The Fountain-basin-wash house - Land Parcel 1002, 28 July

At the fountain-basin-wash house, the tap on the left drains off the water of the source, while the other tap runs a limpid crystal but a bit heavy which is supposed to come from another source. An anonymous hand has disposed on the ciment a bouquet of flowers from the fields in a stemmed glass rescued from some inn-shelf. The land parcel in question, fresh under the sun, describes like a platform of mossy slabs bordered by enormous trees, a kind of Noah’s ark with masts which would hide the sky. Not that the Patriarch has invented the vine or that the latter fructifies easily on these high gascon lands, except for these traces of trellised vines which, here and there, the legionaries of Rome dropped behind them in order to better find again, like Little Tom Thumbs, once their time of service accomplished, the paths to the Eternal city, pressed by the image-memories of provocative Gaditaines* whose hips are undulating, bent down to the earth, exciting so many transports of delight.

*Gaditaines, native women of Cadix in Spain, known for their lascivious dances.

The wine, the legionaries of Rome implanted it in the Narbonnaise, the area of la Clape or of Barbaira and found it sometimes so much to their taste that, the hour of their retirement having sounded, they came back to settle down in these formerly occupied lands, such as these adjutants of the Cafarellus barracks, bloated face in keeping with the job, opening a tavern on the other site of the street, facing their former guard-room.

The Wines of France in Literature - July 44

At Radio Paris National : “the wines of France in literature”, which really are different from these wines of Alba, of Sorrent, of Fondi, of Trifolin, of Signia, of Tarent, all the V.D.Q.S. and not the Sabinum, Horace”s wine or the wine of Setia (the favourite of Augustus) or the wine of Flassa, which one drinks and which one does not forget.