Impressions Of Africa - Closing

We made an uneventful crossing, and on the 19th of July we took leave of each other on the quayside at La Joliette, after a cordial exchange of handshakes, in which only Tancred Bucharessas could take no part.

Impressions Of Africa - pg. 213

There, for half an hour, Talu, producing a falsetto voice of no little purity, strove humbly to copy the examples given by Carmichael, who, extremely surprised to discover the monarch's unexpected facility, displayed a zeal both indefatigable and sincere.

Impressions Of Africa - pg. 27

The magpie ended this performance of its own accord and with a few flaps of its wings, reached the bust of Immanuel Kant; on top of the stand, to the left, was a little perch on which the bird landed.
Immediately, a strong light illuminated the skull from within, and the casing, which was excessively thin, became completely transparent from the line of the eyebrows upwards.
One divined the presence of countless reflectors, placed facing in every direction inside the head. So great was the violence with which the bright rays, representing the fires of genius, escaped from their incandescent source.
Repeatedly the magpie took flight, to return immediately to its perch, thus constantly extinguishing and relighting the cranial dome, which alone burned with a thousand lights, while the face, the ears and the nape of the neck remained in darkness. Each time the bird's weight was applied to the lever, it seemed as though some transcendent idea was born in the thinker's brain, as it blazed suddenly with light.

Impressions Of Africa - Opening

At about four o'clock on that 25th June, everything appeared to be ready for the coronation of Talu VII, Emperor of Ponukele and King of Drelshkaf.
Although the sun was low in the sky, the heat was still over-powering in that part of Africa, near the equator, and the thundery atmosphere, untempered by the slightest breeze, weighed oppressively on every one of us.

IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA
a novel
By RAYMOND ROUSSEL

Translated by
Lindy Foord and Rayner Heppenstall

University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

Originally publisehd as Impressions d`Afrique by
Alphonse Lemerie, Paris 1910 (4th impression
1932) Re-issued by Jean Jacques Pauvert, 1963;
Jean-Jacques Pauvert
This translation, Rayner Heppenstall, 1966

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 67-13139


Printed in Great Britain