fallen upon the feverish couch where lies the vanquished enemy. He has
brought his boiling sap, and between his clasped arms a great
tenderness. When he has risen from the couch, he has been sad, his eyes
have been wasted, his tenderness worn out. And he has said: "This is
woman."

This has lasted long. I do not know if there hasn't been some reason for
it. I simply say I live. I am honest, exact, I have muscles of steel, I
like people to say what is, I am loyal, willing, I earn my living, and I
am inured to suffering. What truth does one fail to recognize when it
shows its face?

I think. I want. I know.

It has taken me a long time to take in the humble things I now know. I
commenced with very little; my youth passed in chaos, I had to suffer
very much. So it is not chance, random truths that I follow. I do not
set limits to them. Even my death will not disprove them. Thus, a few
scattered fragments hover. I snatched and caught them in moments of
alert intelligence, I held them fast with my willing heart, I gripped
them between clenched teeth to keep from losing them.

* * * * *

The wind rises on the right. Is it not the wind that has extinguished
those dots of gold, the houses, without deepening the dark of the town?

I see the wind, it is blowing near. And here, immobile, upright in my
heavy rectitude, I share with the wind the moments which are driving it
on. One by one. I fly with them, one by one.

I go where they are going, even elsewhere, and my death perhaps is far
from reaching its limits. It has been on the way a long time, it will
stop when I am completely tired out, when there will be nothing more for
me to do, when my breath will not be an indispensable breath. Then that
will be all. They say it is hard to die. Does that mean that the world
holds something more tragic than life?

The wind has swollen the whole sky. The sky is ready to drop down from
on high--ah, let the sky fall! The wind pins itself to my face. It has
become so violent that I cross my arms on my breast to brave it. The
infinite future, as though it too were swollen, approaches the houses.

How can I tell what the future holds? No use searching the violet depths
of the horizon or breathing in the whole of the sky. The times to come
are beyond my reach. They give no sign.

There, below, all I see is my own existence. But how I see it! Flashing,
assiduous, full of free spaces, brooding, crimson in