{"id":1508,"date":"2021-12-01T08:14:14","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T02:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.suriyakantha.org\/blog\/?p=1508"},"modified":"2021-12-02T07:05:22","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T01:35:22","slug":"thomas-merton-sri-lanka-son-dernier-voyage-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.suriyakantha.org\/blog\/2021\/12\/01\/thomas-merton-sri-lanka-son-dernier-voyage-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Merton – Sri Lanka, son dernier voyage… (3)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I walked a little by the lake in the cool breeze…<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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1 December 1968<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kandy<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A clear, hot sky. Flowering trees. A hot day coming. I woke at the sound of many crows fighting in the air. Then the booming drum at the Temple of Buddha\u2019s Tooth. Now, the traffic of buses and a cool breeze sways the curtains. The jungle is very near, it comes right to the top of the city and is visible a bare hundred yards from this window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Un ciel clair avec des arbres en fleurs ! Il va faire chaud. Le cri des corbeaux se battant en l’air m’ont r\u00e9veill\u00e9. Ensuite le tambour retentissant du temple de la Dent de Bouddha. En ce moment les bus passent. dans la rue et un vent rafra\u00eechissant agite les rideaux. La jungle est tout pr\u00e8s, elle surplombe la ville et je peux la voir \u00e0 cent m\u00e8tres d’ici.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Much of my time was spent with the bishop, visiting the monastery of the Sylvestrines, a quiet place on a hillside amid tall palms, with pleasant cloister and chapel. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

J’ai pass\u00e9 la plus grande partie de ma journ\u00e9e avec l’\u00e9v\u00eaque. J’ai visit\u00e9 le monast\u00e8re des Sylvestrins : un clo\u00eetre agr\u00e9able et une chapelle au milieu des palmiers sur la colline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There I met the retired bishop of Kandy, a jovial and deaf Italian with a long gray beard, Bishop Regno.
He said he judged from my Seven Storey Mountain<\/em> that I had been one of the \u201cfirst hippies.\u201d \u201cOh! Oh! Oh!\u201d he said with upraised hands, \u201cAll the whisky! All the cigarettes!\u201d I reminded him that hippies had no interest in whisky and that they smoked pot, not cigarettes, but I don\u2019t think this penetrated the wall of deafness.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

J’y ai fait la connaissance du pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent \u00e9v\u00eaque de Kandy, un Italien jovial et compl\u00e8tement sourd, avec une longue barbe grise, Monseigneur Regno. Il m’a dit qu’il \u00e9tait persuad\u00e9, apr\u00e8s la lecture de La nuit priv\u00e9e d’\u00e9toiles<\/em> que j’avais \u00e9t\u00e9 l’un des \u00ab\u00a0premiers hippies\u00a0\u00bb. \u00ab\u00a0Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! \u00a0\u00bb a-t- il dit les mains lev\u00e9es, \u00ab\u00a0tout ce whisky ! toutes ces cigarettes !\u00a0\u00bb Je lui ai rappel\u00e9 que les hippies ne s’int\u00e9ressaient pas au whisky et qu’ils fumaient des joints, pas des cigarettes, mais je ne pense pas avoir r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 percer le mur du silence de sa surdit\u00e9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I came back in the evening for dinner and a talk to the seminarians, the Alma Redemptoris<\/em> was sung rather faintly in Latin and Gregorian and I could not feel this was any more out of place than, say, English hymns !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quand je suis revenu pour d\u00eener et faire ma conf\u00e9rence aux s\u00e9minaristes, on chantait doucement le chant gr\u00e9gorien de l’Alma Redemptoris<\/em> qui m’a sembl\u00e9 aussi d\u00e9plac\u00e9 en ces lieux que, disons, des cantiques anglais !<\/p>\n\n\n\n