notes. "That bird of evil omen," he callsher in another. In another he says that " her approach bodes mischief," and he will not have her on French soil. In another, alluding to her father, M. Neckar, the banker and financier, he winds up an angry order by saying : " that foreign family have done mischief enough in France already." How honorable to this lady, the rancorous hostility of such a man in such a place.
So getting back to
The meaning of I miss you.
I miss you.
I miss my sons.
I miss the love I I am craving for.
Yes, the CARINHO,
My Dona Soledade noticed
in my eyes
when I was
a little girl.
I Miss You.
We need those words in the world.
Maybe we would find Peace, then
Say all
I MISS YOU!
And ONE More for the road by Napoleon via Madame de Stael:
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