¿Cuánto tiempo has estado aquí?

Nicolas Muller, Fête du Mawlid (Tanger, 1942)

Y Dios lo hizo morir durante cien años
y luego lo animó y le dijo:
-¿Cuánto tiempo has estado aquí?
-Un día o parte de un día, respondió.

Alcorán, II, 261.

La noche del catorce de marzo de 1939, en un departamento de la Zeltnergasse de Praga, Jaromir Hladík, autor de la inconclusa tragedia Los enemigos, de una Vindicación de la eternidad y de un examen de las indirectas fuentes judías de Jakob Boehme, soñó con un largo ajedrez. No lo disputaban dos individuos sino dos familias ilustres; la partida había sido entablada hace muchos siglos; nadie era capaz de nombrar el olvidado premio, pero se murmuraba que era enorme y quizá infinito; las piezas y el tablero estaban en una torre secreta; Jaromir (en el sueño) era el primogénito de una de las familias hostiles; en los relojes resonaba la hora de la impostergable jugada; el soñador corría por las arenas de un desierto lluvioso y no lograba recordar las figuras ni las leyes del ajedrez. En ese punto, se despertó. Cesaron los estruendos de la lluvia y de los terribles relojes. Un ruido acompasado y unánime, cortado por algunas voces de mando, subía de la Zeltnergasse. Era el amanecer, las blindadas vanguardias del Tercer Reich entraban en Praga.

El diecinueve, las autoridades recibieron una denuncia; el mismo diecinueve, al atardecer, Jaromir Hladík fue arrestado. Lo condujeron a un cuartel aséptico y blanco, en la ribera opuesta del Moldau. No pudo levantar uno solo de los cargos de la Gestapo: su apellido materno era Jaroslavski, su sangre era judía, su estudio sobre Boehme era judaizante, su firma delataba el censo final de una protesta contra el Anschluss. En 1928, había traducido el Sepher Yezirah para la editorial Hermann Barsdorf; el efusivo catálogo de esa casa había exagerado comercialmente el renombre del traductor; ese catálogo fue hojeado por Julius Rothe, uno de los jefes en cuyas manos estaba la suerte de Hladík. No hay hombre que, fuera de su especialidad, no sea crédulo; dos o tres adjetivos en letra gótica bastaron para que Julius Rothe admitiera la preeminencia de Hladík y dispusiera que lo condenaran a muerte, pour encourager les autres. Se fijó el día veintinueve de marzo, a las nueve a.m. Esa demora (cuya importancia apreciará después el lector) se debía al deseo administrativo de obrar impersonal y pausadamente, como los vegetales y los planetas.

El primer sentimiento de Hladík fue de mero terror. Pensó que no lo hubieran arredrado la horca, la decapitación o el degüello, pero que morir fusilado era intolerable. En vano se redijo que el acto puro y general de morir era lo temible, no las circunstancias concretas. No se cansaba de imaginar esas circunstancias: absurdamente procuraba agotar todas las variaciones. Anticipaba infinitamente el proceso, desde el insomne amanecer hasta la misteriosa descarga. Antes del día prefijado por Julius Rothe, murió centenares de muertes, en patios cuyas formas y cuyos ángulos fatigaban la geometría, ametrallado por soldados variables, en número cambiante, que a veces lo ultimaban desde lejos; otras, desde muy cerca. Afrontaba con verdadero temor (quizá con verdadero coraje) esas ejecuciones imaginarias; cada simulacro duraba unos pocos segundos; cerrado el círculo, Jaromir interminablemente volvía a las trémulas vísperas de su muerte. Luego reflexionó que la realidad no suele coincidir con las previsiones; con lógica perversa infirió que prever un detalle circunstancial es impedir que éste suceda. Fiel a esa débil magia, inventaba, para que no sucedieran, rasgos atroces; naturalmente, acabó por temer que esos rasgos fueran proféticos. Miserable en la noche, procuraba afirmarse de algún modo en la sustancia fugitiva del tiempo. Sabía que éste se precipitaba hacia el alba del día veintinueve; razonaba en voz alta: Ahora estoy en la noche del veintidós; mientras dure esta noche (y seis noches más) soy invulnerable, inmortal. Pensaba que las noches de sueño eran piletas hondas y oscuras en las que podía sumergirse. A veces anhelaba con impaciencia la definitiva descarga, que lo redimiría, mal o bien, de su vana tarea de imaginar. El veintiocho, cuando el último ocaso reverberaba en los altos barrotes, lo desvió de esas consideraciones abyectas la imagen de su drama Los enemigos.

Hladík había rebasado los cuarenta años. Fuera de algunas amistades y de muchas costumbres, el problemático ejercicio de la literatura constituía su vida; como todo escritor, medía las virtudes de los otros por lo ejecutado por ellos y pedía que los otros lo midieran por lo que vislumbraba o planeaba. Todos los libros que había dado a la estampa le infundían un complejo arrepentimiento. En sus exámenes de la obra de Boehme, de Abnesra y de Flood, había intervenido esencialmente la mera aplicación; en su traducción del Sepher Yezirah, la negligencia, la fatiga y la conjetura. Juzgaba menos deficiente, tal vez, la Vindicación de la eternidad: el primer volumen historia las diversas eternidades que han ideado los hombres, desde el inmóvil Ser de Parménides hasta el pasado modificable de Hinton; el segundo niega (con Francis Bradley) que todos los hechos del universo integran una serie temporal. Arguye que no es infinita la cifra de las posibles experiencias del hombre y que basta una sola "repetición" para demostrar que el tiempo es una falacia... Desdichadamente, no son menos falaces los argumentos que demuestran esa falacia; Hladík solía recorrerlos con cierta desdeñosa perplejidad. También había redactado una serie de poemas expresionistas; éstos, para confusión del poeta, figuraron en una antología de 1924 y no hubo antología posterior que no los heredara. De todo ese pasado equívoco y lánguido quería redimirse Hladík con el drama en verso Los enemigos. (Hladík preconizaba el verso, porque impide que los espectadores olviden la irrealidad, que es condición del arte.)

Este drama observaba las unidades de tiempo, de lugar y de acción; transcurría en Hradcany, en la biblioteca del barón de Roemerstadt, en una de las últimas tardes del siglo diecinueve. En la primera escena del primer acto, un desconocido visita a Roemerstadt. (Un reloj da las siete, una vehemencia de último sol exalta los cristales, el aire trae una arrebatada y reconocible música húngara.) A esta visita siguen otras; Roemerstadt no conoce las personas que lo importunan, pero tiene la incómoda impresión de haberlos visto ya, tal vez en un sueño. Todos exageradamente lo halagan, pero es notorio -primero para los espectadores del drama, luego para el mismo barón- que son enemigos secretos, conjurados para perderlo. Roemerstadt logra detener o burlar sus complejas intrigas; en el diálogo, aluden a su novia, Julia de Weidenau, y a un tal Jaroslav Kubin, que alguna vez la importunó con su amor. Éste, ahora, se ha enloquecido y cree ser Roemerstadt... Los peligros arrecian; Roemerstadt, al cabo del segundo acto, se ve en la obligación de matar a un conspirador. Empieza el tercer acto, el último. Crecen gradualmente las incoherencias: vuelven actores que parecían descartados ya de la trama; vuelve, por un instante, el hombre matado por Roemerstadt. Alguien hace notar que no ha atardecido: el reloj da las siete, en los altos cristales reverbera el sol occidental, el aire trae la arrebatada música húngara. Aparece el primer interlocutor y repite las palabras que pronunció en la primera escena del primer acto. Roemerstadt le habla sin asombro; el espectador entiende que Roemerstadt es el miserable Jaroslav Kubin. El drama no ha ocurrido: es el delirio circular que interminablemente vive y revive Kubin.

Nunca se había preguntado Hladík si esa tragicomedia de errores era baladí o admirable, rigurosa o casual. En el argumento que he bosquejado intuía la invención más apta para disimular sus defectos y para ejercitar sus felicidades, la posibilidad de rescatar (de manera simbólica) lo fundamental de su vida. Había terminado ya el primer acto y alguna escena del tercero; el carácter métrico de la obra le permitía examinarla continuamente, rectificando los hexámetros, sin el manuscrito a la vista. Pensó que aun le faltaban dos actos y que muy pronto iba a morir. Habló con Dios en la oscuridad. Si de algún modo existo, si no soy una de tus repeticiones y erratas, existo como autor de Los enemigos. Para llevar a término ese drama, que puede justificarme y justificarte, requiero un año más. Otórgame esos días, Tú de Quien son los siglos y el tiempo. Era la última noche, la más atroz, pero diez minutos después el sueño lo anegó como un agua oscura.

Hacia el alba, soñó que se había ocultado en una de las naves de la biblioteca del Clementinum. Un bibliotecario de gafas negras le preguntó: ¿Qué busca? Hladík le replicó: Busco a Dios. El bibliotecario le dijo: Dios está en una de las letras de una de las páginas de uno de los cuatrocientos mil tomos del Clementinum. Mis padres y los padres de mis padres han buscado esa letra; yo me he quedado ciego, buscándola. Se quitó las gafas y Hladík vio los ojos, que estaban muertos. Un lector entró a devolver un atlas. Este atlas es inútil, dijo, y se lo dio a Hladík. Éste lo abrió al azar. Vio un mapa de la India, vertiginoso. Bruscamente seguro, tocó una de las mínimas letras. Una voz ubicua le dijo: El tiempo de tu labor ha sido otorgado. Aquí Hladík se despertó.

Recordó que los sueños de los hombres pertenecen a Dios y que Maimónides ha escrito que son divinas las palabras de un sueño, cuando son distintas y claras y no se puede ver quien las dijo. Se vistió; dos soldados entraron en la celda y le ordenaron que los siguiera.

Del otro lado de la puerta, Hladík había previsto un laberinto de galerías, escaleras y pabellones. La realidad fue menos rica: bajaron a un traspatio por una sola escalera de fierro. Varios soldados -alguno de uniforme desabrochado- revisaban una motocicleta y la discutían. El sargento miró el reloj: eran las ocho y cuarenta y cuatro minutos. Había que esperar que dieran las nueve. Hladík, más insignificante que desdichado, se sentó en un montón de leña. Advirtió que los ojos de los soldados rehuían los suyos. Para aliviar la espera, el sargento le entregó un cigarrillo. Hladík no fumaba; lo aceptó por cortesía o por humildad. Al encenderlo, vio que le temblaban las manos. El día se nubló; los soldados hablaban en voz baja como si él ya estuviera muerto. Vanamente, procuró recordar a la mujer cuyo símbolo era Julia de Weidenau...

El piquete se formó, se cuadró. Hladík, de pie contra la pared del cuartel, esperó la descarga. Alguien temió que la pared quedara maculada de sangre; entonces le ordenaron al reo que avanzara unos pasos. Hladík, absurdamente, recordó las vacilaciones preliminares de los fotógrafos. Una pesada gota de lluvia rozó una de las sienes de Hladík y rodó lentamente por su mejilla; el sargento vociferó la orden final.

El universo físico se detuvo.

Las armas convergían sobre Hladík, pero los hombres que iban a matarlo estaban inmóviles. El brazo del sargento eternizaba un ademán inconcluso. En una baldosa del patio una abeja proyectaba una sombra fija. El viento había cesado, como en un cuadro. Hladík ensayó un grito, una sílaba, la torsión de una mano. Comprendió que estaba paralizado. No le llegaba ni el más tenue rumor del impedido mundo. Pensó estoy en el infierno, estoy muerto. Pensó estoy loco. Pensó el tiempo se ha detenido. Luego reflexionó que en tal caso, también se hubiera detenido su pensamiento. Quiso ponerlo a prueba: repitió (sin mover los labios) la misteriosa cuarta égloga de Virgilio. Imaginó que los ya remotos soldados compartían su angustia: anheló comunicarse con ellos. Le asombró no sentir ninguna fatiga, ni siquiera el vértigo de su larga inmovilidad. Durmió, al cabo de un plazo indeterminado. Al despertar, el mundo seguía inmóvil y sordo. En su mejilla perduraba la gota de agua; en el patio, la sombra de la abeja; el humo del cigarrillo que había tirado no acababa nunca de dispersarse. Otro "día" pasó, antes que Hladík entendiera.

Un año entero había solicitado de Dios para terminar su labor: un año le otorgaba su omnipotencia. Dios operaba para él un milagro secreto: lo mataría el plomo alemán, en la hora determinada, pero en su mente un año transcurría entre la orden y la ejecución de la orden. De la perplejidad pasó al estupor, del estupor a la resignación, de la resignación a la súbita gratitud.

No disponía de otro documento que la memoria; el aprendizaje de cada hexámetro que agregaba le impuso un afortunado rigor que no sospechan quienes aventuran y olvidan párrafos interinos y vagos. No trabajó para la posteridad ni aun para Dios, de cuyas preferencias literarias poco sabía. Minucioso, inmóvil, secreto, urdió en el tiempo su alto laberinto invisible. Rehizo el tercer acto dos veces. Borró algún símbolo demasiado evidente: las repetidas campanadas, la música. Ninguna circunstancia lo importunaba. Omitió, abrevió, amplificó; en algún caso, optó por la versión primitiva. Llegó a querer el patio, el cuartel; uno de los rostros que lo enfrentaban modificó su concepción del carácter de Roemerstadt. Descubrió que las arduas cacofonías que alarmaron tanto a Flaubert son meras supersticiones visuales: debilidades y molestias de la palabra escrita, no de la palabra sonora... Dio término a su drama: no le faltaba ya resolver sino un solo epíteto. Lo encontró; la gota de agua resbaló en su mejilla. Inició un grito enloquecido, movió la cara, la cuádruple descarga lo derribó.

Jaromir Hladík murió el veintinueve de marzo, a las nueve y dos minutos de la mañana.

Jorge Luis Borges, El milagro secreto

Le Grand Jeu

J’ai rêvé d’un manuscrit
dont les lignes s’effaçaient une à une.
J’ai rêvé aussi de ceux qui l’écrivaient
_ l’un d’eux était moi _
Eux aussi s’effaçaient un à un.
Au réveil
il ne restait plus personne.
Et il y avait une seule ligne
qui commençait aussi à s’effacer.
Cette ligne disait :
Seul dieu peut sauver de dieu

Roberto Juarroz, Poésie Verticale

***

Paul Klee, Dancing Under The Empire of Fear (1938)

« Etre des hommes et non des destructeurs » | Julien Starck / RdR

ici

L'odeur du temps

Harry Gruyaert, tombe de Jean Genet (Larache, Maroc)

Les étoiles sont partie au pacage
la mer étale ses bras, la forêt dresse ses cous
Ni les plantes ne fléchissent
ni le poisson ne répond
ni le moineau ne s‘effarouche
Le jour porte une chemise que va déchirer la nuit.


C’est l’heure de l’insomnie, maîtresse de la Terre
la torture est l’odeur de ce temps
où lentement, lentement se fige
le sang du vivant.


Laisse ces arbres s’échanger les oiseaux
laisse les fenêtres faire accueil à une aube qui soit autre.


Regardons la durée se rompre entre nos mains
en direction d’un lieu ceint de sa rupture
rupture d’où vont surgir des temps seconds
ceux de la houle des masses
quand la toux se mêle au Paradis
et qu’au pain se mêle
l’auréole des anges.


Nous savons ce que sont nos communautés
elles confondent le bras et l’instant
elles guident le déluge
leur aube est le langage qu’humecte la clarté du jour
leur visage la limite tranchant sur le noir
il s’agit pour elles de commencement, non de mémoire
de leurs foulées se façonne l’arc
de leur route s‘engendre la flèche.


Elles forment, elles dénomment
et voici que l’étendue prend ses formes
que les choses se nomment.


Du murmure qui monte du gosier de l’Orient
souffle en spirale une fumée de lassitude.
Là-bas la croupe est volcan
le volcan matrice
que projette le désir
là-bas s’épaissit le temps
par grumeaux, grumeaux...
Nous savons que ce sont là nos masses
et nous disons :
« Salut à vous, ô bras, c’est vous qui créez la Terre... »


Nous effaçons notre histoire / nous la découvrons
nous retirons le filet de ses heures plein de paroles
comme si c’étaient les têtes de nos aïeux
alors qu’il y a là un espace
qui sermonne un nuage contre le vent
une neige contre la pluie.
Or c’est le moment
de nous dépiauter de nos nuages
d’effacer notre histoire / de la découvrir.
Entre elle
et nous
règne le feu.


Le bois de nos chagrins a molli. Son étincelle
vire au noir.
Approchez-vous, sortes diverses de l’amertume
gommes, soufres, onguents, arsenics
vous, ô bois, et vous, ô combustibles des choses
tombez, tombez dans la fournaise de nos mutilations
et qu’enfin jaillisse votre flamme
blanche, noire, verte, rouge, arc-en-ciel
de la couleur de la respiration
de la suffocation !
Que notre chagrin soit l’arbre épineux
où la cendre protège de la braise.
Qu’il soit la corde de l’arc
qu’il soit l’arc sonore
qu’il soit une fumée de la couleur du loup
qu’il soit couleur de la fumée de l’‘arfaj humide
et nous autres tel le temps rougeoyant
nous autres la gousse sèche et éclatée de la plante tinctoriale


Nous effaçons / découvrons notre histoire
nous instaurons la mémoire du sang.
Il y a là des têtes comme des chemises
qu’on enlève ou qu’on remet.
Le sang
est figures, écrans
où peux-tu être, Adam ?
Comment donnes-tu la vie,
toi qui aspirais à la mort ?
L’endroit avait une tête
de caméléon
l’espace
n’était que fiction.


Damas, le Caire, Bagdad, La Mecque
la route refuse la route
nos pieds ne nous suivaient plus :
nous connaissons ces tombes familières
ces potences suspendues au nombre des jours
nous reconnaissons
cette balle qui tète la mère
pour tuer le fils !
Mais nous logifions par les routes
emprisonnons les jours
L’île d’Arwad n’était ni de blé ni de pourpre
ce n’était qu’un manteau
tressé par les coquilles, brodé par les vagues
l’océan, généralement, tournait à l’orage
et l’orage, en général, annonçait la rupture du jeûne
Mais
nous nous repaissions de pluie
nous citions à comparaître un quidam inconnu
nous donnions à nos corps l’ordre
de s’envoler
puisqu’ils ne sont que des abris
et nous, par tendresse envers la tempête
nous nous déchaînions
en disant à nos jambes :
« Dégringolez
la poussière se retire et la mer s’avance. »
Nous disions qu’il y avait là de quoi réconcilier
l’aller vers l’Occident et l’aller vers l’Orient
nous disions : « Voici que le soleil va réchauffer ses œufs
que l’histoire va éclore bassin par bassin »
et quand autour de vous la roche se taisait
dans l’errance de son outrecuidance
nous entendions le temps rugir et sangloter.
Et nous disions :
« Ô faucilles qui parcourez les étendues
ô nos pieds fatigués imitez la poussière et la pierre
chaussez-vous de la complainte des roseaux
vous allez recréer la Terre. »

Adonis, L’odeur du temps 

[in Singuliers]

Brève est la couleur

Brève est la couleur à l’aune du regard,

y repenser déjà la dérobe à l’instant.

Elle aspire à la fleur, à l’adieu, au fleuve lent,

mais sans mémoire, comment s’y hasarder ?

Et jusque dans le sort presque léger

des choses qui ne se laissent pas saisir

 sans cette indifférence d’un monde distrait,

fleur, adieu ou fleuve – brève est la couleur.

Imprimant une apparence si subtile

à l’aveuglement d’être, entrelacée,

la couleur, en son reflux, est survivance vaine.

Annoncée des nuances à peine concevable

dans le fugace essor d’une ascension

elle persiste bleue, recréée d’invisible.

Maria Ângela Alvim, Couleur

***

Egon Schiele, River Landscape

Introversion de l'eau (dans la peinture d'Egon Schiele) | k

ici

Pile

Anselm Kiefer, Dragon

...dans ce sang pétrir la nuque du vent...

Pour que vous doutiez encore plus de nos origines 
nous vous proposons des corps pour les usines-salut-de-l'humanité 
sans ablutions
des corps tranquilles sur le sable les bureaux de placement 
des corps tannés
              l'histoire tuberculeuse
                          nous autres les chiens les perfides
nous autres au cerveau paléolithique les yeux bigles le foie thermonucléaire
des corps avec des tablettes en bois où il est écrit que le sous-développement
est notre maladie congénitale
                      puis m'sieur
                                puis madame
                                           puis merci

sans oublier notre interminable procession de dents jaunes
et les vappes
notre sang moitié sang moitié arbre
des corps nourris de sauterelles et de pisse de chamelle
nous ne sommes pas
                 même épileptiques
                                dans les grottes de vos Platon
ni dans les contes de Shahrazade
pas dans vos statistiques sur la culture des peuples les maladies
guérissables par bouchée de petite ruine
                                pas
dans vos bilans vos rapports frénétiques sur les grandes et inhumaines certitudes
ni les médailles
ni les cités de jade contre
                    nos refoulements
                                  nos stigmates purulents
nos matrices aboyant sous le vent

pas dans vos traités sur la biologie de l'homme pétrifié
bien que nous ayons
                nos guerres fratricides
                                  et que
                                       nous rêvions de planètes
de ruelles d'arcades de soleils au centre de la terre
(nous connaissons l'aliénation mentale et parlons de civilisations crevées mises à sac)
et que nous vous accordions
au pied des murailles et murailles d'héroïne
les tétanos
les guerres d'estomac et de chacal
pour satisfaire votre esprit calculé sur les dossiers de Rome et du Viêt-nam
vos lunettes de pèlerins nécrophages sur les remparts de Marrakech
nos rumeurs de foule démente mangeuse de caravanes
nos bidonvilles soleil sur soleil et djinns avec des allumettes
les épouvantails de nos fraternités - ah avec des oranges des fusils de siba
ah moi madame arrange vole pas moi monsieur bonne année bonne santé
de toutes petites femmes avec de petites étoiles vertes sur le front
toute la légende pernicieuse de nos diaphragmes
toutes les affres du sang dans un vertige de mosquées-bidon et de frondes
nos corps
        affublés
               de tornades
                         pour conjurer vos corps tronçon
hibernation d'une petite névrose de sable nous-mêmes
sans kasbahs ni idiomes pas méditerranée-démence pas
mémoriser
réenraciner la mémoire
                  cette grotte
                           cette chiotte
                                     cette mort courant les ruelles
pieds et bras tatoués chewing-gum brosses à dents
avec des tas d'usines de phosphates des tas de livres des tas de
rois et ça n'en finit pas de converser dans
                                 des tas d'antres artificiels
pour boire un thé magnifiquement mérité brindilles sésame
et
  à ta santé la foule
bariolée qui changes de cap mais pas de lance
                                    et qui changeras tout
le long de tes pièges à rats
vieux meurtre inconditionnel qui nous aurais donné
                                         contre un revolver
tout un paradis de lubies
empilé sur nos échines mais alors
                           des tas de médinas pleines de coquelicots
jusqu'à faire de nos ossements des vestiges de cités incomparables
l'oiseau
l'oiseau
et les voleurs d'oiseaux

barbare
      l'oiseau comme nos pérégrinations d'un arbre l'autre
jusqu'à l'arbre de violence qui nous passe par le corps
et vos mamelles maîtresses du sang vos mamelles nous n'aimons
pas la ville riant sous cape la ville sangsue non plus ses ères de
nomadismes et les sobriquets du soleil
ce mal foutu soleil qui n'en finit pas de tournoyer et qu'on
chassera à coups de pierre

nous autres
          de timbales sur des nids de serpents pour fraterniser
avec le sang
          recouvrer la mémoire dans un orgasme de lunes comme
ces chameaux tranquilles qui nous envoient leurs saignées sur la
poitrine
(saigne chameau de ton cou délirant)
nous voulons
des chopes de sang qui écume
des caillots gros comme le poing accomplir
des voyages hélant le désert devenu poisson
saigne encore chameau saigne saigne

des cités pour les roses
tandis que les roses ont des crépuscules de Dadès
nous voulons dans ce sang
l'oeil
     l'épée
dans ce sang pétrir la nuque du vent
violenter des seins et poursuivre
la foule jusque dans ta trachée artère
saigne chameau encore encore

nous vous accorderons encore
les conspirations à la barbe de notre sexe
pour compléter votre catalogue de superstitions
                                      des mains
coupées
       désarticulées
des rues tête tranchée où nous avons pressé
toutes les humanités possibles contre nos poitrines terroristes
des rues
       pleines de cris de génisses flagellées d'écritures

Mostafa Nissabouri, Manabboula

Face

Anselm Kiefer, Ladder to the Sky

Du désert

The September sunsets were at their reddest the week the professor decided to visit Ain Tadouirt, which is in the warm country. He came down out of the high, flat region in the evening by bus, with two small overnight bags full of maps, sun lotions and medicines. Ten years ago he had been in the village for three days; long enough, however, to establish a fairly firm friendship with a cafe-keeper, who had written him several times during the first year after his visit, if never since. "Hassan Ramani," the Professor said over and over, as the bus bumped downward through ever warmer layers of air. Now facing the flaming sky in the west, and now facing the sharp mountains, the car followed the dusty trail down the canyons into air which began to smell of other things besides the endless ozone of the heights: orange blossoms, pepper, sun-baked excrement, burning olive oil, rotten fruit. He closed his eyes happily and lived for an instant in a purely olfactory world. The distant past returned — what part of it, he could not decide.

The chauffeur, whose seat the Professor shared, spoke to him without taking his eyes from the road. "Vous etes geologue?"

"A geologist? Ah, no! I'm a linguist."

"There are no languages here. Only dialects."

"Exactly. I'm making a survey of variations on Moghrebi."

The chauffeur was scornful. "Keep on going south," he said. "You'll find some languages you never heard of before."

As they drove through the town gate, the usual swarm of urchins rose up out of the dust and ran screaming beside the bus. The Professor folded his dark glasses, put them in his pocket; and as soon as the vehicle had come to a standstill he jumped out, pushing his way through the indignant boys who clutched at his luggage in vain, and walked quickly into the Grand Hotel Saharien. Out of its eight rooms there were two available — one facing the market and the other, a smaller and cheaper one, giving onto a tiny yard full of refuse and barrels, where two gazelles wandered about. He took the smaller room, and pouring the entire pitcher of water into the tin basin, began to wash the grit from his face and ears. The afterglow was nearly gone from the sky, and the pinkness in objects was disappearing, almost as he watched. He lit the carbide lamp and winced at its odor.

After dinner the Professor walked slowly through the streets to Hussan Ramani's cafe, whose back room hung hazardously out above the river. The entrance was very low, and he had to bend down slightly to get in. A man was tending the fire. There was one guest sipping tea. The qaouaji tried to make him take a seat at the other table in the front room, but the Professor walked airily ahead into the back room and sat down. The moon shining through the reed latticework and there was not a sound outside but the occasional distant bark of a dog. He changed tables so he could see the river. It was dry, but there was a pool here and there that reflected the bright night sky. The qaouaji came in and wiped off the table.

"Does this cafe still belong to Hassan Ramani?" he asked him in the Moghrebi he had taken four years to learn.

The man replied in bad French: "He is deceased."

"Deceased?" repeated the Professor, without noticing the absurdity of the word. "Really? When?"

"I don't know," said the qaouaji. "One tea?"

"Yes. But I don't understand . . ." The man was already out of the room, fanning the fire. The Professor sit still, feeling lonely, and arguing with himself that to do so was ridiculous. Soon the qaouaji returned with the tea. He paid him and gave him an enormous tip, for which he received a grave bow.

"Tell me," he said, as the other started away. "Can one still get those little boxes made from camel udders?"

The man looked angry. "Sometimes the Reguibat bring in those things. We do not buy them here." Then insolently, in Arabic: "And why a camel-udder box?

Because I like them," retorted the Professor. And then because he was feeling a little exalted, he added, "I like them so much I want to make a collection of them, and I will pay you ten francs for every one you can get me."

"Khamstache," said the qaouaji, opening his left hand rapidly three times in succession.

"Never. Ten."

"Not possible. But wait until later and come with me. You can give me what you like. And you will get camel-udder boxes if there are any."

He went out into the front room, leaving the Professor to drink his tea and listen to the growing chorus of dogs that barked and howled as the moon rose higher into the sky. A group of customers came into the front room and sat talking for an hour or so. When they had left, the qaouaji put out the fire and stood in the doorway putting on his burnous. 

"Come," he said.

Outside in the street there was very little movement. The booths were all closed and the only light came from the moon. An occasional pedestrian passed, and grunted brief greeting to the qaouaji.

"Everyone knows you," said the Professor, to cut the silence between them.

"Yes."

"I wish everyone knew me," said the Professor, before he realized how infantile such a remark must sound.

"No one knows you," said his companion gruffly.

They had come to the other side of the town, on the promontory above the desert, and through a great rift in the wall the Professor saw the white endlessness, broken in the foreground by dark spots of oasis. They walked through the opening and followed a winding road between rocks, downward toward the nearest small forest of palms. The Professor thought: "He may cut my throat. But his cafe — he would surely be found out."

"Is it far?" he asked, casually.

"Are you tired?" countered the qaouaji.

"They are expecting me back at the Hotel Saharien," he lied.

"You can't be there and here," said the qaouaji.

The Professor laughed. He wondered if it sounded uneasy to the other.

"Have you owned Ramani's cafe long?"

"I work there for a friend," The reply made the Professor more unhappy than he had imagined it would.

"Oh. Will you work tomorrow?"

"That is impossible to say."

The Professor stumbled on a stone, and fell, scraping his hand. The qaouaji said: "Be careful."

The sweet black odor of rotten meat hung in the air suddenly.

"Agh!" said the Professor, choking. "What is it?"

The qaouaji had covered his face with his burnous and did not answer. Soon the stench had been left behind. They were on flat ground. Ahead the path was bordered on each side by a high mud wall. There was no breeze and the palms were quite still, but behind the walls was the sound of running water. Also, the odor of human excrement was almost constant as they walked between the walls.

The Professor waited until he thought it seemed logical for him to ask with a certain degree of annoyance: "But where are we going?"

"Soon," said the guide, pausing to gather some stones in the ditch.

"Pick up some stones," he advised. "Here are bad dogs."

"Where?" asked the Professor, but he stooped and got three large ones with pointed edges.

They continued very quietly. The walls came to an end and the bright desert lay ahead. Nearby was a ruined marabout, with its tiny dome only half standing, and the front wall entirely destroyed. Behind it were clumps of stunted, useless palms. A dog came running crazily toward them on three legs. Not until it got quite close did the Professor hear its steady low growl. The qaouaji let fly a large stone at it, striking it square in the muzzle. There was a strange snapping of jaws and the dog ran sideways in another direction, falling blindly against rocks and scrambling haphazardly about like an injured insect.

Turning off the road, they walked across the earth strewn with sharp stones, past the little ruin, through the trees, until they came to a place where the ground dropped abruptly away in front of them.

"It looks like a quarry," said the Professor, resorting to French for the word "quarry," whose Arabic equivalent he could not call to mind at the moment. The qaouaji did not answer. Instead he stood still and turned his head, as if listening. And indeed, from somewhere down below, but very far below, came the faint sound of a low flute. The qaouaji nodded his head slowly several lie said: "The path begins here. You can see it well all the way. The rock is white and the moon is strong. So you can see well. I am going back now and sleep. It is late. You can give me what you like."

Standing there at the edge of the abyss which at each moment looked deeper, with the dark face of the qaouaji framed in its moonlit burnous close to his own face, the Professor asked himself exactly what he felt. Indignation, curiosity, fear, perhaps, but most of all relief and the hope that this was not a trick, the hope that the qaouaji would really leave him alone and turn back without him.

He stepped back a little from the edge, and fumbled in his pocket for a loose note, because he did not want to show his wallet. Fortunately there was a fifty-franc bill there, which he took out and handed to the man. He knew the qaouaji was pleased, and so he paid no attention when he heard him saying: "It is not enough. I have to walk a long way home and there are dogs . . ."

"Thank you and good night," said the Professor, sitting down with his legs drawn up under him, and lighting a cigarette. He felt almost happy.

"Give me only one cigarette," pleaded the man.

"Of course," he said, a bit curtly, and he held up the pack.

The qaouaji squatted close beside him. His face was not pleasant to see. "What is it?" thought the Professor, terrified again, as he held out his lighted cigarette toward him.

The man's eyes were almost closed. It was the most obvious registering of concentrated scheming the Professor had ever seen. When the second cigarette was burning, he ventured to say to the still squatting Arab: "What are you thinking about?"

The other drew on his cigarette deliberately, and seemed about to speak. Then his expression changed to one of satisfaction, but he did not speak. A cool wind had risen in the air, and the Professor shivered. The sound of the flute came up from the depths below at intervals, sometimes mingled with the scraping of nearby palm fronds one against the other. "These people are not primitives," the Professor found himself saying in his mind.

"Good," said the qaouaji, rising slowly. "Keep your money. Fifty francs is enough. It is an honor." Then he went back into French: "Tu n'as qu'a descendre, tout droit." He spat, chuckled (or was the Professor hysterical?), and strode away quickly.

The Professor was in a state of nerves. He lit another cigarette, and found his lips moving automatically. They were saying: "Is this a situation or a predicament? This is ridiculous." He sat very still for several minutes, waiting for a sense of reality to come to him. He stretched out on the hard, cold ground and looked up at the moon. It was almost like looking straight at the sun. If he shifted his gaze a little at a time, he could make a string of weaker moons across the sky. "Incredible," he whispered. Then he sat up quickly and looked about. There was no guarantee that the qaouaji really had gone back to town. He got to his feet and looked over the edge of the precipice. In the moonlight the bottom seemed miles away. And there was nothing to give it scale; not a tree, not a house, not a person . . . He listened for the flute, and heard only the wind going by his ears. A sudden violent desire to run back to the road seized him, and he turned and looked in the direction the qaouaji had taken. At the same time he felt softly of his wallet in his breast pocket. Then he spat over the edge of the cliff. Then he made water over it, and listened intently, like a child. This gave him the impetus to start down the path into the abyss. Curiously enough, he was not dizzy. But prudently he kept from peering to his right, over the edge. It was a steady and steep downward climb. The monotony of it put him into a frame of mind not unlike that which had been induced by the bus ride. He was murmuring "Hassan Ramani" again, repeatedly and in rhythm. He stopped, furious with himself for the sinister overtones the name now suggested to him. He decided he was exhausted from the trip. "And the walk," he added.

He was now well down the gigantic cliff, but the moon, being directly overhead, gave as much light as ever. Only the wind was left behind, above, to wander among the trees, to blow through the dusty streets of Ain Tadouirt, into the hall of the Grand Hotel Saharien, and under the door of his little room.

It occurred to him that he ought to ask himself why he was doing this irrational thing, but he was intelligent enough to know that since he Was doing it, it was not so important to probe for explanations at that moment. Suddenly the earth was flat beneath his feet. He had reached the bottom sooner than he expected. He stepped ahead distrustfully still, as if he expected another treacherous drop. It was so hard to know in this uniform, dim brightness. Before he knew what had happened the dog was upon him, a heavy mass of fur trying to push him backwards, a sharp nail rubbing down his chest, a straining of muscles against him to get the teeth into his neck. The Professor thought: "I refuse to die this way." The dog fell back; it looked like an Eskimo dog. As it sprang again, he called out, very loud: "Ay!" It fell against him, there was a confusion of sensations and a pain somewhere. There was also the sound of voices very near to him, and he could not understand what they were saying. Something cold and metallic was pushed brutally against his spine as the dog still hung for a second by his teeth from a mass of clothing and perhaps flesh. The Professor knew it was a gun, and he raised his hands, shouting in Moghrebi: "Take away the dog!" But the gun merely pushed him forward, and since the dog, once it was back on the ground, did not leap again, he took a step ahead. The gun kept pushing; he kept taking steps. Again he heard voices, but the person directly behind him said nothing. People seemed to be running about; it sounded that way, at least. For his eyes, he discovered, were still shut tight against the dog's attack. He opened them. A group of men was advancing toward him. They were dressed in the black clothes of the Reguibat. "The Reguiba is a cloud across the face of the sun." "When the Reguiba appears the righteous man turns away." In how many shops and marketplaces he had heard these maxims uttered banteringly among friends. Never to a Reguiba, to be sure, for these men do not frequent towns. They send a representative In disguise, to arrange with shady elements there for the disposal of captured goods. "An opportunity," he thought quickly, "of testing the accuracy of such statements." He did not doubt for a moment that the adventure would prove to be a kind of warning against such foolishness on his part — a warning which in retrospect would be sinister, half farcical.

Two snarling dogs came running from behind the oncoming men and threw themselves at his legs. He was scandalized to note that no one paid any attention to this breach of etiquette. The gun pushed him harder as he tried to sidestep the animals' noisy assault. Again he cried: "The dogs! Take them away!" The gun shoved him forward with great force and he fell, almost at the feet of the crowd of men facing him. The dogs were wrenching at his hands and arms. A boot kicked them aside, yelping, and then with increased vigor it kicked the Professor in the hip. Then came a chorus of kicks from different sides, and he was rolled violently about on the earth for a while. During this time he was conscious of hands reaching into his pockets and removing everything from them. He tried to say: "You have all my money; stop kicking me!" But his bruised facial muscles would not work; he felt himself pouting, and that was all. Someone dealt him a terrific blow on the head, and he thought: "Now at least I shall lose consciousness, thank Heaven." Still he went on being aware of the guttural voices he could not understand, and of being bound tightly about the ankles and chest. Then there was black silence that opened like a wound from time to time, to let in the soft, deep notes of the flute playing the same succession of notes again and again. Suddenly he felt excruciating pain everywhere — pain and cold. "So I have been unconscious, after all," he thought. In spite of that, the present seemed only like a direct continuation of what had gone before.

It was growing faintly light. There were camels near where he was lying; he could hear their gurgling and their heavy breathing. He could not bring himself to attempt opening his eyes, just in case it should turn out to be impossible. However, when he heard someone approaching, he found that he had no difficulty in seeing.

The man looked at him dispassionately in the gray morning light. With one hand he pinched together the Professor's nostrils. When the Professor opened his mouth to breathe, the man swiftly seized his tongue and pulled on it with all his might. The Professor was gagging and catching his breath; he did not see what was happening. He could not distinguish the pain of the brutal yanking from that of the sharp knife. Then there was an endless choking and spitting that went on automatically, as though he were scarcely a part of it. the word "operation" kept going throuTgh his mind; it calmed his terror somewhat as he sank back into darkness.

The caravan left sometime toward midmorning. The Professor, not unconscious, but in a state of utter stupor, still gagging and drooling blood, was dumped doubled-up into a sack and tied at one side of a camel. The lower end of the enormous amphitheater contained a natural gate in the rocks. The camels, swift mehara, were lightly laden on this trip. They passed through single file, and slowly mounted the gentle slope that led up into the beginning of the desert. That night, at a stop behind some low hills, the men took him out, still in a state which permitted no thought, and over the dust rags that remained of his clothing they fastened a series of curious belts made of the bottoms of tin cans strung together. One after another of these bright girdles was wired about his torso, his arms and legs, even across his face, until he was entirely within a suit of armor that covered him with its circular metal scales. There was a good deal of merriment during this decking-out of the Professor. One man brought out a flute and a younger one did a not ungraceful caricature of an Ouled Nail executing a cane dance. The Professor was no longer conscious; to be exact, he existed in the middle of the movements made by these other men. When they had finished dressing him the way they wished him to look, they stuffed some food under the tin bangles hanging over his face. Even though he chewed mechanically, most of it eventually fell out. onto the ground. They put him back into the sack and left him there.

Two days later they arrived at one of their own encampments. There were women and children here in the tents, and the men had to drive away the snarling dogs they had left there to guard them. When they emptied the Professor out of his sack, there were screams of fright, and it took several hours to convince the last woman that he was harmless, although there had been no doubt from the start that he was a valuable possession. After a few days they began to move on again, taking everything with them, and traveling only at night as the terrain grew warmer.

Even when all his wounds had healed and he felt no more pain, the Professor did not begin to think again; he ate and defecated, and he danced when he was bidden, a senseless hopping up and down that delighted the children, principally because of the wonderful jangling racket it made. And he generally slept through the heat of the day, in among the camels.

Wending its way southeast, the caravan avoided all stationary civilization. In a few weeks they reached a new plateau, wholly wild and with a sparse vegetation. Here they pitched camp and remained, while the mebara were turned loose to graze. Everyone was happy here; the weather was cooler and there was a well only a few hours away on a seldom frequented trail. It was here they conceived the idea of taking the Professor to Fogara and selling him to the Touareg.

It was a full year before they carried out this project. By this time the Professor was much better trained. He could do a handspring, make a series of fearful growling noises which had, nevertheless, a certain element of humor; and when the Reguibat removed the tin from his face they discovered he could grimace admirably while he danced. They also taught him I few basic obscene gestures which never failed to elicit delighted shrieks from the women. He was now brought forth only after especially abundant meals, when there was music and festivity. He easily fell in with their sense of ritual, and evolved an elementary sort of "program" to present when he was called for: dancing, rolling on the ground, imitating certain animals, and finally rushing toward the group in feigned anger, to see the resultant confusion and hilarity.

When three of the men set out for Fogara with him, they took four mehara with them, and he rode astride his quite naturally. No precautions were taken to guard him, save that he was kept among them, one man always staying at the rear of the party. They came within sight of the walls at dawn, and they waited among the rocks all day. At dusk the Youngest started out, and in three hours he returned with a friend who carried a stout cane. They tried to put the Professor through his routine then and there, but the man from Fogara was in a hurry to get back to town, so they all set out on the mehara.

In the town they went directly to the villager's home, where they had coffee in the courtyard sitting among the camels. Here the Professor went into his act again, and this time there was prolonged merriment and much rubbing together of hands. An agreement was reached, a sum of money paid, and the Reguibat withdrew, leaving the Professor in the house of the man with the cane, who did not delay in locking him into a tiny enclosure off the courtyard.

The next day was an important one in the Professor's life, for it was then that pain began to stir again in his being. A group of men came to the house, among whom was a venerable gentleman, better clothed than those others who spent their time flattering him, setting fervent kisses upon his hands and the edges of his garments. This person made a point of going into classical Arabic from time to time, to impress the others, who had not learned a word of the Koran. Thus his conversation would run more or less as follows: "Perhaps at In Salah. The French there are stupid. Celestial vengeance is approaching. Let us not hasten it. Praise the highest and cast thine anathema against idols. With paint on his face. In case the police wish to look close." The others listened and agreed, nodding their heads slowly and solemnly. And the Professor in his stall beside them listened, too. That is, he was conscious of the sound of the old man's Arabic. The words penetrated for the first time in many months. Noises, then: "Celestial vengeance is approaching." Then: "It is an honor. Fifty francs is enough. Keep your money. Good." And the qaouaji squatting near him at the edge of the precipice. Then "anathema against idols" and more gibberish. He turned over panting on the sand and forgot about it. But the pain had begun. It operated in a kind of delirium, because he had begun to enter into consciousness again. When the man opened the door and prodded him with his cane, he cried out in a rage, and everyone laughed.

They got him onto his feet, but he would not dance. He stood before them, staring at the ground, stubbornly refusing to move. The owner was furious, and so annoyed by the laughter of the others that he felt obliged to send them away, saying that he would await a more propitious time for exhibiting his property, because he dared not show his anger before the elder. However, when they had left he dealt the Professor a violent blow on the shoulder with his cane, called him various obscene things, and went out into the street, slamming the gate behind him. He walked straight to the street of the Ouled Nail, because he was sure of finding the Reguibat there among the girls, spending the money. And there in a tent he found one of them still abed, while an Ouled Nail washed the tea glasses. He walked in and almost decapitated the man before the latter had even attempted to sit up. Then he threw his razor on the bed and ran out.

The Ouled Nail saw the blood, screamed ran out of her tent into the next, and soon emerged from that with four girls who rushed together into the coffeehouse and told the qaouaji who had killed the Reguiba. It was only a matter of an hour before the French military police had caught him at a friend's house, and dragged him off to the barracks. That night the Professor had nothing to eat, and the next afternoon, in the slow sharpening of his consciousness caused by increasing hunger, he walked aimlessly about the courtyard and the rooms that gave onto it. There was no one. In one room a calendar hung on the wall. The Professor watched nervously, like a dog watching a fly in front of its nose. On the white paper were black objects that made sounds in his head. He heard them: "Grande Epicerie du Sabel. Juin. Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi . . ."

The tiny ink marks of which a symphony consists may have been made long ago, but when they are fulfilled in sound they become imminent and mighty. So a kind of music of feeling began to play in the Professor's head, increasing in volume as he looked at the mud wall, and he had the feeling that he was performing what had been written for him long ago. He felt like weeping; he felt like roaring through the little house, upsetting and smashing the few breakable objects. His emotion got no further than this one overwhelming desire. So, bellowing as loud as he could, he attacked the house and its belongings. Then he attacked the door into the street, which resisted for a while and finally broke. He climbed through the opening made by the boards he had ripped apart, and still bellowing and shaking his arms in the air to make as loud a jangling as possible, he began to gallop along the quiet street toward the gateway of the town. A few people looked at him with great curiosity. As he passed the garage, the last building before the high mud archway that framed the desert beyond, a French soldier saw him. "Tiens," he said to himself, "a holy maniac."

Again it was sunset time. The Professor ran beneath the arched gate, turned his face toward the red sky, and began to trot along the Piste d'In Salah, straight into the setting sun. Behind him, from the garage, the soldier took a potshot at him for good luck. The bullet whistled dangerously near the Professor's head, and his yelling rose into an indignant lament as he waved his arms more wildly, and hopped high into the air at every few steps, in an access of terror.

The soldier watched a while, smiling, as the cavorting figure grew smaller in the oncoming evening darkness, and the rattling of the tin became a part of the great silence out there beyond the gate. The wall of the garage as he leaned against it still gave forth heat, left there by the sun, but even then the lunar chill was growing in the air.

Paul Bowles, A Distant Episode

Arquetipo

José Hernández, Arquetipo I

...épreuve de l’absence de fin

Quand Orphée descend vers Eurydice, l’art est la puissance par laquelle s’ouvre la nuit. La nuit, par la force de l’art, l’accueille, devient l’intimité accueillante, l’entente et l’accord de la première nuit. Mais c’est vers Eurydice qu’Orphée est descendu : Eurydice est, pour lui, l’extrême que l’art puisse atteindre, elle est, sous un nom qui la dissimule et sous un voile qui la couvre, le point profondément obscur vers lequel l’art, le désir, la mort, la nuit semblent tendre. Elle est l’instant où l’essence de la nuit s’approche comme l’autre nuit.

Ce « point », l’œuvre d’Orphée ne consiste pas seulement à en assurer l’approche en descendant vers la profondeur. Son œuvre, c’est de le ramener au jour et de lui donner, dans le jour, forme, figure et réalité. Orphée peut tout, sauf regarder ce « point » en face, sauf regarder le centre de la nuit dans la nuit. Il peut descendre vers lui, il peut, pouvoir encore plus fort, l’attirer à soi, et, avec soi, l’attirer vers le haut, mais en s’en détournant. Ce détour est le seul moyen de s’en approcher : tel est le sens de la dissimulation qui se révèle dans la nuit. Mais Orphée, dans le mouvement de sa migration, oublie l’œuvre qu’il doit accomplir, et il l’oublie nécessairement, parce que l’exigence ultime de son mouvement, ce n’est pas qu’il y ait œuvre, mais que quelqu’un se tienne en face de ce « point », en saisisse l’essence, là où cette essence apparaît, où elle est essentielle et essentiellement apparence : au cœur de la nuit.

Le mythe grec dit : l’on ne peut faire œuvre que si l’expérience démesurée de la profondeur – expérience que les Grecs reconnaissent nécessaire à l’œuvre, expérience où cette œuvre est à l’épreuve de sa démesure – n’est pas poursuivie pour elle-même. La profondeur ne se livre pas en face, elle ne se révèle qu’en se dissimulant dans l’œuvre. Réponse capitale, inexorable. Mais le mythe ne montre pas moins que le destin d’Orphée est aussi de ne pas se soumettre à cette loi dernière, – et, certes, en se tournant vers Eurydice, Orphée ruine l’œuvre, l’œuvre immédiatement se défait, et Eurydice se retourne en l’ombre ; l’essence de la nuit, sous son regard, se révèle comme l’inessentiel. Ainsi trahit-il l’œuvre et Eurydice et la nuit. Mais ne pas se tourner vers Eurydice, ce ne serait pas moins trahir, être infidèle à la force sans mesure et sans prudence de son mouvement, qui ne veut pas Eurydice dans sa vérité diurne et dans son agrément quotidien, qui la veut dans son obscurité nocturne, dans son éloignement, avec son corps fermé et son visage scellé, qui veut la voir, non quand elle est visible, mais quand elle est invisible, et non comme l’intimité d’une vie familière, mais comme l’étrangeté de ce qui exclut toute intimité, non pas la faire vivre, mais avoir vivante en elle la plénitude de sa mort.

C’est cela seulement qu’il est venu chercher aux Enfers. Toute la gloire de son œuvre, toute la puissance de son art et le désir même d’une vie heureuse sous la belle clarté du jour sont sacrifiés à cet unique souci : regarder dans la nuit ce que dissimule la nuit, l’autre nuit, la dissimulation qui apparaît.

Mouvement infiniment problématique, que le jour condamne comme une folie sans justification ou comme l’expiation de la démesure. Pour le jour, la descente aux Enfers, le mouvement vers la vaine profondeur, est déjà démesure. Il est inévitable qu’Orphée passe outre à la loi qui lui interdit de « se retourner », car il la violée dès ses premiers pas vers les ombres. Cette remarque nous fait pressentir que, en réalité, Orphée n’a pas cessé d’être tourné vers Eurydice : il l’a vue invisible, il l’a touchée intacte, dans son absence d’ombre, dans cette présence voilée qui ne dissimulait pas son absence, qui était présence de son absence infinie. S’il ne l’avait pas regardée, il ne l’eût pas attirée, et sans doute elle n’est pas là, mais lui-même, en ce regard, est absent, il n’est pas moins mort qu’elle, non pas mort de cette tranquille mort du monde qui est repos, silence et fin, mais de cette autre mort qui est mort sans fin, épreuve de l’absence de fin.

Le jour, jugeant l’entreprise d’Orphée, lui reproche aussi d’avoir fait preuve d’impatience. L’erreur d’Orphée semble être alors dans le désir qui le porte à voir et à posséder Eurydice, lui dont le seul destin est de la chanter. Il n’est Orphée que dans le chant, il ne peut avoir de rapport avec Eurydice qu’au sein de l’hymne, il n’a de vie et de vérité qu’après le poème et par lui, et Eurydice ne représente rien d’autre que cette dépendance magique qui hors du chant fait de lui une ombre et ne le rend libre, vivant et souverain que dans l’espace de la mesure orphique. Oui, cela est vrai : dans le chant seulement, Orphée a pouvoir sur Eurydice, mais, dans le chant aussi, Eurydice est déjà perdue et Orphée lui-même est dispersé, l’« infiniment mort » que la force du chant fait dès maintenant de lui. Il perd Eurydice, parce qu’il la désire par-delà les limites mesurées du chant, et il se perd lui-même, mais ce désir et Eurydice perdu et Orphée dispersé sont nécessaires au chant, comme est nécessaire à l’œuvre l’épreuve du désœuvrement éternel.

Orphée est coupable d’impatience. Son erreur est de vouloir épuiser l’infini, de mettre un terme à l’interminable, de ne pas soutenir sans fin le mouvement même de son erreur. L’impatience est la faute de qui veut se soustraire à l’absence de temps, la patience est la ruse qui cherche à maîtriser cette absence de temps en faisant d’elle un autre temps, autrement mesuré. Mais la vraie patience n’exclut pas l’impatience, elle en est l’intimité, elle est l’impatience soufferte et endurée sans fin. L’impatience d’Orphée est donc aussi un mouvement juste : en elle commence ce qui va devenir sa propre passion, sa plus haute patience, son séjour infini dans la mort.

Maurice Blanchot, L’espace littéraire