The friendly businessman burst out laughing and replied that angels
were absolutely the nec plus ultra,
and that the man who wanted to describe an angel would have to be
a fine connoisseur of nec plus ultra, otherwise he shouldn't get
involved in the first place.
I told him he was right and said that the only thing we might catch
a fleeting glimpse of was an angel's robe and its divine shiver.
The shiver of its robe, I told him, is virtually imperceptible like
the shudder of the starry peacock when it spreads its tail.
If there's one thing I can't do, I said, it's depict an angel's robe.
Even in a dream I wouldn't have the nerve to touch that terrible source
of purity, that breath, that river of light.
In such a case even the most ultra of the nec plus ultras would be of
no use.
What's more, I said, the thing that seems stranger than anything is
that he, and I, and each of us are the seed of an angel to come.
All of us such as we are will one day become that kind of source of
purity.
But don't hold your breath.
At my door the ground is littered with the corpses of tiny demons of
mechanization.
The demons have shriveled up into tasty dried pears.
A troop of little children are feasting with gusto on the demons.
I think of two universal flowers,
of two universes dressed as flowers,
of two big angels
that I saw depicted in mosaic on the church of Torcello.
Those two angels keeping vigil before my door last night have certainly
put all this in good order.
The live hill of those dreadful monsters is held on a leash by two
omnipotent angels.
Even the two ravens are petrified and stop in mid-flight.
All the creatures of hell hold a sinister fodder in their jaws.
The winged dog holds a human foot in his vulture-beak.
A human head juts out of the jaws of the nice-looking dog.
The nice-looking dog pretends to retrieve the human head as if he
had no intention of devouring it.
The human head he holds in his muzzle looks like a good-natured
moon viewing things sympathetically.
The leopard holds a big fat toe in his jaws.
The big fat toe is almost the same size as the leopard's head.
The bear holds a charmingly presented left paw in his jaws.
Holding something in one's jaws is typical of this group of bureaucrats
of murder.
These are the professional cannibals of hell.
The giant elephant-mouse also holds a foot in its jaws, half-hidden by
its trunk.
The lion too holds something in its jaws.
Since he is king of the beasts, he has all of half a man half-alive
sticking out of his jaws.
The man has already vanished up to his hip into the lion's jaws.
The man is certainly a king, for one could not offer the king of the
beasts anything less than a king to eat.
Since the king is still alive he must be murmuring: "Farewell, royal
globes!"
On the Torcello mosaic, like a half-open fan, the hill of utter dread
is situated at the feet of the blessed.
Those four stark-naked creatures are sufferiing enormously.
The very language of their gestures is unequivocal, but from time to
time they also confide a short fundamental sentence to me.
Two of them cover their mouths with their hands when they belch.
In short, they are four poor devils who have not as yet managed to
become radiant angels.
They lack the essential sign that indicates whether they are men or
women.
All in all they look more like men than woman.
The first stark-naked creature said to me:
One of my descendents is still alive today and we resemble one another
like two nightingales except that each of us sings a different song.
He is the inventor of a diving board that functions correctly.
He has finally succeeded in manufacturing a truly perfect diving board
so that even an untalented diver can't miss leaping into nothingness.
The characteristics of the third stark-naked creature in the group have
been virtually erased.
He looks like a small empty drawer that one might reopen after many
years.
The infernal punishment that he has to endure is being enveloped by
gray flames that are neither cold nor hot.
The second stark-naked creature is like a mirror that will never reflect
again.
The fourth stark-naked creature, who twists and wriggles like a modest
virgin and who twines his left foot around his right leg, says to me:
the ground has given way at our feet.
The third stark-naked creature says to me: there is no more sky above
our heads.
The second stark-naked creature says to me: we grew up in emptiness and
perpetual nightmare in an unkempt tousle of hairs and tresses which
we had to swallow with all their filth.
The first stark-naked creature says to me: we never had any faith in
dreamers, poets, or angels.
The second creature, who I said was a mirror, a spectacular and unexpected
speculum, no longer admirable or miraculous,
had been a true polished mirror throughout his life.
He had endlessly made spectacular promises to each and everybody.
He had endlessly changed his spectacular and unexpected promises.
I might also say that he was like the weeks and the days that are constantly
different
and yet demand our full confidence.
He was Mister Monday, Mister Tuesday, and Mister Monday and Mister Tuesday
were completely different from one another and from Mister Wednesday and
Mister Thursday.
The spectacular speculum was unsurpassable in regard to variability.
Neither joy nor sorrow ever affected him.
The only thing about him was that he was always changing.
He was dazzlingly skillful, and whenever necessary he always had at his
disposal, like Ali Baba, the finest alibis.
On Fridays he could serenade and on Saturdays he could incite people to
murder.
He was a mirror that never told the truth but instead always flattered.
Perhaps he saw too many things.
Was it his fault?
He could be melodious, sweet, and seductive.
He was a live, changeful, and always flattering mirror
that women especially loved to consult.
He swore to them:
Your eyes are the very image of the stars.
Your fingers are rosy-fingered dawns.
But he was insensitive to the music of celestial light around earthly
forms.
He pretended that he could get rivers to flow upstream.
Perhaps he himself didn't know whether or not to believe in miracles.
And now just look at how miserable he looks, the way he covers his mouth
with his hands.
He burps.
Right next to those four poor denuded devils,
in the adjacent compartment of hell,
there live three God-fearing sages amid the fiery torments as if in a
comfortable wheat field.
A hot summer wind is blowing.
I'm sure that the sins of those three creatures do not incur the wrath
of heaven.
Perhaps they are three disciples of Origen and protested along with him
against eternal suffering.
They think of God endlessly and apparently do not suffer greatly.
Suns dance like airy dust in God's respiration.
The suns glisten like tears between God's eyelids.
The three God-fearing sages are certain that God will extinguish the
flames of hell.
The four praying women raise only seven arms to heaven.
The seven arms remind me of the seven-branched candelabra.
There are four women, but only seven arms raised toward heaven
are visible.
Three of the four women look hopefully at the sky.
Like birds, their eyes long to fly to heaven.
The third is a daydreamer.
That's why she's only raising one arm.
She can't understand the fanatical disbelievers who believe that
nothing has any meaning.
Whereas she believes that everything makes sense and also non-sense.
It wasn't easy for her to leave the earth behind.
The four women in the Torcello mosaic form a crown of four divine
brides.
I do not hesitate to include the daydreamer among the jewels of the
crown.
The four praying women sing:
He sees tears, tears as big as the sun.
Loud tears run down His cheeks into immensity.
Lo, He floats up into the dazzling depths.
Lo, He floats down into the dazzling heights.
Lo, He floats and dissolves in the limitless light.
The four praying women sing:
I feel heaven
gently grazing my shoulders.
I know that heaven will change itself
to give me wings.
The four praying women sing:
The limitless light
will extinguish the flames of hell,
and the depths will dissolve into the heights,
and death will dissolve into life.
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