Thursday 11 April 2013

...of soliloquy

Tired of being separated from you, I have decided to send you my impressions of this new life. I shall write every now and then, whenever I have the time (and the heart), as a way of conversing with you. To know that someone dear is nearby - a person who understands and who offers communion - is so very comforting, especially when one is participating in life's most critical moments. Such a person hears your thoughts, inwardly, even though he may imagine he is not listening to them at all. You must have observed this sometime. A woman is sitting somewhere with her beloved, sitting with this dear person in a cosy little room, only the two of them present, and nothing else except a few good books, one or two paintings on the walls, a lamp awaiting the night with thumping heart, an inkstand (what an important object that is!), and the chairs in a circle, filled with patience. Neither of them speaks. Each is engrossed in his own thoughts or perhaps is not thinking any conscious thoughts at all. That is the golden moment, because their souls, as free now as two swallows, escape, meet the boundless Oversoul of the cosmos, and disappear, fraternally absorbed inside it. Most often, however, each of these souls converses with its own silence. Yet notice how indispensable to this "conversation" is the very special companion who sits close at hand without speaking, or who now and then utters a few words about current events, words which constitute his rationality's paltry attempt to justify the sweet-voiced silence. As he sits there tacitly, he is an unsuspecting auditor of the others unvoiced soliloquy. But as soon as he decides to rise and leave his lady's side, everything is finished, ended. She finds it beyond the limits of possibility to continue her silent, inward communing with the depths of her being. Sometimes the lady is the first to rise after one of these joint silences. Not a word has been exchanged the entire time, yet when she gets up to leave, smiling at her friend, at that same moment both feel their souls fuller and riper, brimming with strength and freedom - because many many truths have grazed them gently with their wings, like rosy butterflies.
Something similar is happening to me, making me wish to address my thoughts to you. Despite your silence, I assume that you are here, somewhere close to me. At such times i devote myself body and soul to my soliloquy, which your absence fills with presence.

[Life in the Tomb, Myrivilis, S.]

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