On the Track of Robert van Gulik · 片段“日本小田原” · 2′42″

Robert van Gulik vivait en grande partie dans un monde créé par lui-même. Un monde quelque part entre l'Extrême-Orient et les Pays-Bas, entre la dynastie des Tang et le XXe siècle.

Robert van Gulik lived largely in a world of his own making. A world somewhere between the Far East and the Netherlands, between the Tang dynasty and the 20th century.

En 1936, pendant son séjour au Japon, dans la station thermale de Odawara, il écrit son premier recueil de poésie.

In 1936, during his stay in Japan, in the hot-spring resort of Odawara, he writes his first collection of poetry.

Près de 80 ans plus tard, je retrouve le même ryokan traditionnel, à la même apparence, avec le même agencement et le même rite.

Nearly 80 years later, I find the same traditional ryokan, with the same look, the same layout and the same ritual.

We sit down on the silk floor cushions a sedately dressed maid has placed on the spotless mats. Then we taste the fragrant tea she pours out in the beautifully lacquered tea bowls. Then, after the list of fragrant names, the guest book has been duly filled in and the maid has noiselessly retired. I hear now for the first time the soft murmur of the hot springs.

There is a chaste intimacy about the shared bath. Here, a hoary tradition links bathing with ritual cleansing. And though according to the ancient custom men and women bathe together completely naked, in the bathroom the nude is seen but not looked at, and there is no thought of amorous dalliance.

As we are lying there motionless, I am grateful for your blessed gift of silence. The drops in your blue-black tresses are like so many pearls.