The Language Castle

Knowledgeable Listener

"I have always enjoyed the power I had over men. Just walking down the street and swaying and swinging my mandolin-shaped butt in front of their gaze." Erica Jong

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In 1897, Isabelle Eberhardt converts to Islam in Annaba (Algeria). She disguises herself as a man, joins the ranks of the cavalry and circulates as Si Mahmoud Saadi. In June 1901, the sailor Pierre Mouchet arrives in Marseille and turns out to be Isabelle Eberhardt. Suspected of espionage and insubordination, the agent of her own lifestyle is eagerly awaiting her fiancé. Six months later, hardship catches up with her in the Kasbah of Algiers. As the wife of a penniless Algerian, all she has left is air and love. Eberhardt writes even though she is plagued by hunger.Her descriptions cover poor conditions with a glaze. For the European, nomads are "natives", although Eberhardt is known as a critic of colonial attributions. She gives her heroine a fate that deviates from a probable course. She is promised to the one-eyed Mohammed Elaour, who has trouble raising the bride price. The wedding is delayed and Yasmina fulfills her daughterly duties as a shepherdess. This is how she is found by Lieutenant Jacques, a native of the Ardennes (in a fever of poetry): in a glowing hollow that is also a juniper orchard.He gets caught up in an Algerian shepherd's play that cries out for a painter.Yasmina flees from the speech, "but she fled the enemy of her defeated race".

The officer builds a bridge of longing to the disappearing woman. He immediately recognizes what is denied by the rags: a sharp-edged, darkly childish (mystical) charm, which Jacques combines ethnologically with a fetishistic Islam. The admirer is transformed into a humming top of oriental gibberish and African chimeras. Yasmina now serves exoticism. Her absence allows Jacques to mentally masturbate into the desert without restraint.Eberhardt equips him with a pre-modern soul figure who celebrates a wedding with Yasmina's untimeliness. I read the story thirty years ago and am now amazed at how clichéd it is.Eberhardt ennobles the Frenchman. She gives him the task of making a Christian hater receptive to his desires. He entices her with sweets until Yasmina lets go of her protective shyness.

From Cornelius' records

Once again, I realize that the closest relationships are a gateway to betrayal. I need to protect myself most from those I would prefer not to oppose at all. I park the car in the parking lot of the Lüdersbacher Hof. The restaurant is closed. I feel right at home here and could always have my cappuccino, decaffeinated if necessary, served with a cookie by the landlords in the living room. I gladly take the pinch of belonging. Since my master's death, the Lüdersbach Gorge has taken on the role of a knowledgeable listener. I experience the forest on the slopes as a sounding board for my thoughts. I ask questions in the room and find answers within myself. That's how I sometimes felt in conversations with my master. I presented my ideas to him. The knowledgeable listener often limited himself to silent participation and in the end we were both wiser.

Originally, the Lüdersbach gave off its water to the River Eder. Today, it is just a tributary of the main ditch, which had its source-free beginning as a standing body of water in a meadow. Lüdersbach is also the name of the district of Ederthal on the ridge of the Hahnenkamm. The ravine leads to the ancient raised bog in the Klingenbacher Aue. The moor continues to grow and has its own climate. Its losses are the gains of the Klingenbach, which drains to the Eder after merging with the River Schmalnau. Klingenbach is a landscape term and the name of a castle. A ruined 12th-century colossus and a valley that the Eder cut into slate are called by this name. I watch black-tailed godwits, wood sandpipers and gray shrikes on a moss bed full of sundew, cranberry and black crowberry. For centuries, the area was ideal for spotting wild cats.

In the Middle Ages, the attempt at agricultural use failed. The floodplain gives a longing the right and the peace to experience the world as if it were new. A pietistic Anabaptist movement made its way from there to America. These people called themselves Tunker, which became Dunker. They kept up their religious activities in Pennsylvania.

A newt appears. My reception of the universe is best in nature. I notice a wooden monarch on the moor bridge.