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« It’s still cool under a little sun that shines more than it warms, among the mists that hang all the way down to us with their folds against the mountain slopes. And, again, thinking of the Rhône: ‘How’s it going to do it?’ and we say to it: ‘How are you going to do it?’ because it can hear us, because we can hear it. It is right nearby. We are soon there. It’s easy to find, small and puny between its white sandbanks, with transparent greenish water, the high snows and glaciers yet to start melting; and, because we can also see where it’s going, we want to say to it: ‘Don’t go any further, there’s no need, stop….’
In front of it, in front of us, the valley is completely closed. Not a crack to be seen. In this early-spring sky, this western sky that we must seek out high up with our eyes in the brightness and under the mists, the long-parallel chains have joined and welded together, the one that is light yellow, the one that is like a primrose, and the one that in its pockets and in its folds keeps everywhere remnants of winter and night with their stains like blue ink.”

Portes du lac, 1932