Winter treasures
Since 21 December, the days have been getting longer and the nights shorter. The perfect time to get together and tell stories by candlelight. Here’s one based on a few photographs: December candles by Buonomo & Cometti. Text: Isabelle Cerboneschi. Photos & Style: Buonomo & Cometti.
In Switzerland, in the heart of the Valais, not far from the village of Icogne, there’s a secret cavern that you enter through a tricky door. To get there, you have to follow the Bisse de Lens and not suffer from heights. Built into the mountainside in the mid-sixteenth century, this bisse was used to transport water from the rivers, fed by melting snow, to the cultivated land of central Valais, where rainfall was rare. The view is majestic, but the access is difficult: the path runs along vertiginous rock walls and the cliff falls sheer.
You still have to cross suspended bridges and pass through a wall of water that conceals a breach so small that only one person can enter at a time. The lair is hidden deep in the rock and its entrance is a trompe l’oeil. But even with a map, this place is hidden from the eyes of the curious who might come looking for it.
The masters of this place have travelled the length and breadth of the Earth to collect the treasures of all kinds that they have amassed and gathered there for obscure reasons. Ancient gold coins, diamonds from Golconde and secret parchments rub shoulders with Japanese amber, spices and even stardust preciously guarded in crumpled papers… The rare, very rare people who have had the honour of visiting this magical cave have discovered to their astonishment that inside the cavern grow golden trees whose precious leaves never fall.
Every year, a few days before New Year’s Eve, the two travellers gather in the cave to light candles and let them burn until they are gone. Their fragrance perfumes the place and gives it an air of sanctuary. They come here to meditate and rest after their long journeys.
Those who met the two travellers say that one of them had once been madly in love with a mermaid. When they parted, he had collected her tears in his hands. They were as translucent as clear stream water. He dried them under a moonlight glow, and by morning they had turned into a dozen magnificent pearls. One for each month of the year. So as not to forget. They now rest in the treasure lair, sheltered in a chest adorned with mother-of-pearl and lined with red velvet.
The second traveller possessed impalpable treasures and knew some distant secrets revealed by the soft murmur of silence as night fell over the deserts of Orient. He had gathered them together in a grimoire bound in gold-leafed leather. This man knew the art of colouring days: Jade, Amber, Pearl, Shadow, Emerald, Sapphire,… Every day, even the saddest, deserved a touch of colour to him.
He chose to paint this 29 December in black and gold. And if you want to know why, you’ll have to ask him…
Pictures: Buonomo & Cometti