Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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English Page · Branch 107 of 121
1835 · April 8, 1835
French
p. 213Le 8.
Ma tête est sèche. J’y souffre une douleur moitié morale, moitié physique. J’y sens à de certains jours comme un peloton de nerfs qui s’y forme par des contractions sourdes et tyranniques. L’excès du froid ou de la chaleur, l’ennui, certains mouvements de tête, des irritations internes contribuent à cela. Je n’imagine plus rien alors. Une étrange stupeur me saisit, je demeure immobile, ne sentant rien que la fixité lourde, accablante de la vie, qui paraît s’arrêter dans un état de mal-être incompréhensible, et le battement d’une artère qui s’agite en cet endroit de la tête.
The Green Notebook: 1835
p. 214April 8, 1835
My head is dry. I suffer there a pain half moral, half physical. On certain days I feel something like a ball of nerves forming there through dull, tyrannical contractions. Excessive cold or heat, boredom, certain movements of the head, inward irritations contribute to this. Then I imagine nothing. A strange stupor seizes me; I remain motionless, feeling nothing but the heavy, overwhelming fixity of life, which seems to stop in a state of incomprehensible unease, and the beating of an artery stirring in that part of my head.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1835 · April 8, 1835
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Maurice de Guérin’s journal moves between close attention to nature, friendship, faith, and the inward demands of poetry. This bilingual edition presents the complete Journal section of the 1864 printing, with a separate appendix of earlier printed passages from 1861.
Historical Text and Translation
The French follows G. S. Trébutien’s sixth edition of Journal, lettres et poèmes (Paris: Didier et Cie, 1864), pages 3–126. Its 116 dated entries run from July 1832 to October 1835. Five earlier passages from Reliquiae (1861) appear separately in the appendix. Completeness refers to the printed Journal, rather than the autograph notebook; the following letters and poems are outside this edition.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the French, preserving Guérin’s imagery, repetitions, intimate voice, and original paragraph divisions. French and English remain aligned for comparison. Translator’s notes clarify words, quotations, and allusions, while historical editor notes retain their separate attribution. The Essential setting keeps explanations useful to reading; All also includes the note on the edition’s typographic treatment.
Rights
The historical French printings are in the public domain in the United States. The independent English translation and new editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The linked facsimiles identify the printed witnesses used for this edition. Historical annotations and editorial conjectures remain attributed to their source editors, and the earlier variant passages are presented separately from the later Journal text.