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“The Blessed Lady Who Listens” by Paul Claudel 🇫🇷 (6 Aug 186823 Feb 1955)
Translated from the French by Eugene Jolas
In the church of my village of Brangues there is a chapel in the chateau:
Because it’s too warm outside, into its nave each day at five o’clock I go.
A man can’t keep on walking all the time, so he might as well visit the Good Lord’s House:
Outside the sun is blazing away, and the road screams across the square as if it wanted the whole world to arouse.
But inside, the Holy Mother before me, for me, she is like a glacier, so fresh and pure,
All white with her son in her lovely gown, all white, it’s so long I can see only the tips of her feet for sure.
Mary! Here is that fellow again, all overflowing with desire and worrying:
Ah, I’ll never have time enough to tell you everything.
But she, lowering her eyes, with a face tender and bland,
Looks at the words on my mouth like someone who listens and gets ready to understand.