Story : For Sale

 

 FOR SALE

Guy de Maupassant

 

How intoxicating it is to go off on foot when the sun comes up and walk in the morning dew along the fields beside the calm sea !

 How intoxicating ! It penetrates your eyes by the sunlight, your nostrils by the delicate summer air, your skin by gusts of wind.

 Why do we keep such a clear, cherished, sharp memory of certain moments of love of the Earth, the memory of a delicious and fleeting sensation like a caress of a landscape encountered at the turn of a road, at the entrance to a valley, on the edge of a river, just as if one were meeting up with a lovely, friendly young woman ?

 I remember one day in particular. I was going along the Brittany coast towards the tip of Finistère. I was going in a rapid pace along the shoreline, without thinking of anything. It was in the region of Quimperlé, that most delightful and beautiful part of Brittany.

A spring morning, one of those mornings that make you twenty years younger, that renew your hopes and recreate your dreams of adolescence.

I was going along a barely-marked path between the wheat fields and the waves. The stalks were motionless, and the waves were barely perceptible. You could smell the soft aroma of the ripe fields and the marine odour of the kelp. I went on thinking of nothing, straight ahead, continuing my tour of Brittany by the coastline that I had begun two weeks beforehand. I felt strong, agile, happy and gay. I was on my way.

 

Thinking of nothing ! Why think in these moments of the unconscious, profound, physical joy, the joy of the animal that is running in the grass or flying in the blue air under the sun ?

I heard singing of pious chants in the distance. A procession, perhaps, as it was a Sunday. But when I rounded a little cape I stood immobile, ravished. Five large fishing boats appeared full of people : men, women and children going to Plouneven.

They were going along the seashore, slowly, scarcely advancing under a faint, enfeebled breeze that swelled their brown sails a little, then, dying down right away, let them fall down again, flaccidly, alongside the masts.

The heavy vessels slid slowly along, heavily loaded. And everyone was singing. The men, upright on the planks, wearing high hats, chanted their powerful notes ; the women cried out in their sharp tones and the tinny voices of the children sounded like fifes in that pious and violent clamour.

And the passengers of the five boats were chanting the same hymn, whose monotonous rhythm rose up into the calm sky ; and the five boats advanced one after the other, close by each other.

They passed in front of me, right before me, and I watched them go off into the distance as their chant became ever fainter and then faded away.

And I began to dream of delicious things in a puerile and charming way, as young people do.

How that age of dreaming, the only happy moment of one’s existence, flees rapidly away ! You are never solitary, never sad, never morose or desolated when you possess that divine faculty of losing yourself in your hopes whenever you are alone. What a fairy-land, where everything can happen in the hallucination of vagabond thoughts ! How life is lovely under the gold-dust of dreams !

Alas, that’s all over now.

I had begun to dream. Of what ? Of all that one is ceaselessly waiting for, of all that one desires, of fortune, of glory, of women.

 

And I went on with rapid paces, caressing with one hand the blond heads of wheat bending under my fingers and tickling my skin as if I were touching someone’s hair.

Coming around a small promontory I saw, at the end of a narrow, round beach, a white house built on top of three terraces that led down to the shore.

Why did the view of that house make me quiver with joy ? Do I know ? Sometimes when you are travelling like that you come across places that you feel you have known for a long time, they seem so familiar, they are so pleasing to your soul. Is it possible that you have never seen them before ? That you have never lived there at some time ? Everything about them seduces you, enchants you — the soft profile of the horizon, the disposition of the trees, the colour of the sand.

Oh, that lovely house standing there on top of the slope ! Large fruit-trees had grown along the terraces that sloped down like giant steps towards the water. And each one had a long bouquet of Spanish broom on its summit, like a golden crown.

I stopped, seized with a feeling of affection for this house. How I would have liked to own it, to live there, forever !

I went up to the door, my heart beating with envy, and saw, on one of the fence-posts, a large sign reading : “For Sale”.

I felt a shudder of pleasure run through me as if it had been offered to me, as if the house had been given to me ! Why ? Yes, why ? I have no idea !

“For Sale.” So it almost didn’t belong to anyone anymore, it could belong to anyone, to me, to me ! Why did I feel that joy, that unexplainable sensation of profound light-heartedness ? I well knew nevertheless that I certainly wouldn’t buy it. How could I have paid for it ? Never mind, it was for sale. The caged bird belongs to its master, the bird in the air belongs to me and to no one else.

 

And I went into the garden. Oh, that charming garden with its superposed levels, its lattices with their long arms stretched out like crucified martyrs, its tufts of golden broom, and two old fig-trees at the end of each terrace !

When I was on the top one, I looked at the horizon. The little beach spread out at my feet, round and sandy, separated from the high sea by three heavy brown rocks that closed the entrance and would break up the waves in times of heavy seas.

On the point, on the other side, were two enormous stones, a menhir and a dolmen, one upright and the other couched in the grass, like two strange mates immobilised by a spell, that seemed to be steadily looking towards the little house that they had seen being built, they who had known this little bay formerly so solitary, the little house that they would see one day collapse, fall apart, fly off and disappear, the little house that was for sale !

Oh ! ancient dolmen and ancient menhir, how I love you !

 

And I rang the doorbell as if I were ringing at my own home. A woman came to open the door, a maid, an ancient little maid dressed in black with a white headpiece, who looked like a nun. It seemed to me that I also knew this woman.

I said to her :

— You aren’t from Brittany, are you ?

She replied :

— No, sir, I am from Lorraine.

She added :

— Would you like to visit the house ?

— Yes, most certainly.

And I went in.

I recognized everything, it seemed to me : the walls, the furniture. I was almost astonished not to find my canes in the front hall.

I went into the salon, a lovely salon carpeted with mats that looked out on the sea through three large windows. On the mantlepiece were China bowls and a big photograph of a woman. I went up to it right away, persuaded that I would recognize her too. And I did recognize her, although I was certain that I had never met her. It was she, herself, she for whom I was waiting, whom I desired, whom I called to, whose face haunted my dreams. Her, the one for whom one is always searching everywhere, the one whom one was going to see in the street in a moment, whom one was going to find on the road in the countryside when one sees a red umbrella in the wheat-fields, the one who must have already arrived at the hotel that I am about to enter during a trip, in the coach that I am getting into, in the salon whose door is opening before me.

It was her, assuredly, undoubtedly her ! I recognized her by her eyes that were looking at me, by her har rolled up in an English bun, by her mouth above all, by that smile that I had imagined for so long.

I asked right away :

— Who is this woman ?

The maid with the nun’s face replied dryly :

— It’s Madame.

I continued :

— She’s your mistress ?

She replied in her devout, harsh manner :

— Oh no, sir !

I took a seat and said :

— Tell me about her.

She remained stupefied, immobile, silent.

I insisted :

— She’s the proprietor of this house, then ?

— Oh no, sir !

— To whom does it belong, then ?

— To my master, M. Tournelle.

I pointed at the photograph.

— And this woman, who is she ?

— It’s Madame.

— The wife of your master ?

— Oh no, sir !

— His mistress, then ?

The nun didn’t reply. I continued, urged on by a vague sense of jealousy, by a confused anger against that man who had discovered this woman :

— Where are they now ?

The maid murmured :

— Monsieur is in Paris, but as for Madame, I do not know.

I was shaken :

— They are no longer together ?

— No, sir.

I became cunning and, in a grave voice :

— Tell me what happened, and I might perhaps be of service to your master. I know this woman, she’s wicked !

 

The old servant looked at me and had confidence in me because of my open and honest manner.

— Oh, sir, she made my master so unhappy ! He had met her in Italy and had brought her back with him as if he had married her. She sang beautifully. He loved her, sir, so much that it was a pity to see. They were travelling together in these parts last year, and they found this house that had been built by an idiot, a real idiot to have built it two leagues away from the village. Madame wanted to buy it right away and to stay here with my master, so he bought the house to please her.

They stayed here all last summer, sir, and almost all winter.

And then, one day in the morning at breakfast time, Master called me :

— Césarine, has Madame come home ?

— No, sir.

We waited the whole day. My master was in a terrible fury. We searched everywhere but couldn’t find her. She had left, sir, we never knew where or how.

Oh, what joy pervaded me ! I felt like kissing the nun, like taking her by the waist and dancing with her in the salon !

Ah, she had left, she had escaped, she had grown tired of him, disgusted by him ! How that made me happy !

The maid continued :

— Master was devastated and returned to Paris, leaving me with my husband to sell the house. We are asking twenty thousand francs for it.

But I was no longer listening, I was thinking of her ! And, all of a sudden it seemed to me that all I had to do to find her was to go on my way, that she must have come back to this region, to this springtime, to see the house, the lovely house that she would have liked so much, without him.

 

I thrust ten francs into the hand of the old woman, took up the photograph and ran off kissing profusely the lovely face in the photo.

I went back to my route and began walking along again, looking at her, at her ! What a joy that she was free, that she had escaped ! For sure, I would meet her, today or tomorrow, this week or the next, because she had left him ! She had left him because my time had come !

She was free, somewhere in the world ! I only had to find her now that I knew her.

And I continued caressing the bending, golden stalks of ripe wheat, I drank in the marine air that swelled my breast, I felt the sun kiss my face. I went on, I went on overwhelmed with happiness, intoxicated with hope. I went on, sure to meet her soon and to take her back with me to live in our turn in the lovely house For Sale. How she would be happy there, this time !

 

With affection,

Ruben

 

Pedro Ruiz Gallo

 

Pedro Ruiz Gallo

Oil painting in the Aeronautical Museum of Peru

Born   June 24, 1838

Biography

Etén, Chiclayo, Peru

Died    April 24, 1880 (aged 41)

Callao, Peru

Years of service         1848–1880

Known for     Several inventions, including the Great Clock of Lima

Battles/wars 

Chincha Islands War

War of the Pacific

Pedro Ruiz Gallo (Etén, June 24, 1838 – Callao, April 24, 1880) was a Peruvian polymath, serving as a soldier and inventor, also working as a watchmaker, mechanic, musician, painter, researcher, doctor, and explorer,[1] nationally considered one of the forerunners of modern aeronautics[2] and patron of the Peruvian Army's engineering branch.[3] He was the creator of the monumental clock that was located in the Parque de la Exposición, which was looted by Chilean troops during the War of the Pacific.

 

Early life

He was born in the then Villa de Eten in 1838, his parents were the Spanish colonel Pedro Manuel Ruiz and Juliana Gallo,[4] when he was still a very young boy he lost his father and shortly after when he was just 11 years old his mother, this situation forced him to leave his small hometown to go to the city of Chiclayo where he began working as a watchmaker's assistant, a hobby that would interest him for the rest of his life.

 

Military career

Since his childhood Ruiz had felt attracted to mechanics but moved by his military vocation, he moved to Lima at the age of 15 to enlist in the army, entering in 1854.[4] Due to his merits and recognized intelligence, he quickly rose in rank. the arms race being that in 1855 he already held the rank of captain serving as an assistant in the prefecture of the department of Amazonas, where he carried out many explorations and studies in the still unknown Peruvian jungle, even exploring the Pongo de Manseriche.[4] He also mapped the course of the Marañón River and one of its tributaries, the Cahuapanas River. During this period he also dabbled in medicine, achieving the discovery of bovine fluid against smallpox with which he managed to create an efficient vaccine.[5] During his stay in Chachapoyas he built a public clock that he donated to the main church of that city.

 

In 1865 he was promoted to major graduate and when the revolution of General Mariano Ignacio Prado began that same year, and which would later lead to the war against Spain, he joined the restorative army that marched to Lima and overthrew President Juan Antonio Pezet, to then fight in the combat of May 2[4] against the Spanish squadron; after this action he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

After the war ended with the withdrawal of the Spanish squadron from South American waters, Ruiz was able to dedicate himself entirely to his engineering projects,[4] including his ambitious project of building a great clock for the Peruvian capital, which he achieved under the patronage of then-President José Balta who appointed him attached to the General Staff and financed his work, despite the opposition and criticism that his work received, the inventor continued serene and persevering, being that on December 6, 1870, a few days before celebrating a new anniversary of the Battle of Ayacucho and before the admiration in general, its monumental clock was inaugurated in the gardens of the Exhibition in front of the Palace of the same name.[5]

 

The Pedro Ruiz Gallo clock was for many years one of the biggest attractions in Lima. Despite successfully completing his greatest work, the already famous inventor never abandoned his scientific studies, now turning to aeronautics, publishing in 1878 Estudios Generales sobre la Navegación Aérea y Resolución de este importante problema, a work in which he raised the construction of a flying machine moved by mechanical propulsion that would allow man to conquer the skies,[2] imitating the way that birds fly.[4] However, these studies would have to be cut short when on April 5, 1879, the Chilean government declared war on Peru, beginning the so-called War of the Pacific.

Pedro Ruiz Gallo created an ingenious watch in 1870 that told time in intricate detail. Over 11 meters tall and 16 meters wide, the watch displayed the days, months, years, moon phases, and seasons. It also hoisted the Peruvian flag at 5am and 5pm while playing the national anthem. However, after being displayed in Lima for over 10 years, the Chilean army dismantled the complex watch during their 1881 occupation and took it as a war prize, though nobody in Chile could repair its mechanisms.

Great Clock of Lima

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Great Clock of Lima

 

1872 photograph by Eugenio Courret

The Great Clock of Lima (Spanish: Gran Reloj de Lima),[1] also known as the Pedro Ruiz Gallo clock (Spanish: Reloj de Pedro Ruiz Gallo) after its inventor, was a monumental clock created by Pedro Ruiz Gallo, and which was installed in the Parque de la Exposición in 1870 for the celebration of the Exhibition of 1872. The watch disappeared during the occupation of Lima by the Chilean Army in the War of the Pacific.[2]

 

History

 

The clock (far right) in the park.

After the Spanish-South American War, colonel and inventor Pedro Ruiz Gallo was able to dedicate himself entirely to the ambitious project of building a great clock for the Peruvian capital, which he achieved under the patronage of then-President José Balta, who appointed him attached to the General Staff and financed his work. To carry out the mechanism, he obtained a budget of S/.31,000 from the Peruvian State, to which he added some S/.10,000 from his own pocket.[1][3]

 

Despite the opposition and criticism that his work received, after 6 years of work he was able to inaugurate his mechanical work on December 6, 1870, at 00:00, a few days before the anniversary of the Battle of Ayacucho was celebrated, before the admiration of the public gathered in the gardens in front of the Palacio de la Exposición.[3][4][5][6]

 

The clock was one of the main attractions of the International Exhibition of 1872 held in Lima, where various representative objects of the Andean country were exhibited, as well as machinery that indicated the Peruvian progress generated from the economic boom for the export of guano.[7] It remained at the Palace of the Exhibition, which served as its location for ten years, until the War of the Pacific led to the occupation of Lima in 1881.

 

Theories about its destruction

The clock was exposed in the park for about 10 years. During the occupation of Lima by the Chilean Army, various facilities such as the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, the National Library or the Palacio de la Exposición were used as barracks by the invading troops. One of the theories about the fate of the watch suggests that after being disassembled it was taken as war booty by order of Patricio Lynch, however once in Chile it could not be put into operation.[5] According to Jorge Basadre, its inventor removed essential parts of the mechanism to render it useless so that the enemy could not rebuild it once it was transferred to Santiago de Chile.[6][2]

 

Another theory suggests that the clock was not transferred to Chile, but that its machinery was destroyed by the victorious army and its structure used as a home for the officers of the troops stationed in the Parque de la Exposición. Once the troops withdrew, they reduced the invention to ashes.[1][3]

 

 

Later life and death

In 1879, Pedro Ruiz Gallo returned to the arms race and after the loss of the Huáscar monitor in the naval combat of Angamos and obtained control of the sea by the Chilean squadron, he directed his efforts to the manufacture of torpedoes to be used against the blocking squad that had already appeared in front of Callao.

 

Thus, he died on April 24, 1880, when an explosion ended his life, caused due to an accident while working on an experimental torpedo in a workshop in the Ancón balneario, north of Callao.[4]

 

His body was buried in the Baquíjano del Callao Cemetery, where it remained until April 24, 1940, when, during the government of Manuel Prado Ugarteche, it was ordered that it be transferred to the Crypt of the Heroes of the War of the Pacific, where it currently rests.

With affection,

Ruben

 

 

Rudolf Hausner

 

Rudolf Hausner

He studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna from 1931 until 1936. During this period he also traveled to England, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. After THAT he was designated a “degenerate” artist in 1938, exhibition of his work was banned in Germany. He was enlisted into the Austrian army and served as a soldier from 1941 until 1945. In 1942 he married Grete Czingely. Before allying himself with and co-founding the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, his early works were mainly Expressionist-influenced images of suburbs, still-lifes and female models, most of which he destroyed. In 1944 he married Irene Schmied. During the last days of the war he was assigned to an air defense unit. After the war he returned to his bomb-damaged studio and resumed work as an artist. In 1946 he founded a surrealist group together with Edgar Jené Ernst Fuchs, Wolfgang Hutter and Fritz Janschka. They are later joined by Arik Brauer and Anton Lehmden. He joins the Art-Club and had his first one-man exhibition in the Konzerthaus, Vienna. A key work of this period, It's me!(1948: Vienna, Hist. Mus.), shows his awareness of Pittura Metafisica and Surrealism in a psychoanalytical painting where the elongated being in the foreground penetrates what was apparently a real landscape, until it tears like a backdrop. Another painting, Forum of Inward-turned Optics (1948: Vienna, Hist. Mus.), is evidence of his ability to depict the subject in a realist style while simultaneously overturning the laws of one-point perspective. He marries Hermine Jedlicka in 1951. Their daughter Xenia Hausner, also an artist, is born the same year. After working on the painting for six years he completes his masterpiece The Ark of Odysseus in 1956. The Ark of Odysseus (1948-51 and 1953-6; Vienna,Hist. Mus.) depicts the hero as a self-portrait and was a precursor to the series of Adam paintings in which Hausner painted his own features. In 1957 Hausner paints his first 'Adam' picture. He comes into conflict with the Surrealist orthodoxy, who condemn as heretical his attempt to give equal importance to both conscious and unconscious processes.

Rudolf Hausner - der Narrenhut

In 1959 he co-founds the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism together with Ernst Fuchs, Wolfgang Hutter, Anton Lehmden, Arik Brauer, and Fritz Janschka. In 1962 Hausner meets Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, Victor Brauner and Dorothea Tanning while traveling in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. The 1st Burda Prize for Painting is awarded to him in 1967. In 1969 he is awarded the Prize of the City of Vienna; he separates from Hermine Jedlicka and moves to Hietzing together with his daughter Xenia and Anne Wolgast, who he had met in Hamburg in 1966. From 1966 until 1980 he was a guest professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Küste in Hamburg and also taught at the Academy of Fine Art, Vienna. Among his students are Joseph Bramer, Friedrich Hechelmann, Gottfried Helnwein, Michael Engelhardt, and Siegried Goldberger. Hausner was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Painting in 1970. Hausner has been described as a 'psychic realist' and 'the first psychoanalytical painter' (Gunter Engelhardt).

 

Bibliography:

Die Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus (exh. cat., Hannover,Kestner-Ges., 1965) W. Schmied: Rudolf Hausner (Salzburg, 1970) V.Huber, ed.: Rudolf Hausner: Werksverzeichnis der Druckgraphik von 1966 bis 1975 (Offenbach am Main, 1977) H. Hollander: Rudolf Hausner Werkmonographie (Offenbach am Main, 1985) R. Hausner, Adam und Anima, (exh. cat., Bad Frankenhausen, Panorama Mus., 1994).

Some art Works

Call to personal liberty

The Labyrinth

Beautiful shoreline beach

 

Adam Enginring

Daughters

Return interior

Massive Adam

Adam piramid

Tumb  of Rudolf Hausner  cemetery  Vienna 

 

With affection,

Ruben