François Sureau: "In your" Parisian Diary, where you describe a visit with Braque, you remark that old age has enriched you. You are 98 years old. What do you owe to the "age of patriarchs?"
One does not notice so much that one has reached old age, than the fact that others have not. A few years ago I was surprised to discover that I was older than Emperor Franz Joseph, the patriarch par excellence. I think also of the Prince Regent of Bavaria: he was eighty years old and hunting when he said to his gamekeeper: "Now we are hunting chamois, as always, and I don't notice anything unusual." And the gamekeeper answered him: "Yes, your highness, but the other people notice it!” The age surprises me when I see the weather experts on TV. They are always the same. Little by little their hair turns white, they start wearing glasses. So I tell myself that it must be the same with me. But the key feature of old age is that one's approach to things changes. Political issues become less important, theological issues become more important.
FS: Do you not feel nostalgia for youth?
Every age has its spring, a spring that takes many forms. I certainly have the spirit of my age. Voltaire said, "He who does not have the spirit of his age will suffer much misfortune."
FS: And what does this spirit consist of?
I have the impression that life is becoming easier. A library of three thousand volumes is reduced to 26 letters of the alphabet. When you get down to the substance, one letter is enough.
FS: You have compared life to an island in the ocean of death. Often you have been battered by its surging waves. What have you learned from this?
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