Comme dans l’?ponge il y a dans l’orange une aspiration ? reprendre contenance apr?s avoir subi l’?preuve de l’expression. Mais o? l’?ponge r?ussit toujours, l’orange jamais: car ses cellules ont ?clat?, ses tissus se sont d?chir?s. Tandis que l’?corce seule se r?tablit mollement dans sa forme gr?ce ? son ?lasticit?, un liquide d’ambre s’est r?pandu, accompagn? de rafra?chissement, de parfums suaves, certes, — mais souvent aussi de la conscience am?re d’une expulsion pr?matur?e de p?pins.
Faut-il prendre parti entre ces deux mani?res de mal supporter l’oppression? — L’?ponge n’est que muscle et se remplit de vent, d’eau propre ou d’eau sale selon: cette gymnastique est ignoble. L’orange a meilleurs go?t, mais elle est trop passive, — et ce sacrifice odorant. . . c’est faire ? l’opresseur trop bon compte vraiment.
Mais ce n’est pas assez avoir dit de l’orange que d’avoir rappel? sa fa?on particuli?re de parfumer l’air et de r?jouir son bourreau. Il faut mettre l’accent sur la coloration glorieuse du liquide qui en r?sulte et qui, mieux que le jus de citron, oblige le larynx ? s’ouvrir largement pour la prononciation du mot comme pour l’ingestion du liquide, sans aucune moue appr?hensive de l’avant-bouche dont il ne fait pas h?risser les papilles.
Et l’on demeure au reste sans paroles pour avouer l’admiration que suscite l’enveloppe du tendre, fragile et rose ballon ovale dans cet ?pais tampon-buvard humide dont l’?piderme extr?mement mince mais tr?s pigment?, acerbement sapide, est juste assez rugueux pour accrocher dignement la lumi?re sur la parfaite forme du fruit.
Mais ? la fin d’une trop courte ?tude, men?e aussi rondement que possible, — il faut en venir au p?pin. Ce grain, de la forme d’un minuscule citron, offre ? l’ext?rieur la couleur du bois blanc de citronnier, ? l’int?rieur un vert de pois ou de germe tendre. C’est en lui que se retrouvent, apr?s l’explosion sensationnelle de la lanterne v?nitienne de saveurs, couleurs, et parfums que constitue le ballon fruit? lui-m?me, — la duret? relative et la verdeur (non d’ailleurs enti?rement insipide) du bois, de la branche, de la feuille: somme toute petite quoique avec certitude la raison d’?tre du fruit.
English version
Just as in a sponge, there is in the orange a yearning to recover its content after having been subjected to the ordeal of squeezing. But whereas the sponge always succeeds, the orange never does, for its cells have burst, its tissues have been torn. Whilst the rind alone, thanks to its elasticity, slowly regains its shape, an amber liquid has spilled, accompanied it’s true by delicate refreshment and odor, but often too by the bitter awareness of a premature ejaculation of seeds.
Must we choose between these two ways of not tolerating oppression? The sponge is only a muscle and fills up with air, with clean water or with dirty water as the case may be: such adaptability is ignoble. The orange has better taste, but it is too passive, and this savory sacrifice — it’s giving too good a return to the oppressor.
Yet it’s not enough to have only spoken of the orange’s special way of scenting the air and rejoicing its executioner. Emphasis must be placed on the glorious color of the resulting juice which, better than that of the lemon, forces one’s throat wide open as much to pronounce the word as to swallow the liquid, with no apprehensive grimace of anticipation since it won’t make the tastebuds prickle.
Beyond this, one is unable to find words to express the admiration evoked by the covering of this tender, fragile, pink oval ball inside its thick moist absorbant blotting paper of which the extremely thin but intensely colored epidermis with its bitter oil is just ruddy enough to catch worthily the light that reveals the perfect form of the fruit.
But to end this too short study, conducted from as many angles as possible, one must at last deal with the seed. This grain, shaped like a minuscule lemon, looks from the outside to be the same color as the white wood of the lemon tree but inside is green like a pea or a delicate new shoot. It is here in the seed that — after the sensational explosion of the Chinese lantern of tastes, colors, and perfumes which the body of the fruit itself consists of — one finds the relative hardness and greenness (not, by the way, entirely tasteless) of the wood and the branch and the leaf: in short, tiny but with certainty, the fruit’s reason for being.
(Francis Ponge)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Light Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Sons Poems, Education Poems, Body Poems, Perfection Poems, Duty Poems, Cars Poems, English PoemsBased on Keywords: somme, certes, reste, blotting, toute, evoked, mince, blanc, scenting, avoir, regains