Nothing has begun yet. Already everything is past. From edge to edge a soft haze has veiled the light...
La Vielle de Noël
Nothing has begun yet. Already everything is past.
From edge to edge a soft haze has veiled the light.
Moisture streams from the fog - now rain, now snow.
No valleys, no mountains, no lakes, no rivers can be made out.
Silently creeping up, from edge to edge
one single haze covers every distance,
Without shape, without colors, and without bounds, a whitish veil.
Two steps away nothing can be seen, and in the thawing snow
the footprint sinks
Of this unknown couple, for whom
there is no room in the inn.
On the face of the deep, darkness again, as it was
before the beginning of time.
Everything droops into the languor of nonbeing, into fog and sleep.
Like a fir beneath the snow, like a beast in its den, the will drowses,
and reason is silent.
Maybe the heart of love keeps watch, yet love itself
sleeps and sleeps.
Quiet and muffled, hour after hour, the eye is fogged,
and the mind is blind -
Until sensitive midnight makes out an infant's cry.
(S. S. Averintsev, Geneva, 24.12.1994)
La Vielle de Noël - Christmas Eve (French)
2
2:1 That all the world should be enrolled - That all the inhabitants, male and female, of every town in the Roman empire, with their families and estates, should be registered.
2:2 When Cyrenius was governor of Syria - When Publius Sulpicius Quirinus governed the province of Syria, in which Judea was then included.
2:6 And while they were there, the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered - Mary seems not to have known that the child must have been born in Bethlehem, agreeably to the prophecy.But the providence of God took care for it.
2:7 She laid him in the manger - Perhaps it might rather be translated in the stall. They were lodged in the ox stall, fitted up on occasion of the great concourse, for poor guests.There was no room for them in the inn - Now also, there is seldom room for Christ in an inn. Mat 1:25