The Storks that Reside in the Mind (I) - Letters to Rhona - 09/04/22

Dear Rhona,

One of the images that captured my heart when I read Between the Woods and the Waters by Partick Leigh Fermor was his description of the storks he encountered along his journey. The surprise and words he evoked towards these encounters filled me with wonder because I had never, at that time, seen a stork before.

Since then, I have seen a stork, in fact, many storks. I believe my first encounter was in the south of France between Mirepoix and Lavelanet in the Ariège. My much senior and sagacious friend Joe Caneen was driving us both on an errand when, in a field, I spotted a dozen large, white plumed birds with lower black feathers. I shouted at Joe, to his surprise, 'LOOK, STORKS!' And there they were, resting in a field during an interval of their migratory flight.

That moment filled me with a satisfaction that said to me: I now more fully understand the words of the maverick I adore. And yet, I didn't realise that I had not fully understood Fermor's accounts describing the storks he had seen until the moment I had seen them properly, in their habitant and soaring above and around me.

Over the years of troubling myself with reading, I have begun to see more clearly that the impressions I have taken from that pastime are mostly the imprints of the authors. From time to time, I would feel that the stories I read were actually mine, but this speaks only to the power of the human imagination, being able to project itself into the stories of another. I suppose there are good uses to this mental imposition. Perhaps, it gives us an ability to perceive what we could and should not be.

Fermor's storks lay in my mind like a memory, but I knew deep down they were not my storks but adopted. This state of affairs has changed now.

As I rose out of the valley of the Douve, with the tower of the abbey of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte retreating behind me, the blue-grey lane wove ahead, between the hedge and shrub and just-becoming cowslip. I discovered a little church, then a gate before a tree-sheltered driveway where beyond, I could see the grandeur of a chateau. I resolved to take the castle, so I unlatched the gate and proceeded into the grounds.

The central court was enclosed but for a large portal. I found myself through it and onto the gravel before an imposing logis with mullioned windows and toiture a l'imperiale. I fancied that there was a light from behind the windowpane of a small door and decided on knocking. As I reached the threshold, there was a great commotion of barking. I didn't knock on the door because I thought the hounds would suffice as an alarm, and clearly, they preferred me at a distance away from it.

There was some noise and shouts from within a grange, but none as awareness of my arrival. But then, as I stood dumb in the court, a lady appeared from behind the door, proceeded by three fully grown Suisse-Bouvier dogs. Handsome yet frightening, they bounded towards me with intent whilst the lady shouted at them. The patriarch of three barked and growled distrustingly, but the younger-looking fellow took to me quite quickly.

As the lady approached me, I was taken aback by her beauty. Her hair was a natural white or silver yet possessed not a tint of age but rather a guilting of class and refinement. Her eyes were nestled keen and bright within her soft, smiling expression. I had the immediate impression from the manner of her face that she had never ceased to smile or laugh in her life. She had carved for herself, with her well-spent years, a joyous visage.

From seeing this lady, I pondered that the soul lies in the face of a human. We are betrayed by our faces because there is little we can hide in our expressions. The dishonest, over the years, will suffer themselves scarred and marked. Faustian possibilities are not given to us as a Dorian Gray might have; we do not have concealed portraits of ourselves in our lofts where we can dispose of our ills and sins and retain some cherubic perfection of our regard. A thousand stories are writ into the grooves of our expression; our formed manners and subtle winks possess clues to our nature. They are the culmination of everything that has happened to us.

And as such, I beheld this wondrous woman. She inquired into my being here, to which I asked if I could camp in one of their fields for the night and then draw their chateau in the morning. It was sure to be okay she said, but I better consult her husband. With that, the voices within the grange grew louder and then out popped the husband and another man.

Read the rest of this letter at my Substack: https://dominicdebonhomie.substack.com/