Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
Swipe or use the arrow keys.
Facing Pages · Branch 28 of 121
1833 · April 4, 1833
French
p. 55Le 4.
Matinée toute pluvieuse. Le printemps prend une mauvaise tournure. Vers une heure, le ciel s’est déridé et nous avons eu quelques moments de sérénité et de chaleur pénétrante. Maintenant les nuages recommencent à envahir. J’ai vu leurs têtes grises se lever sur l’horizon; en moins de rien, nous aurons perdu l’azur. Ils sont en fuite vers l’orient. J’aime assez cette attitude fuyarde des nuages : il y en a qui semblent se regarder comme pour se porter un défi de vitesse.
The Green Notebook: 1833
p. 56April 4, 1833
An entirely rainy morning. Spring is taking a bad turn. Toward one o’clock the sky lost its frown and we had a few moments of serenity and penetrating warmth. Now the clouds are beginning their invasion again. I saw their gray heads rise above the horizon; in next to no time we shall have lost the blue. They are fleeing eastward. I am rather fond of this fugitive bearing of the clouds: some seem to look at one another as though challenging one another to a race.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1833 · April 4, 1833
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.