oh, that i had someone to whisper to! a shadow passed across the ceiling and i felt myself pushed forward - what was reflected; some obscure distress and at the same time, a luminous pride. some say we do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them, but by waiting for them. i have seen archepelagos in the stars, feverish skies where i was free to roam. i find something natural in the circumstance of an obliteration so complete; my lucid unreason is not afraid of chaos.
it may be that some of the thoughts i have just confessed to you are illusory and defective, any notion of teleological justification being, of couse, rejected in advance. much has been said about weakness, but that is not what we are to despair over - the self must be broken in order to become itself. finally, oh reason, oh happiness, i cleared from the sky the blue which is darkness, and i lived as a golden spark of light, made my face look as comic and as wild as i could. i lived as a fabulous opera, and i saw that everyone in the world is doomed to happiness. i struggled like a butterfly pinned alive into an album; action isn’t life, it’s merely a way of ruining a kind of strength, a means of destroying nerves. i evoke this with caution, occasionally - not too often, for fear of wearing it out, i fish it out again - i see the scenery, the characters, the attitudes.
not a single one of the brilliant arguements of madness did i forget - i can go through them all again, i’ve got the system down by heart. the soul empties itself of all its contents in order to recieve into itself the being it is looking at, just as it is in all its truth. i fall again and again ito a heavy sleep which lasts several days at a time, and when i awaken, my dreams continue.
i forgot about everything and drifted on. as a rule, men are conscious only momentarily - we live in a world of unreality and dreams. i see that nature is a show of kindness - my heart has been stabbed by grace - i want to get up and go out, do anything, no matter what, to stupify myself. it is in affliction itself that the splendour of mercy shines from its very depths, in the heart of its inconsolable bitterness. ‘two winged companions’, says an Upanishad, ‘two birds are on the branch of a tree. one eats the fruit, the other looks at it’. these two birds are the two parts of our soul.
some say that a person is the essence of his desires; the thrill, both moral and physical that grips you at the sight of sublime things. it follows that sorrow should be preferred over joy, for it quickens the soul; when it does not vanquish, it stimulates. may your eyes go to the sun - some evening i shall recall the past and repeat my words of mourning - today, however, the sky is too bright, too many birds are singing. my world expands as i see it, compresses here and awaits new openings. i am intoxicated by Spring.
reality lapses, cannot keep up with itself; i am left with my opinion. melancholy calm of outstretched reality, after the sweating and panting of flesh - the lull. i had to travel to dissipate the enchantments that crowded me - the plaintive flesh senses the restless echo of past delights still suggested by some provocative refrain.
whatever is not yet forgotten is not entirely dead. when i was a child my vision was refined in certain skies, my face is the product of every nuance, all phenomena were aroused. now my thoughts have nothing on which to build, and my persistent passions, offsprings of a forgotten past, have imperceptibly reached their peak. we are shaped by definite influences; we must therefore discern them.
but how silent is the night - i am almost afraid to fall asleep. i have to struggle against myself to get free from a gentle, insistent, and finally crushing embrace. thought emerges from the dark background, the future appears above the dark as a ribbon of space. i will turn my thoughts from earlier dreams in order to begin a new life.
life is merely a means, not an end - i shall not pursue it for its own sake. disgust bordering on nausea on looking at life, the life that must be lived! i prefer my dream. to exist before god may seem unendurable to man because he cannot come back to himself, become himself. the first spontaneous outbursts of the soul are easy; easy, too, the first ecstacies. a faith recaptured after its abandonment, reconstructed after its destruction by doubt - this faith is noble, conscious of its existence. that which is imaginary can take any shape.
a new type of sanctity is indeed a fresh spring, an invention. let everything serve to instruct me - the splintering of grace before a new violence. reality is within us, our mind creates its truths. the possibility of such visible forms is endless.
