ADAM (Paul). - Lot 2

Lot n° 2
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Result : 60EUR
ADAM (Paul). - Lot 2
ADAM (Paul). Born in Paris. 1862-1920. Writer, journalist and art critic. M.A.S. "Paul Adam" entitled Les Pâques de Corfou. S.l.n.d. 6 pp. 1/2 in-folio. Numerous erasures and corrections. In this colorful account, Paul Adam brings to life the ritual of the Orthodox Easter on the island of Corfu, which was attended by numerous personalities, including the Emperor of Germany. ...Since the Emperor of Germany stayed in Corfu during Greek Easter, his administrators and American yachtsmen have been happy to call at the harbor formed by the strait between the island of Nausica and the coast of Epirus. A literary landscape of blue mountains and curving beaches embracing the calm beauty of the sea, where in many places the shade of giant olive trees can be seen. A very old fortress forms the acropolis on the cape, tapering like a trireme and seemingly plunging through the spur into the waters [...]. Everywhere, cypresses divide space with their severe lines. They guide and ennoble it. [...] The incomparable reader that was Elisabeth of Austria could not have chosen a site more fertile in suggestions... Foreign conquerors followed one another here. ...Today, the German Caesar winds its way through the valleys, climbs the hills, descends and skirts the sea to the sound of the trumpet announcing the impetus of five reddish automobiles, one stamped with the imperial crown, bearing a yellow flag with a black eagle and carrying a Siegfried, sometimes in a capote and chauffeur's beret, sometimes in a white cap and military coat. [...] The atmosphere in Corfu is one of Prussian loyalty [...]. To break this ecstasy, it takes nothing less than the appalling din of Orthodox Easter. When eleven o'clock thunders at the mouth of the cannon on this feast day, all the fathers of the family slit their throats at once, on the threshold, the Paschal lamb, held between their legs, in the midst of fusillades, musketades and salvos, the blare of fanfares and the shattering of crockery falling from all the balconies onto the invisible soul of Judas the Iscariot. From the innumerable staircases that climb the arcaded alleys, blood pours, trickles and spreads in ruddy pools. At the same time, from twenty Orthodox churches, the processions rush forward with their music, and their long-haired, bearded popes, in sumptuous goldfroi dalmatic [embroidered tunics]. They show the golds, jewels and silvers of the icons to the people, who throw firecrackers, before kneeling in the blood of sheep. The slaughter continues, the dying bleating from the top to the bottom of the city. Pious choirs intone their hymns in front of the repositories [...]. The crowd rushes to the cathedral of Saint-Spirideon [Saint Spyridon]... After this hour, which evokes...the struggle between Turks and Christians, it's back to the village of Gastouri, in the shadow of Achilleion, that tourists flock. They anxiously await the emperor's presence at the Easter dances [...]. Loaded with monumental flowery headdresses, armored with jewels, adorned with velvet and gold Grecian jackets, red or yellow or blue silk aprons, fifty women follow the Eleusis march. Four steps forward, one step back, these fifty idols advance and retreat, five abreast, hands entwined. [...] And on the slab in the shade of a colossal fig tree, the fifty idols radiate to the rhythm of their steps, to the sounds of low music before the horizon of Epirus. Over there, the snowy mountains, their bluish foothills, the azure of the wide sea, and the twisted trunks of the olive trees... And in this setting reminiscent of ancient life, the festive people and foreign visitors come to ...salute the good fortune of the taunting Caesar...
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