elena

Paul Morand writes: The woman I mean is dressed in lambskin boots and gloved in mittens, her skin burnt by mountain air and desert winds, exploring inaccessible regions of the earth in the company of Chinese, Tibetans, Russians and Englishmen whose socks she mends, whose wounds she heals, and with whom she sleeps in all innocence under the stars ?This woman is Ella Maillart. "I want to translate the French writer Saint-Exupéry: “A certain cheap literature has told us about the need to escape. Of course one runs away in search of wide horizons, but a wide horizon cannot be found anywhere – it has to be rooted, substantiated inside us. Escaping never leads anywhere.” These words could sum up my life." "When I look at something it is certain that for an instant I am one with what I see. Also I am sure that instinctively we wish to be “everything”, to possess it – why cut the rose or marry the man, otherwise? But shall we ever see the “ten million things” of the universe simultaneously in order to be the all in that way? I think it is in answer to that human urge that the Buddha said: “Not by any travelling is the world’s end reached. Verily I declare to you that within this fathom-long body with its perceptions and its mind lies the world, its arising and its ceasing and the way that leads to its cessation.” I am now convinced that to live is to travel towards the world’s end, to return to the unity we have lost; or at least, if we are unable to do so, to keep searching for signs of that unity. To develop that solidarity I have mentioned, one must not travel like that charming family I met just returning from a round-the-world tour: I wanted to know how the South Sea Islander lives today, but was only given details about the different tennis clubs visited in these islands. No. We must develop a deeper interest and greater understanding of the people we try to meet here or abroad. Like us, they are passengers on board that mysterious ship called “life”. The sooner we learn to be jointly responsible on that ship – instead of blaming the staff – the easier the sailing will be."