as a very young child i was ignorant of some things to which i had been exposed. i remember hours of silver and sun near rivers - even a person who has come through his affliction will still have something left in him, compelling him to plunge into it again if it has bitten deeply and forever into the substance of his soul. i ran away, my hands stuck in pockets that seemed all holes, i imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. as the damned soul rises, so too does the fire. the spirit must rest. the effort that brings a soul to salvation is like the effort of looking or listening; it is the kind of effort by which to fiancee accepts her lover. the eye withdraws by a century into the soul. oh! what precious stones lay hidden, what flowers were already looking down.

everyone is right; things become true as soon as someone believes in them.  had i dreamed of this enormous presence? behind the hoods of the burnooses and behind a ramaprt of veils, only their eyes could be seen; the strong smells encompassed me and the water more pure than that of Jabal made sounds of another age. ‘do you believe this?’ my soul replied, still smiling and repeating to itself….but i was bothered too much by these thoughts when i was young. i wanted to get up, i fell back again, happy, desperately happy to die at last; death too is cool and its shade shelters no god. i was caressed by the passage of a tender phrase, the triumphant motive of the bells having been banished, dispersed by others. nothing happened. there was no need for extraordainary circumstances, all i needed was a little precision. i have been patient for so long….i fortell you the time of great blessing, and the felicity of fountains in our dreams.

love transcends mourning and death. knowing the laugh of the dead, let this fruit be peeled for us - an endless, obstinate, ludicrous prayer. the beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth, for we have a right to everything; to life, to work, to wealth, to command, to respect, and finally, to immortality. oh World! and the shining sun of new sorrows. i refuse to be erased, i will stand as a witness against you - and in that, a barren enjoyment wrung from suffering, it is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. i loved the desert, burnt orchards, tired old shops, warm drinks; i dragged myself through stinking alleys, and with my eyes closed i offered myself to the sun, the god of fire. i felt with boredom that i had no way of understanding. i pray more fervently, aloud, but doubt appears, irony. my spirit languishes, my nerves grow taut, and the prayer dies on stammering lips. and now tears, and reason which whispers derisively to the soul, saying, ‘you did not have to pray so long, that bores Me’.

the sun and blue sky were only a snare. to force oneself to believe when there is no recourse is sentimental sophistry. true, i’ve cried too much - i am heartsick at dawn. the first light of day for other living creatures, and for me the inexorable sun. who is speaking, no one, the sky does not part, no, no, God does not speak in the desert…..when i awoke it was noon. an odor of violets and clay in the hands of our maidens haunted us in our thoughts of foundation and fortune. i learned the magic of felicity; it enchants us all. the shadows have increased an lengthened. now the sun has set - evening songs as in times past. i once came close to a conversion to the good and to felicity, salvation.  here end the written pages. already you know their favourite tale; the needy captains in immortal paths, the notables crowding to do us obeisance, the whole population of the year holding aloft its gods on staves, and the master saying: i have faith in my destiny….

bright fires, falling in squalls of sleet - at night, when the body surrenders to sleep, the soul escapes. thus was the City founded and placed in the morning under the labials of a holy name, a charming sun with a light mist which promises a clear day. a thousand dreams within me softly burn. in true love, it is not we who love the afflicted in God, it is God in us who loves them. at the pure ides of day, what do we know of our dreams, older than ourselves? and yet, had they not hovered over us, our acts would not be acts of true love …. . so i explained my magical sophistries by turning words into visions. these small letters do not shine. in busy lands are the greatest silences, in busy lands with the locusts at noon.

in this vast country we have loved so much, we are alone. i got used to elementary hallucination. come, we are amazed at you, Sun! you have told us such lies. again the night came alive outside the window where the starless sky gently shifted. i take three more baths of yellow light and see an old woman round the corner. morning comes and the body stirs, awakens, rises….the woman has lain down with the man in the grass, she too rises, arranges the lines of her body, and the cricket makes off on a blue wing. i did not die, a budding hatred stood up one day, just as i did, walked toward the back door, opened it, and closed it behind me. the air does me good, but God, how cold it is. gardens of stars are coming from the black sky above the palm trees and the house. the Spirit shakes its chains so violently that it breaks them or is broken by them.

what do i care any longer about the noise of the world, what do i have to do with these who sit beside me, bowed with laziness and boredom? so long as God does not give me the certainty that he is ordering me to do anything else, i think it is my duty - i have built myself, with honour and dignity have I build myself on three great seasons, and it promises well, the soil whereupon I have established my Law. neither words nor gestures give shape to thought - they proceed from the frivolous mind. beautiful are bright weapons in the morning and behind us the sea is fair. the sun is unmentioned but his power is with us and the sea at morning is like a presumption of the mind. i dreamed of crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of. the body is not an indispensible interpreter, there are more subtle communions, embraces of which it knows nothing. in this moment of awakening i had a vision of purity.

do not expect me to provide an exact account of what i had been permitted to experience in this domain. oh genaeologist upon the market-place! how many chronicles of families and connexions? may the dead sieze the quick, as it is said in the tables of the law, if i have not seen each thing in its own shadow and the virtues of its age. things, you might have called them thoughts, which stopped halfway, which were forgotten, which forgot that they wanted to think, and which stayed like that - hanging about with an odd little sense which was beyond them. it is, i mean, a perpetual unfettering, but it is not the martyrdom one udergoes which creates this freedom; for this unfettering to be possible, the fetters must not crush us. my voice is enveloped in silence, the lamps and the carpets of my vigil make the sound of nocturnal waves. i cover my eyes with my hands to keep anything from interfering with the divine dream. i feel God is with me.