Ramuz Charles Ferdinand – Beauty on Earth: Where beauty could find place among men, how would it find place among them?

A young orphan of 19 years, Juliette, born in Cuba, arrives in a village on the shores of Lake Geneva. Her beauty unleashes passions and sows disorder among the inhabitants. Housed in her uncle’s home, she works in her inn. But in addition to facing the jealousy of her aunt, she must defend herself against the lusts of men.

She will find refuge with a fisherman, but without being safe from the hostilities of other inhabitants. It will then have only one solution.

“We must see how magically this simple story is presented to us, with what plastic and musical greatness all together. Vast landscapes of water, stone and sky envelop the characters: it is not enough to say that they surround them, they participate in their action. The waves, the sand, the forest become living people, enlightened by images that pass over them like lightning “(G. Duplain, C.F. Ramuz: a biography, Ed., 24 Hours, 1991, 311)

Written in a few weeks, this 16th Ramuzan novel, on the same theme as Luisita by Édouard Rod, will be one of his favorites, after Passage du Poète.