Gabriel finds the past supremely boring. What she calls, not without a certain tenderness, private tragedies. That is why, when I tell her of things that have happened within time, she gazes at me, unblinking, and immediately disengages herself.

“Anecdotes,” she says, “abound and confuse and the path is narrow. In this business of living, it is better to remain in darkness: nothing is more eloquent than riddles. The heart knows this. That is why it moves about in silence, avoiding advance or retreat. Without reproach, which retards, without the fetters of emotion, without the urgency of ambition, the route toward nothingness glistens: things float as in the sight of a god, in an invisible topography. Believe me, eternity is a ballerina on tiptoe. Pain is unnecessary. Only a translucent body. An attachment to forgetfulness, devastated sites. A vocation for light, brilliant as childsplay. Someday, you will take the notebook that has awaited you forever and begin to construct your walls of song and then, leap over them.”