I
And so the great silent words came; transmitted from one continent to the other over the ocean, the crucial message came.
Over the water, the crucial news traveled that entire night in the form of questions and answers.
Though in fact nothing was heard.
The crucial invisible words, of interest to all men, traveled and intermingled; however not one man, beneath at sea, beneath on land, heard these words—and nothing in the sky changed when these words came, and they were still coming.
The great words passed unseen,—unsettling nothing in the air above the merchant ships and the white transatlantic liners,—in a sky only noticed because its stars were larger than they had ever been,—and onward, over the offshore swell, the words passed in complete silence.
On that night, these words, then some questions and the answer to these questions;—and then for all men everything will change so much that they will no longer recognize themselves, but for the moment nothing changes; everything stays so calm, so incredibly calm on these waters, with dawn rising and against its beautiful white color puffs the smoke from a large ship no one sees.
Today as always, and as if this would last forever,—except that the great invisible words have been pronounced, communicating the results of lengthy calculations and meticulous research: the Earth is plunging into the sun.
Because of an accident within the gravitational system, the Earth is rapidly plunging into the sun, pelting toward it, to melt there.
And so all life will come to an end. The heat will rise. It will be excruciating for all living things. The heat will rise and rapidly everything will die. And yet for the moment nothing is visible. Nothing is heard for the moment; everywhere silence and more silence. The message itself has gone quiet. What had to be said was said, and then, silence.
Morning arrived upon the sea where the ship was heading toward the horizon, that great slope made of other smaller slopes, which the ship tackles one after another, like an ant attacking one furrow after another.
II
The only sign up to that day had been the extreme drought. It was the end of July; the drought had lasted three months. A few stormy rains in June, a few fat coins still fell on certain nights that month, unexpectedly, on the pavement in front of my house: that was all. The hay had been beautiful, the harvest abundant and dense. It was after that the soil had begun to crack, the grass to turn yellow and sparse.
In sum, tracing these beginnings, there had been no unusual signs until the end of July. On the surface, nothing yet except this drought and this great heat, the thermometer having started to climb to 77 degrees in the middle of the day, then to 81°, 100°. And we did suffer a bit, but it was bearable, because the sky was so beautiful, and because we live by the lake. The lake is where we go to observe; the lake is where we see what’s coming, which is to say that we see nothing, other than this beautiful vault never before so lavishly painted, as when a painter adds two or three layers, but because the good workman can never be satisfied, he says: “That’s not enough.”
We lived under the beauty of this sky. The high hollyhocks had dried above the yellowed parsley and the Chinese carnations, which had not even been able to open: this sky replaced everything. We said: “Yes, it’s true, it’s hot, but how beautiful!” And then: “We had hay, we had wheat!” We said: “It’ll only affect the vegetables, but we’ll find a way to live without them . . . And the wine will be excellent!” Our Lavaux winegrowers will have been happy on their last year, because of the promises made to them, although the vineyards had frozen in the highlands, as they say; but what was left would be good, would be extra good, as they also say, and if this continues, wishing only for a few warm and gentle rains, toward the end of August, so that the grapes would swell. And with a click of the tongue: “Not much, but extra good! And if the prices stay up . . . ” And once more we would turn to the sky.
Because, you see, is it clean, is it varnished, is it scrubbed enough? could the color be any deeper? Above the little red roof of the shed and the round elder tree, all around the jagged holly, above the slope descending to and from the lake, above the water and the mountain. Above me and above us. Above us all. And enduring, this sky seems enduring, oh! so enduring! We thought: “It’s eternal . . . ” And so we must rejoice and find patience, because the fatigue will pass, and we are not very hungry and if we lose a little weight, we’ll have the time to gain it back in the fall.
Alright! The gardener himself says: “Alright!” Guignet, the gardener, agrees with the people on this point, even though he’s annoyed, because for him there is the watering issue, having planted his water umbrella right in the lettuce bed, but “it’s dry two feet down and the topsoil is so hot that the water steadily evaporates,” he says, pushing back his straw hat, spitting, grabbing his clay pipe from his pocket, filling it, and looking around at the vegetable garden.
There are flowerpots all the way to the edges of the paths for the mole crickets.
There is also a sparrow trap. Guignet puts the birds in his pocket for his cat.
This morning, we chatted again for a moment; no, not one sign, it’s all so very beautiful!
Well, nothing but this drought, which we were confronted with once more when Guignet turned on the Bret water faucet; the pressure, it’s true, has been dying down in the pipes: and so the water umbrella was no more, what remained was a half-umbrella, what remained was a small circle of fine white dust around the pole.
It’s getting a little lower every day; none left! It’s getting lower; “So,” said Guignet (having finally lit his pipe and blown into its stem, because it doesn’t pull properly), “so what if we can’t water anymore! . . .”
All the same, I continue to watch this oh so beautiful sky, shades of the lilacs’ leaves hanging within it, all inside out.
Our Savoie, so gentle and beautiful, has come forward harshly; for several weeks now, we glimpse the mountain from very close up, as when bad weather would come; there is no longer any bad weather.
A few nights ago, around two in the morning, the shutters began to flap, the windows slammed shut, the doors were shaken, the roof tiles came tumbling. A great warm wind entered through the windows, which were kept open day and night. A great warm wind, blowing in from the south, from the mountains just opposite, fell upon us with its entire weight. I went to look. There was no trace of clouds. Only those very big stars, so white they made the sky look completely black. Stars like paper lanterns. Although this wind was so relentless it forced us to retreat, it made us even hotter. And we started to feel fear, but we weren’t able to get to the bottom of this fear, because the wind had already stopped. Abruptly, and so completely stopped, that we immediately started to hear once more the tick-tock of the watch on the night table;—and once more, those same people go swimming, only now the great beach, as far as the eye can see, is dark with nude bodies.
In a little shop, a woman sells pastries. An ice-filled wooden bucket reveals the necks of some beer bottles. The people who have never gone swimming in their entire lives have come. On the keel of an old boat, a little old man sat, his cape over his knees, reading a book. His skin was so white that he looked tossed in flour. Nearby the giant boatman’s body was the color of burnt brick, in other words a mixture of brown, red, and black. The little girls play “Rondin picotin”; the women are in swimsuits. Always this same great beauty of the sky, reaching above the poplars, those great black columns. The sand flows through your toes like water; there is sea glass of various colors, pretty round stones, flat or in the shape of an egg. Not one sign, except that it is all so beautiful. All these people, how many of them? The city completely empties each afternoon, and we watch people descend in every possible way,—by foot, by tram, by funicular, by bicycle, toward coolness, toward wellness; moving down toward another more agreeable temperature,—just like today, two big prostitutes sitting sensibly, their flowered hats on their heads, up to their necks in the water.
Some children, who arrived swimming, clambered onto the rudders of the passing steamers.
We see those same steamers, crowded with the people who like to go against the wind, beneath the flapping awnings.
Those same great white machines, with their wheels turning and smoke unspooling from their chimneys like horsehair coming uncoiled at the quilter’s.
III
That’s when the news arrived, first received in disbelief by the newspaper editors;—then suddenly, hoisted and emblazoned on the front page, like black and white flags, flags the color of grief.
The impact here, however, in those first days, in the beginning, was not very big. We don’t have much imagination here.
There is the town that sprawls up there over its three hills; it allows the hourly strokes of the clock to keep rolling toward us, more or less of them, more or less spaced out;—that’s about it. This suburb is still quite rural, despite all the new construction. The evening paper arrives only around six o’clock and it’s the women who read it first, while the men are still at work. A bit more time can pass here, amidst the continuing cries of children swimming, as the great sun descends as low as possible to meet the mountain. It’s 88° in the shade tonight; nevertheless, no threat of thunderstorms, none of those large clouds there once were, white, sheeplike, or smooth and slate gray, or black; nor that heavy air there once was. The light, far from whitening, became more golden above those voices hailing from below. The blue of the sky became even bluer, if that’s possible. All is well. In the café, there is drinking; in the grocery store, sugar is weighed, and in the boulangerie, bread (as always). And perhaps a great rumble already buzzes about the rest of the world: here there is only the sound of the streetcar, arriving at a snail’s pace, and stopping in front of the café. Because it’s empty, the employees go in for a drink. At that moment, a woman leaned out of the window, asking: “Have you read it yet?”
The voice of a woman from the floor below: “No.”
On the third floor, the woman who asked the question adjusts her poorly buttoned white blouse; she is holding the paper. She reads the news aloud. The woman below then tilts her head back, reeling in a little girl whose hair she is brushing before bedtime, without stopping the quick movement of her fingers among the blonde strands.
And the woman above, having read, points at the headlines; but the other: “What do I care?”
This is the small start of nothing here, with no observable signs. The inventor of the idea is largely alone in his idea. The incoming news is received only with distraction or smiles. A night like every other night arrives on our roofs, fairly close together. It is the hour when the swimmers come back up, after having once more beaten the water with their two hands and tucked their sliver of Marseille soap into their striped trunks. Their shoulders are cooking beneath their shirts; the women have scarlet necks, the red of their arms is barely muted by muslin sleeves. Some mothers are late, pushing the little baby carriage where their youngest child sleeps and with the others following as best they can. Quick, because it’s time to eat, and the husband will soon be home. Perhaps he’s already home. Quick, quick, beneath the sun that is now red, red-orange first, then red-red, then red-black.
There is a farm on the way. In the farm’s stable yard, we see the evening work underway. There are two or three men, including the owner; they come and go. They are focused on themselves. They imagine nothing beyond what they are. They consider a certain fixedness of things as being so fixed that it could never change. They move through time as if time will exist forever.
The wheelbarrow’s only wheel turns in the same way as it did yesterday, and in the same way it will turn tomorrow. The wheel of the wheelbarrow cries. The cow closest to the door is visible from the road. There are red shutters. The barn door is red. There is an old fir tree bowing to the corner of the shed.
And yet, here too, the newspaper has arrived. A small, thin woman, her body crooked in her gray coutil bodice, is carrying a wicker basket in her arm, without knowing what’s in the basket. She carries the newspaper folded four times, next to more of the same papers folded four times. She delivers it door to door. On the old bench painted green, which is against the barn wall, the owner, having finished his work, begins to read: but no, he hasn’t understood. It’s too big, that’s the thing. It’s not for us, it’s too big. Our own world is so small. Our own world goes as far as our eyes can reach; it’s our eyes that create it for us. The owner, perhaps looking around with a little worry in the beginning, has finished reading; the worry vanishes.
We would have to imagine the sky, the stars, the continents, the oceans, the equator, the two poles. Yet we can only imagine the self and what we have. This self and what we have are here. The proof: I touch, I reach my hand, and I touch. The owner sets the paper down on the bench, pulls out his pocket watch, looks at the time. He feels his hunger come to the surface.
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From Into the Sun by C. F. Ramuz (trans. Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan). Used with permission of the publisher, New Directions. Copyright © 2025.
