The Mystery of the Holy Innocents

Le Mystère des saints Innocents

the mystery

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of the Holy Innocents

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DELECTISSIMIS ININTIMOCORDE

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cahier for Palm Sunday and for Easter Sunday of the thirteenth series; preparatory cahier for the four hundred and eighty-third anniversary of the deliverance of Orléans, anniversary which will fall on Wednesday 8 May of the year 1912. Madame Gervaise

I am, says God, Master of the Three Virtues.

Faith is a faithful spouse.
Charity is an ardent mother.
But hope is a very little girl.

I am, says God, the Master of the Virtues.

Faith is she who holds fast in the centuries of centuries.

Charity is she who gives herself in the centuries of centuries.
But my little hope is she
who rises every morning.

I am, says God, the Lord of the Virtues.

Faith is she who is stretched in the centuries of centuries.
Charity is she who slackens in the centuries of centuries.
But my little hope
is she who every morning
bids us good day.

I am, says God, the Lord of the Virtues.

Faith is a soldier, it is a captain who defends a fortress,
A city of the king,
On the marches of Gascony, on the marches of Lorraine.
Charity is a physician, it is a little sister of the poor,
Who tends the sick, who tends the wounded,

The poor of the king,
On the marches of Gascony, on the marches of Lorraine.
But my little hope is she
who says good day to the poor and to the orphan.

I am, says God, the Lord of the Virtues

Faith is a church, it is a cathedral rooted in the soil of France.
Charity is a hospital, an hôtel-Dieu that gathers up all the miseries of the world.

But without hope, all that would be only a graveyard.

I am, says God, the Lord of the Virtues.

Faith is she who watches in the centuries of centuries.
Charity is she who watches in the centuries of centuries.
But my little hope is she
who lies down every evening
and rises every morning
and truly has very good nights.

I am, says God, the Lord of that virtue.

My little hope is she
who falls asleep every evening,
in her child’s bed,
after having said her prayer well,
and who every morning wakes and rises
and says her prayer with a fresh gaze.

I am, says God, Lord of the Three Virtues.

Faith is a great tree, it is an oak rooted in the heart of France.
And under the wings of this tree Charity, my daughter Charity shelters all the distresses of the world.
And my little hope is nothing but that little promise of a bud that announces itself at the very beginning of April.

And when one sees the tree, when you look at the oak,

That rugged bark of the oak thirteen and fourteen times and eighteen times centuried,

And which shall be centuried and centennial in the centuries of centuries,

That hard rugged bark and those branches which are like a tangle of enormous arms,

(A tangle which is an order),

And those roots which sink in and grip the earth like a tangle of enormous legs,

(A tangle which is an order),

When you see so much strength and so much ruggedness the little tender bud no longer seems anything at all.
It is he who has the air of parasitizing the tree, of eating at the table of the tree.

Like a mistletoe, like a mushroom.

It is he who has the air of feeding on the tree (and the peasant calls them suckers), it is he who has the air of leaning on the tree, of coming out of the tree, of not being able to be anything, of not being able to exist without the tree. And in fact today he comes out of the tree, at the axil of the branches, at the axil of the leaves and he can no longer exist without the tree. He has the air of coming from the tree, of stealing the nourishment of the tree.
And yet it is from him on the contrary that everything comes. Without a bud which once came, the tree would not be. Without those thousands of buds, which come once at the very beginning of April and perhaps in the last days of March, nothing would last, the tree would not last, and would not hold its place as tree, (this place must be held), without that sap which rises and weeps in the month of May, without those thousands of buds which point tenderly at the axil of the hard branches.
Every place must be held. All life comes from tenderness. All life comes from this tender, this fine bud of April, and from this sap which weeps in May, and from the wadding and the cotton of this fine white bud which is clothed, which is warmly, which is tenderly protected by a flock of a fleece of a vegetal wool, of a wool of tree. In this cottony flock is the secret of all life. The rugged bark has the air of a cuirass, in comparison with this tender bud. But the rugged bark is nothing but hardened bud, but aged bud. And that is why the tender bud always pierces, always springs forth beneath the hard bark. The hardest man of war was a tender child nursed on milk; and the rudest martyr, the hardest martyr on the rack, the martyr with the most rugged bark, with the most rugged skin, the martyr hardest to talon and to claw was a tender milky child.
Without this bud, which has the air of nothing, which seems nothing, all that would be only dead wood.

And dead wood shall be cast into the fire.

What deceives you is that this rugged bark scrapes your hands; and neither by the shoulder do you make the trunk budge a thousandth of a millimeter, nor by the foot can you make one of these great roots budge a thousandth of a millimeter; nor by the hand a single one of these great branches; and you would scarcely shake some of those little branches; and make them sway;
whereas the bud offers no resistance beneath the finger and with a flick of the nail the first comer can knock off a bud; which once developed would have made you a branch larger than the thigh;

For it is easier, says God, to ruin than to found;
And to make die than to make be born;
And to give death than to give life;

And the bud does not resist. It is also that it is not made for resistance, it is not charged with resisting.
It is the trunk, and the branch, and that master root which are made for resistance, which are charged with resisting.
And it is the rugged bark which is made for ruggedness and which is charged with being rugged.
But the tender bud is made only for birth and it is charged only with making to be born.

(And with making to last).

(And with making itself loved).

Now I tell you, says God, without this budding of the end of April, without these thousands, without this unique little budding of hope, which obviously anyone can break, without this tender cottony bud, which the first comer can knock off with his nail, all my creation would be only dead wood.

And dead wood shall be cast into the fire.

And all my creation would be but an immense graveyard.

Now my son told them: The dead must be left to bury their dead.

Alas my son, alas my son, alas my son;

My son who on the cross had a skin dry as a dry bark;

a withered skin, a wrinkled skin, a tanned skin;
a skin that split beneath the nails;
my son had been a tender milky child;

a childhood, a budding, a promise, a pledge;

a trial; an origin; a beginning of a redeemer;
a hope of salvation, a hope of redemption

O day, O evening, O night of the entombment.
Falling of that night which I shall never see again.
O night so sweet to the heart because thou accomplishest.
And thou calmest like a balm.
Night upon that mountain and in that valley.
O night I had so often said I would see thee no more.
O night I shall see thee in my eternity.

May my will be done. O it was that time that my will was done.

Night I see thee still. Three great gibbets rose up.
And my son in the middle.

A hill, a valley. They had set out from that city which I had given to my people. They had climbed up.
My son between those two thieves. A wound in the side. Two wounds in the hands. Two wounds in the feet. Wounds on the brow.
Women weeping all standing. And that bowed head which fell back upon the top of the breast.

And that poor dirty beard, all soiled with dust and blood.
That red beard with two points.

And that soiled hair, in what disorder, that I would have so kissed.
That fine red hair, still all bloodied with the crown of thorns.

All soiled, all clotted with clots. All was accomplished.
He had borne too much of it.
That head which bowed, which I would have leaned upon my breast.
That shoulder which I would have leaned to my shoulder.
And that heart no longer beat, which had beaten so much with love.

Three or four women weeping all standing. Of men I do not recall, I believe there were none any longer.
They had perhaps found that it climbed too high. All was finished. All was consummated. It was finished.
And the soldiers were going back, and in their round shoulders they bore away the Roman force:

It was then, O Night, that thou camest. O night the same.

The same who comest every evening and who hadst come so many times since the first darknesses.
The same who hadst come upon the smoking altar of Abel and upon the corpse of Abel, upon that torn body, upon the first murder of the world;
O night the same thou camest upon the lacerated body, upon the first, upon the greatest murder of the world. It was then, O night, that thou camest.
The same who hadst come upon so many crimes since the beginning of the world;

And upon so many defilements and upon so many bitternesses;
And upon that sea of ingratitude, the same thou camest upon my mourning;

And upon that hill and upon that valley of my desolation it was then, O night, that thou camest.

O night must it be then, must it be that my paradise

Be only a great night of brightness which shall fall upon the sins of the world.

Shall it be then, O night, that thou shalt come.

It was then, O night, that thou camest; and alone thou couldst finish, alone thou couldst accomplish that day among the days.

As thou accomplishest that day, O night shalt thou accomplish the world.
And shall my paradise be a great night of light.
And all that I shall be able to offer
In my offering and I too in my Offertory
To so many martyrs and to so many executioners,
To so many souls and to so many bodies,
To so many pure and to so many impure,
To so many sinners and to so many saints,
To so many faithful and to so many penitents.

And to so many sorrows, and to so many mournings, and to so many tears and to so many wounds,

And to so much blood,
And to so many hearts that shall have beaten so much,
With love, with hatred,
And to so many hearts that shall have bled so much
With love, with hatred,
Shall it be said that it must be
That I must offer them
And that they shall ask for only that,
That they shall want only that.
That they shall have distaste only for that,
Upon those defilements and upon so many bitternesses.
And upon that immense sea of ingratitude
The long falling-back of an eternal night.

O night thou hadst not needed to go and ask permission of Pilate. That is why I love thee and I salute thee.

And among all I glorify thee and among all thou glorifiest me.
And thou doest me honor and glory
For thou obtainest sometimes what is most difficult in the world,
The desistance of man.
The abandonment of man into my hands.

I know man well. It is I who made him. He is a strange being.

For in him plays that liberty which is the mystery of mysteries.

One can still ask much of him. He is not too bad. One must not say that he is bad.

When one knows how to take him, one can still ask much of him.
Make him render much. And God knows whether my grace
Knows how to take him, whether with my grace

I know how to take him. Whether my grace is insidious, skillful as a thief.

And like a man who hunts the fox.

I know how to take him. It is my trade. And this very liberty is my creation.
One can ask of him much heart, much charity, much sacrifice,

He has much faith and much charity.

But what one cannot ask of him, by my faith, is a little hope.

A little confidence, what, a little slackening,
A little remitting, a little abandonment into my hands,
A little desistance. He stiffens himself all the time.

Now thou, my daughter the night, succeedest, sometimes, thou obtainest sometimes that

From rebellious man.
That he consent, this gentleman, that he yield himself a little to me.
That he loosen a little his poor weary limbs upon a bed of rest.
That he loosen a little upon a bed of rest his aching heart.

That his head above all should no longer go on working. It works too much, his head. And he thinks it is work, that his head goes on like that.

And his thoughts, no, for what he calls his thoughts.

That his ideas no longer go on working and no longer fight in his head and no longer rattle like calabash seeds.

Like a rattle in an empty gourd.
When one sees what they are, what he calls his ideas.
Poor being. I do not love, says God, the man who does not sleep.

The one who burns, in his bed, with worry and with fever.

I am in favor, says God, of one’s making one’s examination of conscience every evening.

It is a good exercise.

But after all one must not torture oneself by it to the point of losing sleep over it.
At that hour the day is made, and well made; there is no longer any remaking it.

There is no longer any going back upon it.

These sins that give you so much pain, my boy, well it was very simple.

My friend you should not have committed them.
At the hour when you could still not commit them.
For now, it is done, go, sleep, tomorrow you shall not begin again.

But the man who in the evening as he goes to bed makes plans for the morrow.

That one I do not love, says God.
The fool, does he even know how tomorrow will be made.
Does he even know the color of the weather.

He would do better to say his prayer. I have never refused the bread of the morrow.
He who is in my hand like the staff in the traveler’s hand.

That one is agreeable to me, says God.
He who is laid in my arm like a nursling who laughs,
And who concerns himself with nothing,
And who sees the world in the eyes of his mother, and of his nurse,
And who sees it and looks at it only there,

That one is agreeable to me, says God.

But he who makes combinations, he who within himself for tomorrow in his head

Works like a mercenary.

Works dreadfully like a slave who turns an eternal wheel.

(And between us like an imbecile).
Well that one is not agreeable to me at all, says God.

He who abandons himself, I love. He who does not abandon himself, I love not, it is yet simple.
He who abandons himself does not abandon himself and he is the only one who does not abandon himself.
He who does not abandon himself abandons himself and he is the only one who abandons himself.
Now thou, my daughter the night, my daughter with the great cloak, my daughter with the cloak of silver.
Thou art the only one who sometimes vanquishest this rebel and who makest this hard nape bend.

It is then, O Night, that thou comest.
And what thou hast done once,
Thou doest every time.
What thou hast done one day,
Thou doest every day.
As thou didst fall one evening,
So thou fallest every evening.
What thou hast done for my son made man,
O great Charitable one thou doest for all the men his brothers
Thou enshroudest them in silence and in shadow
And in the salutary forgetfulness
Of the mortal worry

Of the day.
What thou hast done once for my son made man,
What thou hast done one evening among evenings.
O night thou doest it again every evening for the least of men
(It is then, O night, that thou comest)
So true is it, so real is it that he had become one of them
And that he had bound himself to their mortal lot
And that he had become one of them, so to speak by chance,
And that he had made himself one of them
Without any limitation or measure.
For before this perpetual, this imperfect,
This perpetually imperfect imitation of Jesus Christ,
Of which they always speak,
There was that very perfect imitation of man by Jesus Christ,
That inexorable imitation, by Jesus Christ,
Of the mortal misery and of the condition of man.

I understand very well, says God, that one should make one’s examination of conscience.

It is an excellent exercise. One must not abuse it.
It is even recommended. It is very good.
Everything that is recommended is very good.

And even it is not only recommended. It is prescribed.
Consequently it is very good.

But after all you are in your bed. What do you call your examination of conscience, making your examination of conscience.
If it is thinking of all the foolishnesses you have done in the day, if it is recalling all the foolishnesses you have done in the day
With a sentiment of repentance and I shall not say perhaps of contrition,
But after all with a sentiment of penitence which you offer me, well, that is good.

Your penitence I accept. You are good people, good boys.

But if it is that you want to chew over and ruminate by night all the ingratitudes of the day,

All the fevers and all the bitternesses of the day,

And if it is that you want to chew over by night all your sour sins of the day,
Your sour fevers and your regrets and your repentances and your remorses still more sour,

And if it is that you want to keep a perfect register of your sins.
Of all those foolishnesses and of all those follies,
No, leave me to keep the Book of Judgment myself.
You will gain by it perhaps still more.

And if it is that you want to count, calculate, reckon like a notary and like a usurer and like a publican,

That is to say like a tax-collector,
That is to say like one who gathers taxes,

Let me then do my trade and do not
Trades that are not to be done.
Are your sins so precious that they must be catalogued and classified
And registered and aligned upon tables of stone
And engraved and counted and calculated and compiled
And compiled and reviewed and gone over again
And reckoned and imputed to you eternally
And commemorated with one knows not what sort of piety.
As we in heaven bind the eternal sheaves,
And the sacks of prayer and the sacks of merit

And the sacks of virtues and the sacks of grace in our imperishable granaries

Poor imitators, are you now going to mingle, —
And contrary imitators, imitators reversed, —
Are you going to set about binding every evening
The miserable sheaves of your dreadful sins of every day.

When it were only to burn them, it is still too much. They are not even worth the trouble.

Not even of that itself.
You think of them only too much, of your sins.
You would do better to think of them in order not to commit them.

While there is still time, my boy, while they are not yet committed. You would do better to think of them a little more then.
But in the evening do not bind those vain sheaves. Since when does the laborer
Make sheaves of tares and of couch-grass. One makes sheaves of wheat, my friend. Do not draw up these accounts and these nomenclatures. It is much pride.
It is also much loitering. And paper-work. When the pilgrim, when the guest, when the traveler

Has long dragged through the mud of the roads,
Before crossing the threshold of the church he carefully wipes his feet,
Before entering,
Because he is very clean.
And the mud of the roads must not soil the flagstones of the church.

But once it is done, once he has wiped his feet before entering.

Once he has entered he no longer thinks always of his feet.
He no longer always looks to see if his feet are well wiped.
He no longer has heart, he no longer has gaze, he no longer has voice
Except for that altar where the body of Jesus
And the memory and the awaiting of the body of Jesus
Shines eternally.
It is enough that the mud of the roads should not have crossed the threshold of the temple.

It is enough that they should have wiped their feet well once before crossing the threshold of the temple.

Right carefully, right cleanly and let us speak of it no more.
One does not always speak of mud. It is not clean.

To carry into the temple the very memory and the worry of the mud

And the preoccupation and the thought of the mud

Is still to carry mud into the temple.
Now mud must not cross the threshold of the door.

When the guest arrives at the host’s let him simply wipe his feet before entering

Let him enter clean and with clean feet and let him afterwards
Not always think of his feet and of the mud of his feet.

Now you are my guests, says God, and I am surely worth that God who was the God of guests.

You are my guests and my children who come into my temple.
You are my guests and my children who come into my night.

On the threshold of my temple, on the threshold of my night, wipe your feet and let us speak of it no more.
Make your examination of conscience, but let it be to wipe your feet.

And not at all on the contrary let it not be
To carry into the temple the muds and the memory of the muds of the road
And let it not be to drag upon the august threshold of my night
The tracks, the marks of the muds
Of your dirty roads of the day.

Wash your faces in the evening. That is it, making your examination of conscience. One does not wash one’s face all the time.
Be like that pilgrim who takes holy water on entering the church

And who makes the sign of the cross. Then he enters the church.

And he does not take holy water all the time.
And the church is not composed solely of holy-water fonts.

There is what is before the threshold. There is what is at the threshold. And there is what is in the house.

One must enter once, and not go out and enter all the time.
Be like that pilgrim who no longer looks but at the sanctuary.
And who no longer hears.

And who no longer sees but that altar where my son has been sacrificed so many times.

Imitate that pilgrim who no longer sees but the radiance
Of the splendor of my son

Enter into my night as at my own. For there it is that I have reserved for myself

To be the master.
And if you absolutely insist on offering me something
In the evening as you go to bed
Let it be first a thanksgiving
For all the services I render you
For the innumerable benefits with which I fill you every day
With which I have filled you that very day.
Thank me first, it is the most urgent
And it is also the most just.
Then let your examination of conscience
Be a wiping clean once done

And not at all on the contrary a dragging-along of marks and of defilements.

Yesterday’s day is done, my boy, think of tomorrow’s.
And of your salvation which is at the end of tomorrow’s day.

For yesterday it is too late. But for tomorrow it is not too late
And for your salvation which is at the end of tomorrow’s day.
Your salvation is no longer yesterday. But it can be tomorrow.
Yesterday is done. But tomorrow is not done, tomorrow is to be done
And your salvation which is at the end of tomorrow’s day.

Your salvation is not in the direction of yesterday, it is in the direction of tomorrow.

Carry yourself toward tomorrow, do not carry yourself back toward yesterday.
Think then a little less of your sins when you have committed them
And think of them a little more at the moment of committing them.
Before committing them.
It will be more useful, says God.
When they are committed, when they are done it is too late.
It is not too late for penitence.
But it is too late for not committing them
And for not having committed them.

When you have passed over your sins, you make them as great as mountains, says God.
It is at the moment of passing them that one must see that they are indeed mountains and that they are dreadful.

You are virtuous afterwards. Be then virtuous before
And during.

The hour that strikes has struck. The day that passes has passed. Tomorrow alone remains, and the day after tomorrow

And they shall not remain long.
Let your examinations of conscience and your penitences

Be then not stiffenings and rearings backward,

People of the hard nape,

But let them be limbenings and let your examinations of conscience and your penitences and your contritions even the most bitter
Be penitences of slackening, unhappy children, and contritions of remission

And of remitting into my hands and of resigning.
(Of resigning yourselves).
But I know you, you are always the same.

You will indeed make me great sacrifices, provided you choose them.
You would rather make me great sacrifices, provided they be not those I ask of you

Than make me little ones that I would ask of you.
You are thus, I know you.
You will do everything for me, except this little abandonment
Which is everything for me.
Be then at last, be like a man
Who is in a boat on the river
And who does not row all the time
And who sometimes lets himself go with the current of the water.

Thus you and your boat
Let yourselves go sometimes with the current of time
And let yourselves enter bravely
Under the arch of the bridge of the night.

One always speaks, says God, of the imitation of Jesus Christ
Which is the imitation,

The faithful imitation of my son by men.

And I have known and I shall know imitations so faithful, says God,

And so closely approached,
That I myself remain seized with admiration and respect by them.
But after all one must not forget

That my son had begun by this singular imitation of man.

Singularly faithful.
Which was pushed to perfect identity.
When so faithfully so perfectly he put on the mortal lot.
When so faithfully so perfectly he imitated being born.
And suffering.
And living.
And dying.

But when I say to you: Think rather of tomorrow I do not say to you: Calculate this tomorrow.

Think of it as of a day that shall come; and that is all you know of it.

Be not that unhappy man who turns himself over and consumes himself in his bed
To seize tomorrow’s day.
Lay not your hand
On the fruit which is not ripe.
Know only that this tomorrow
Of which one always speaks
Is the day that is going to come,

And that it shall be of my governing
Like the others.
And that it shall be under my commanding
Like the others.
That is all you need. For the rest, wait.
I wait, I, God. You make me wait enough.
You make me wait long enough for penitence after the fault.
And for contrition after sin.
And since the beginning of times I await
The judgment until the day of judgment.
I do not love, says God, the man who speculates upon tomorrow.
I do not love him who knows better than I what I am going to do.
I do not love him who knows what I shall do tomorrow.

I do not love him who plays the clever one. The strong man, that is not my strong point.
To think of the morrow, what vanity. Keep for tomorrow the tears of tomorrow.

There will always be enough of them.
And those sobs that rise in you and that choke you.

To think of tomorrow, do you even know how I shall do tomorrow.

What tomorrow I shall make for you.
Do you know whether I myself have yet decided it.
I do not love, says God, him who mistrusts me.

Do you believe I am going to amuse myself by setting traps for you, like a barbarian king.
Do you believe I spend my life laying snares for you and taking pleasure in seeing you fall into them.

I am an honest man, says God, and I always act uprightly.
I am honor itself, and uprightness, and honesty.
I am a good Frenchman, says God, upright as a Frenchman.
Loyal as a Frenchman.
I am the king of France, upright as the king of France.

What the lowest of the poor would not have feared from Saint Louis, are you going to fear from me?

After all I am perhaps worth Saint Louis.

Do you believe I am going to amuse myself by feinting with you like a swordsman.
All the cunning I have is the cunning of my grace, and the feint and the ruse of my grace, which so often plays with the sinner for his salvation, to keep him from sinning.
Which seduces the sinner; to save him. But do you believe. Do you believe that I God am going to amuse myself by making them miseries and what an honest man would not do. I am a good Christian, says God. Do you believe I am going to amuse myself by surprising them like a nocturnal assassin.

Jeannette

He shall come like a thief and like a robber by night.

Madame Gervaise
And he shall take as in a net. The kingdom of heaven is yet again like to a seine cast into the sea, and gathering of every kind of fish.

Jeannette
Which, when it was filled, drawing it out of the water, and sitting upon the shore, they chose the good for their vessels, but cast the bad out.

Madame Gervaise
So shall it be in the consummation of the age: the angels shall go forth and shall separate the wicked from the midst of the just.

Jeannette
And Jesus answering said to them: See that no man seduce you.

Madame Gervaise
But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.

But as in the days of Noah, so also shall the coming of the Son of man be.
(Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away).

For so indeed there were in the days before the deluge people who ate and drank, married and gave in marriage, until that day on which Noah entered into the ark.

And they knew not until the deluge came, and took them all away:

Jeannette

So shall the coming of the Son of man also be.

Madame Gervaise
I am their father, says God. Our Father, who art in Heaven. My son has told them often enough that I am their father.

I am their judge. My son has told them. I am also their father.
I am above all their father.

After all I am their father. He who is father is above all father. Our Father who art in Heaven. He who has once been father can no longer be anything but father.
They are the brothers of my son; they are my children; I am their father.
Our Father who art in Heaven, my son taught them this prayer. Sic ergo vos orabitis. You shall therefore pray thus.
Our Father who art in heaven, he knew well what he was doing that day, my son who loved them so much.

Who lived among them, who was one of them.
Who went like them, who spoke like them, who lived like them.
Who suffered.
Who suffered like them, who died like them.
And who loves them so much having known them.

Who brought back into heaven a certain taste of man a certain taste of the earth. My son who loved them so much, who loves them eternally in heaven.

He knew well what he was doing that day, my son who loves them so much.

When he placed that barrier between them and me, Our Father who art in heaven, those three or four words.
That barrier which my anger and perhaps my justice shall never cross.
Happy he who falls asleep beneath the protection of the advance of those three or four words.
Those words which march before all prayer as the hands of the suppliant march before his face.
As the two joined hands of the suppliant advance before his face and the tears of his face.

Those three or four words which vanquish me, me the invincible.

And which they make march before their distress like two invincible joined hands.
Those three or four words which advance like a fine ram-prow before a poor ship.

And which cleave the flood of my anger.
And when the ram-prow has passed, the ship passes, and the whole fleet behind.
Actually, says God, that is how I see them;
And for my eternity, eternally, says God,

By this invention of my Son eternally it is thus that I must see them.
(And that I must judge them. How would you have me now judge them.

After that).
Our Father who art in heaven, my son knew very well how to go about it.

To bind the arms of my justice and to unbind the arms of my mercy.
(I do not speak of my anger, which has never been but my justice.

And sometimes my charity).

And now I must judge them as a father. For what that can judge, a father. A man had two sons.
For what that is capable of judging. A man had two sons. It is known well enough how a father judges. There is a known example of it.
It is known well enough how the father judged the son who had gone away and who came back.

It was still the father who wept the most.
That is what my son told them. My son delivered to them
the secret of judgment itself.

And now this is how they seem to me; this is how I see them;

This is how I am forced to see them.

Just as the wake of a fine vessel widens until it disappears and is lost,

But begins with a point, which is the point itself of the vessel.

So the immense wake of sinners widens until it disappears and is lost
But it begins with a point, and it is this point that comes toward me,

Which is turned toward me.
It begins with a point, which is the point itself of the vessel.
And the vessel is my own son, laden with all the sins of the world.

And the point of the vessel is the two joined hands of my son.
And before the gaze of my anger and before the gaze of my justice
They all have hidden themselves behind him.

And all this immense procession of prayers, all this immense wake widens until it disappears and is lost.
But it begins with a point and it is this point that is turned toward me.

Which advances toward me.

And this point is those three or four words: Our Father who art in heaven; my son in truth knew what he was doing.
And every prayer rises toward me hidden behind those three or four words.
And there is a point of the point. It is this very prayer no longer only in its text.
But in its very invention. That first time that really in time it was pronounced.

That first time that my son pronounced it.

No longer only in its text as it has become a text.
But in its very invention and in its springing-forth and in its forcing-forth.
When itself was a birth of prayer, an incarnation and a birth of prayer. A hope.

A birth of hope.
A nascent word.
A bough and a germ and a bud and a leaf and a flower and a fruit of word.

A seed, a being-born of prayer.
A word among words.

That first time that it came forth carnally, temporally from the human lips of my son.
And in the point of the point, in this very point there was a point.
And it was those three or four words, Our Father who art in heaven, no longer only as a text, no longer only in their text.

But in their very source.
In their invention and in their budding.
The first time my son pronounced them upon that mountain.
Pronounced them, made them come forth from his human lips.

The first time that they came forth really, temporally, carnally,

From those lips of tenderness.

And he was standing upon that mountain which shall be famous in the centuries of centuries.
Upon that mountain of the earth of men above that valley which went descending.

Our Father who art in heaven, he invented that.
He was with them, he was like them, he was one of them.

Our Father. Like a man who throws a great cloak over his shoulders,

Turned toward me he had clothed himself,
He had thrown over his shoulders
The cloak of the sins of the world.

Our Father who art in Heaven. And now behind him the sinner hides himself from my face. And this is how I see, this is how I am forced to see them. This is how I picture this procession.
All sets out from a point, which is turned toward me, from the extreme point of a point. And this point of point is those three or four words as they were invented, as they were introduced into the creation of the world.
As they were pronounced for the first time by my own son. Our Father who art in heaven.
And behind this point advances the point itself, that is to say the whole prayer.

As it was pronounced that first time.
And behind it widens until it disappears and is lost
The wake of the innumerable prayers

As they are pronounced in their text in the innumerable days

By the innumerable men,
(By the simple men, his brothers).
Morning prayers, evening prayers;
(Prayers pronounced all the other times);
So many other times in the innumerable days;
Prayers of midday and of the whole day;
Prayers of the monks for all the hours of the day,
And for the hours of the night;
Prayers of laymen and prayers of clerks
As they were pronounced innumerable times
In the innumerable days.
(He spoke like them, he spoke with them, he spoke one of them).

All this immense fleet of prayers laden with the sins of the world.

All this immense fleet of prayers and of penitences attacks me
Having the ram-prow you know,
Advances toward me having the ram-prow you know.
It is a freight fleet, classis oneraria.

And it is a fleet of the line,
A battle fleet.
Like a fine ancient fleet, like a fleet of triremes
Which would advance to the attack of the king.
And what would you have me do: I am attacked.
And in this fleet, in this innumerable fleet
Each Pater is like a high-sided vessel
Which itself has its own ram-prow, Our Father who art in heaven
Turned toward me, and which advances behind this own ram-prow.

Our Father who art in heaven, that is not difficult. Obviously when a man has said that, he can hide behind it.

When he has pronounced those three or four words.
And behind those fine high-sided vessels the Ave Marias

Advance like innocent galleys, like virginal biremes.
Like flat vessels, that wound not the humility of the sea.
That wound not the rule, that follow, humble and faithful and submissive level with the water.
Our Father who art in heaven. Obviously when a man has begun like that.

When he has said to me those three or four words.

When he has begun by making march before him those three or four words.

Afterwards he can continue, he can say to me what he will.
You understand, I am disarmed.
And my son knew it well.

Who so loved these men.
Who had taken a taste for them, and for the earth, and for all that follows.

And in this innumerable fleet I distinguish clearly three great innumerable fleets.

(I am God, I see clear).

And this is what I see in this immense wake which begins with this point and which little by little is lost on the horizon of my gaze.
They are all one behind the other, even those who overflow the wake

Toward my left hand and toward my right hand.
At the head marches the innumerable fleet of the Paters
Cleaving and braving the flood of my anger.
Powerfully seated upon their three banks of oars.

(See how I am attacked. I ask you. Is it just?)
(No, it is not just, for all this is of the reign of my Mercy)
And all these sinners and all these saints together march behind my son

And behind the joined hands of my son.
And they themselves have their hands joined as though they were my son.
After all my sons. After all each one a son like my son.

At the head marches the heavy fleet of the Paters and it is an innumerable fleet.
It is in this formation that they attack me. I think you have understood me.
The kingdom of heaven suffereth force, and the men of force shall take it by force. They know it well. My son has told them everything. Regnum cœli, the kingdom of heaven. Or Regnum cœlorum, the kingdom of the heavens.

Regnum cœli vim patitur. Et violenti rapient illud. Or rapiunt. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence. And the violent take it by violence. Or shall take it.

How would you have me defend myself. My son has told them everything. And not only that. But in time he placed himself at their head. And they are like a great ancient fleet, like an innumerable fleet which would attack the great king. Behind the point, behind the extreme point of this extreme point this extreme point advances and behind and holding themselves tight as a bundle which I cannot break this point itself and immediately behind there advance brazenly those heavy ancient triremes and they cleave, tighter than the Macedonian phalanx, impudently they cleave the flood of my anger, and of the anger of my justice.

(And of the justice of my anger).

Bound like a bundle of men at war they advance heavily borne upon their three banks of oars.

And this fleet is more innumerable than the fleet of the Achaeans.

And drawing back I recognize the three superimposed decks, the three invincible, the three unsinkable decks.

Stronger than the ocean of my anger.
And I recognize the three banks of oars.
And they are Jewish oars and they are Greek oars.
And they are Latin oars and they are French oars.
And the first bank of oars is:

(If there is only justice, who shall be saved.
But if there is mercy, who shall be lost.
If there is mercy, who can boast of being lost.

To save oneself is impossible to man; but nothing is impossible to God.

From the height of my promontory,
From the promontory of my justice,
And from the seat of my anger.
And from the chair of my jurisprudence,
In cathedra jurisprudentiae,
From the throne of my eternal grandeur
I see rising toward me, from the depths of the horizon I see coming
That fleet which assails me,
The triangular fleet,
Presenting me that point you know.

As cranes fly in triangle in the sky,
And thus go where they will,
Cleaving the air and driving back the force of the very wind,
And the strongest is in front making the point of the triangle,
So this great triangular fleet
Flies and sails and sails on
And so to speak flies
To traverse the ocean of my anger.
And the strongest is in front making the point of the triangle.

And they have placed themselves behind him by degrees
And by degrees they all disappear from the gaze of my anger.
They are massed like cowards: and who could reproach them for it.
Like timid sparrows they are massed behind him who is strong.
And they present me that point.
And they cleave thus the wind of my anger and they drive back the very force of the tempests of my justice.
And the breath of my anger has no longer any hold upon that angular mass,
With the fleeing wings.
For they present me this angle and I can take them only by this angle.
What are here the Greek fleets and the Persian fleets;
And the Punic fleets and the Roman fleets;
And the English fleets and the French fleets
That a ground-swell rolls eternally.
Here advances a fleet that no ground-swell of my anger shall ever roll.
And hidden one behind another I discover an innumerable fleet.
And the last are lost as in a mist on the horizon of my gaze.
And in this innumerable fleet I discover three equally innumerable fleets.
And the first is in front, to attack me more harshly. It is the fleet of high sides,
Vessels with powerful keel,
Cuirassed like hoplites.
That is to say like heavily armed soldiers

OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS

And they move invincibly borne upon their three banks of oars.

And the first bank of oars is: Hallowed be thy name, Thine;

And the second bank of oars is: Thy kingdom come, Thine;

And the third bank of oars is the word among all

insurmountable: Thy will be done on earth as in heaven, Thine.

Sanctificetur nomen Tuum.

Adveniat regnum Tuum.

Fiat voluntas

Tua

Sicut in cœlo et in terra.

And such is the fleet of the Paters, solid and more innumerable than the stars of heaven. And behind I see the second fleet, and it is an innumerable fleet, for it is the fleet of white sails, the innumerable fleet of the Ave Marias.

THE MYSTERY And it is a fleet of biremes. And the first bank of

oars is: Ave Maria, gratia plena;

And the second bank of oars is: Sancta Maria, mater Dei.

And all these Ave Marias, and all these prayers to the Virgin and the noble Salve Regina are white caravels, humbly lying beneath their sails level with the water; like white doves that one would take in the hand.

Now these gentle doves under their wings,

These white familiar doves, these doves in the hand,

These humble doves lying level with the hand,

These doves accustomed to the hand,

These caravels clothed in sails

Of all vessels they are the most opportune,

That is to say those which present themselves most directly before the port.

Such is the second fleet, they are the prayers of the Virgin. And the third fleet is the other innumerable prayers.

All of them. Those that are said at mass and at vespers. And at benediction.

OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS And the prayers of the monks that mark all the

hours of the day. And the hours of the night. And the Benedicite that is said for sitting down to table. Before a good steaming tureen. All, indeed all. And there are no more left.

Now I see the fourth fleet. I see the invisible fleet. And these are all the prayers that are not even said, the words that are not pronounced.

But I, I hear them. These obscure movements of the heart, the obscure good movements, the secret good movements.

Which spring up unconsciously and which are born and unconsciously rise toward me.

He who is the seat of them does not even perceive them. He knows nothing of them, and is truly only the seat of them.

But I, I gather them up, says God, and I count them and I weigh them.

Because I am the secret judge.

Such are, says God, those three innumerable fleets. And

the fourth. Those three visible fleets and that fourth invisible. Those secret prayers of which a heart is the seat, those

secret prayers of the heart. Those secret movements. And assailed too brazenly, assailed with prayers and with

tears, Directly assailed, assailed full in the face

THE MYSTERY

After that they want me to condemn them. How convenient that is.

They want me to judge them. It is known well enough how all these judgments and all these condemnations end.

A man had two sons. It always ends with embracings.

(And it is still the father who weeps the most).

And with that tenderness which is, which I would set above the very Virtues.

Because with her Sister Purity she proceeds directly from the Virgin.

Other galleys, says God, in other times
Other galleys have sailed toward the sanctuaries of the isles
And toward the temples that were upon the promontories.
But this time here is the fleet
That assails the holy of holies.

The kingdom of the heavens suffereth violence. And the violent ravish it.

And here is the order of this rapine and of this ravishing.

At the head it is like a wedge those three or four words, Our Father who art in the heavens, those that were really pronounced for the first time by my son.

Behind it is the whole prayer, that which was really pronounced for the first time by my son.

Behind, completing, constituting the first fleet are all the other Our Fathers

But each preceded by its own point

OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS Which is those three or four words.

And behind only come the three other fleets. And all these four fleets are under sail. And these Paters, which are men, have strong brown sails

Full and rugged, of close-woven cloth. In bise cloth, in écru cloth. But the Ave Marias
Run beneath supple and curved white sails. And

all these four fleets
Advance curved. So the wedge cleaves the wood by the point. So when soldiers wish to mount to the assault,
When they are going to mount at the very moment they make a

point, an advancement
A roof of their shields and sometimes of their bodies. So the front of the ram drives in the heaviest door. And these caravels of the second fleet
Are like doves huddled in the hand.

This Our Father, says God, is the father of prayers. It is

like him who marches at the head. It is a robust man, and the prayer of the Hail

Mary is like a humble woman. And the other prayers are behind them like

children. And the Our Father and the Hail Mary are like

the man and the woman. Who go one behind the other and who cleave the crowd that

has come for the procession. The man goes in front and cleaves the flood of the crowd,

THE MYSTERY The crowd of my anger, And the woman follows behind in the wake. And the man has taken upon his shoulders astride
That curious child Hope. And the Our Father is the king and the Hail Mary is

the queen and hope is the dauphine. And it is a deck of cards and the Our Father is the king and

the Hail Mary is the queen and all the others

are the faithful knaves.

I have often played with man, says God. But what

a game, it is a game at which I still tremble. I have often played with man, but God it was to

save him and I trembled enough at not being able to

save him, At not succeeding in saving him. I mean I trembled

enough fearing not to be able to save him, Wondering whether I should succeed in saving him.

I have often played with man, and I know that my grace is insidious, and how much and how it turns and plays. It is more cunning than a woman.

But it plays with man and turns him and turns the event and it is to save man and to keep him from sinning.

I often play against man, says God, but it is OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS he who wants to lose, the imbecile, and it is I who want him to win.

And I succeed sometimes

In making him win.

It is the case to say it, we play loser-wins. At least he, for me if I lose, I lose. But he when he loses, only then he wins. Singular game, I am his partner and his adversary And he wants to win, against me, that is to say to lose. And I his adversary I want to make him win.

And the kingdom of the Our Father is the very kingdom of hope: Give us this day our daily bread.

(And the kingdom of the Hail Mary is a more secret kingdom).

He who has said in the evening his Our Father can sleep

in peace. Do you believe I am going to amuse myself by making miseries for

these poor children. Am I not their father. And that I am going to amuse myself by giving them surprises

as one does in war. Do I make war on them? Yes I make war on them, but it is known well why.

THE MYSTERY It is to keep them from losing the battle. I am an honest man, says God. Do you believe I am going to amuse myself by taking them in

their sleep Like a man of war who takes his enemy. Do you believe I have any taste for catching them in

default. And that it amuses me, to condemn. Poor people. I ask you. Am I then an Oriental executioner? Doubtless it has happened sometimes, — Rarely, —

That I have seized a criminal all asleep In the night which preceded the accomplishment, The perpetration of his crime, And that I have taken him by the scruff of the neck. And that I have dragged him all panting before my Tribunal. Like a dead dog.

But even that I have done for very few. For too few. I have not done it often enough. I should have done it

more often. I have left Caiaphas, and Pilate, and Judas Sleep all their sleep until morning Of the night which preceded the accomplishment, The perpetration of their crime. And what I did not do for those three, and for so many

others. What I have scarcely done for the kings of the Orient. Mene, Tekel, Phares you would have me do it. For a good Christian, for a good peasant of my

French parishes. Who has plowed all day, who has worked, as it is

OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS

the law, to feed his wife and his three children. Who in the evening has eaten a good bowlful of soup and drunk
a poor glass of wine. And who has gone to bed in his bed worn out with fatigue, Broken down. What I did not do for the kings of Egypt and for

the kings of Babylonia. You would have me do it for this unfortunate. Who has wife and children.

Do you believe I am going to take him by treachery? And who would I be, I their father. No, no, reassure yourselves. Am I then a mercenary who would gather
And steal wood for his fire. When one of those unfortunates dies in his sleep, Having said his evening prayer, His Our Father and his Hail Mary, It is a good sign; his case is good. It is a sign that he was ripe to appear before my

tribunal. Ripe in the good sense. Those are the surprises I make. I shall judge him like a

father. A man had two sons. And it is known how

fathers judge. He who has said his prayer can lift anchor For the crossing of the night. O night, says God, my daughter with the great cloak, my daughter with the

cloak of silver. By thee I obtain sometimes the desistance of man. And the renunciation of man. And the unstiffening of man.

THE MYSTERY

And that he be silent, above all, that he be silent, he never has done with talking.

For what he says. For what it is worth what he says.

And that he cease to think. For what it is worth.

Creature of the stiff nape. Creature of the barred temples. I do not love, says God,

Him who has the head like a piece of wood. The idols too were of wood.

He who in perpetual stiffening rolls a perpetual migraine.

I do not love, says God, him who thinks

And who torments himself and who worries himself

And who rolls a perpetual migraine

In the bar of the brow and a headache

In the hollow of the nape in the back of the head.

To the point of worry.

And who has his brows perpetually knit

Like one secretly unhappy.

And the temples beating and who is burnt with fever.

And also who has the edges of the eyelids puckered

By dint of looking at tomorrow’s day.

Does it not suffice that I should look at it, tomorrow’s day.

O night thou obtainest sometimes the desistance of that poor

man.

And that he slacken. That is all I ask of them.

That he roll not a perpetual flood in his head,

An ocean of worry.

What do I ask of them. That they close a little their eyes.

That having said their prayer they lie down in their bed at length. OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS

The legs at the end of the feet and the body at the end of the
legs and the head at the end of the body. That they disarm at last, these poor children, that they
take no more guards against me. That they sleep like beasts, like a good plow-horse
on good straw, without thinking, Without foreseeing, without calculating.

That is what I ask, it is yet not difficult. That is what I cannot obtain. They always want to do my trade, which is to weigh

the morrow. They never want to do theirs, which is to undergo it. That is what I can never obtain. They torment themselves, they tense themselves, they wear themselves out. And thou alone O night sometimes obtainest it, That they fall into a bed lost with weariness. O night shall it be said that all I can offer them

and all I can invent. And that my Paradise shall be that. And that all they shall want shall be that. And that they shall be so tired of life, and that they shall be so

wrinkled, And that they shall have been so worn by such an existence, By the life of this earth That they shall want to hear only that. Shall it be said that there shall be brows so bowed that they

shall never lift again. And loins so broken that they shall never straighten again. And shoulders so stooped that never shall they straighten. And brows so wrinkled that never shall they unwrinkle. And eyes so veiled that never shall they unveil.

THE MYSTERY And skins so withered that never shall they become
fresh again. And skins so faded that never shall they become
young again.

And skins so tanned that never shall they become new again.

And skins so bruised that never shall they become healthy again.

And souls so withered that never shall they become pure again.

And memories so full that never shall they become empty again.

And edges of eyelids so hemmed that never shall they become pure again.

And eyelids so worn with work that never shall they become smooth again.

And voices so veiled that never shall they become pure again. That never shall they become young again.

And gazes so veiled that never shall they become deep again.

And voices so drowned with sobs.

And eyes so drowned with work, and eyes so drowned with tears.

Lost eyes, lost voices.

And memories so lost with sorrows that never shall they become new again.

And souls so lost with distress that never shall they become young again.

That never shall they become children again.

And that the white hairs shall never become again

Curling hairs of youth.

And that those poor creatures shall have passed through such distresses.

OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS Through such trials. And that they shall have in their memories histories

such. That they shall never be able to forget them. Shall it be said that there are folds that one cannot

undo. With a flat-iron. Tracks that one cannot efface. Wash with the beater at the river. Wash at the wash-house. And that the unique trials and the unique distresses

of this earth Shall have marked them for eternally. And that they shall want to know nothing And that they shall want to hear of nothing (I always play against myself, says God. Doubtless it has happened sometimes, Too rarely,

(And I very much regret not having done it more often. At least sometimes more often) That I have seized a criminal still warm in the night of his

crime. And that I have taken him by the scruff of the neck. And that I have dragged him all panting before my Tribunal. Like a dead dog. But it was that they were preparing such horrors and

such monstrosities. That I God was appalled by them. And that in my own night I was seized with horror by them. And that I could not wait until the evening of the day they

were preparing. And that I could not even bear the idea. That that should be done, that that should come to pass, that that should

take place,

THE MYSTERY That they were preparing.

And that I lost patience. And yet I am patient. Because I am eternal.

And I seized them in the preparation of the accomplishment. But I could not hold myself back. It was stronger than I.

I too have my face of anger. But those executioners and those criminals. That I took by the skin of the spine and that I dragged

all alive. How many were they and how many times has this happened. Now what I did not do for Cyrus and for Cambyses. And for the feasts of Sardanapalus. And for the kings of Nineveh and of Babylon. And for the peoples of Babel.

And for Nebuchadnezzar and for Tiglath-Pileser. Do you believe I am going to do it now against a

poor plowman. For whom do you take me. What do you make of me. Do you believe I am going to mobilize the thunderbolt and the lightnings. And disturb the thunder of God. And the whole shaking against my old French

parishes. No, no, good people, eat your soup and sleep. Have a good day, (if you can), eat your soup, a good platterful of soup, a full tureen if you can, if there is any, a good tureen well steaming full of potatoes; say your prayer; and sleep. He who says his prayer, Our Father who art in the heavens,

places between him and me A barrier impassable to my anger.

OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS

And can abandon himself to the sleep of the night.

(O night, I created thee the first). Thy will be done.

Now what I did not do against the lost races.

You would have me do against my French parishes.

An event has come to pass in the interval, an event has intervened, an event has made a barrier.

It is that my son has come.

And I what should I be without my old French parishes.

What should I become. It is there that my name rises eternally.

Since when does the general decimate his best soldiers. They are my best troops.

Do you believe I am going to go and surprise in their sleep my own camp.

They are my own men. Am I going to set about

Decimating my own men.

I should make a fine battle, afterwards.

Oh I know well that they are not perfect.

They are as they are. They are my best troops.

One must love these creatures as they are.

When one loves a being, one loves him as he is.

There is only I who is perfect.

It is even for this perhaps

That I know what perfection is

And that I ask less perfection of these poor people.

I know, I, how difficult it is.

And how many times when they toil so much in their trials

I have a wish, I am tempted to put my hand under their belly
To hold them up in my broad hand
Like a father who teaches his son to swim
In the current of the river
And who is divided between two feelings.

For on the one hand if he holds him up always and if he holds him up too much
The child will trust to it and will never learn to swim.
But also if he does not hold him up just at the right moment
This child will swallow a bad mouthful.

Thus I, when I teach them to swim in their trials,
I too am divided between these two feelings.
For if I hold them up always and I hold them up too much
They will never know how to swim themselves.
But if I do not hold them up just at the right moment
These poor children would perhaps swallow a bad mouthful.

Such is the difficulty, it is great.
And such the duplicity itself, the double face of the problem.
On the one hand it is necessary that they make their salvation themselves.
That is the rule. And it is formal. Otherwise it would not be interesting. They would not be men. And I want them to be virile, to be men
And to win themselves
Their knights’ spurs.
On the other hand it is necessary that they not swallow a bad mouthful
Having taken a plunge into the ingratitude of sin.

Such is the mystery of man’s freedom, says God,
And of my government toward him and toward his freedom.
If I hold him up too much, he is no longer free
And if I do not hold him up enough, he falls.
If I hold him up too much, I imperil his freedom
If I do not hold him up enough, I imperil his salvation:
Two goods in a sense almost equally precious.
For that salvation has an infinite price.
But what is a salvation that would not be free.
How would it be qualified.
We want this salvation to be won by him himself.
By himself, the man. To be procured by himself.
To come in a sense from himself. Such is the secret,
Such is the mystery of man’s freedom.
Such is the price we set upon man’s freedom.

Because I myself am free, says God, and because I have created man in my image and likeness.
Such is the mystery, such is the secret, such is the price
Of all freedom.
This freedom of this creature is the most beautiful reflection there is in the world
Of the Freedom of the Creator. That is why we cherish it.
Why we set upon it a proper price.
A salvation that would not be free, that would not be, that would not come from a free man would say nothing more to us. What would it be.
What would it mean.
What interest would such a salvation present.
A beatitude of slaves, a salvation of slaves, a servile beatitude — how do you expect that to interest me. Does one like to be loved by slaves.

If it were only a matter of proving my power, my power has no need of these slaves, my power is well enough known, it is well enough known that I am the All-Powerful.
My power bursts forth sufficiently in every matter and in every event.
My power bursts forth sufficiently in the sands of the sea and in the stars of the heavens.
It is not contested, it is known, it bursts forth sufficiently in inanimate creation.
It bursts forth sufficiently in government,
In the very event of man.
But in my animate creation, says God, I willed better, I willed more.
Infinitely better. Infinitely more. For I willed this freedom.
I created this freedom itself. There are several degrees of my throne.
When once one has known being loved freely, submissions no longer have any taste.
When one has known being loved by free men, the prostrations of slaves say nothing to you any more.
When one has seen Saint Louis on his knees, one has no more desire to see
Those slaves of the Orient lying on the ground
Flat on their bellies, at full length on the ground.
To be loved freely,
Nothing weighs that weight, nothing weighs that price.
It is certainly my greatest invention.
When one has once tasted
Of being loved freely
All the rest is no more than submissions. That is why, says God, we love these Frenchmen so much,
And we love them alone among all
And they shall always be my eldest sons.
They have freedom in the blood. Everything they do, they do freely.
They are less slaves and more free even in sin
Than the others are in their exercises. Through them we have tasted.
Through them we have invented. Through them we have created
Being loved by free men. When Saint Louis
loves me, says God,
I know that he loves me. At least I know that he loves me, that one, because he is
a French baron.
Through them we have known
Being loved by free men. All the prostrations of the world
Are not worth the fine upright kneeling of a free man.
All the submissions, all the overwhelmings of the world
Are not worth a fine prayer, well upright and kneeling,
of those free men. All the submissions of the world
Are not worth the point of leaping up
The fine upright leaping up of a single invocation
Of a free love. When Saint Louis loves me, says God,
I am sure,
I know what one is talking about. He is a free man, he is a
free baron of the Île-de-France. When Saint Louis
loves me
I know, I know what it is to be loved.

(Now that is everything.)
No doubt he fears God. But it is a noble fear, all filled, all
swollen.
Full of love, like a fruit swollen with juice. In no way some cowardly, some base fear, some
filthy fear
Which takes you in the belly. But a great, but a
high, but a noble fear,
The fear of displeasing me, because he loves me, and of
disobeying me, because he loves me,
And, because he loves me, the fear
Of not being found agreeable. And loving and loved under my gaze. No infiltration,
in that noble fear,
Of an evil fear and of a pernicious and vile
cowardice.
And when he loves me, it is true. And when he says that he
loves me, it is true. And when he says that he would rather
Be a leper than fall into mortal sin (so much does he
love me), it is true.
Him, I know that it is true. It is not true only that he says it. It is true that
it is true. He does not say that to make a fine impression. He does not say that because he has seen it in books or
because someone has told him to say it. He says it because it
is so. He loves me to that point. He loves me thus. Freely. The
proof I have of it in the same race
Is that the sire de Joinville (whom I love so much all
the same), who is another French baron,
Who on the contrary would rather have committed thirty
mortal sins than become a leper,
(Thirty, the wretched man, since he does not know what he
is saying)
Does not hesitate either to say what he thinks
That is to say to say the contrary
In the very presence of so great a king
And of so great a saint
Whom nevertheless he knew to be such,
That is to say, to contradict so great a king and so
great a saint.
The freedom of speech
Of him who does not want to risk the blow
Of being a leper rather than falling into mortal sin
Guarantees me the freedom of speech of him who would rather
be a leper
Than fall into mortal sin.

If one says what he thinks, the other too says what he thinks. The one proves the other.
They are not afraid of contradicting even the king, even
the saint.
But also when they speak, one knows they speak
as they are.
And that they think what they say. And that they say what
they think. It is all one.
What would one not do to be loved by such men.
Servitude is an air one breathes in a
prison
And in a sickroom.
But freedom
Is that great air one breathes in a beautiful valley
And still more on a hillside and still more on a
broad well-aired plateau.
Now there is a certain taste of pure air and of the open air
That makes men strong, a certain taste of health,
Of a full health, virile, that makes every other air seem
Enclosed, sick, confined.
He alone who lives in the open air
Has skin baked enough and eye deep enough and the blood of his race.
Thus he alone who lives in great freedom
Has skin baked enough and soul deep enough and the blood of my grace.
What would one not do to be loved by such men.

As they are frank among themselves, so they are frank with me.
As they tell one another the truth, so they tell me the truth.
And as the baron has no fear of contradicting the king and the saint even,
(Whom he loves so much, whom he esteems at his price, for whom he would have himself killed),
So I confess they are sometimes not afraid of contradicting me.
Me the king, me the saint. But when they love me, they love me.
They esteem me at my price. They would have themselves killed for me.
I have for warrant of this even their rough freedom.
Their freedom of speech, their freedom of action. These free men
Know how to give to love a certain rough taste, a certain proper taste, and this freedom
Is the most beautiful reflection there is in the world for it
recalls me, for it sends me back
For it is a reflection of my own Freedom
Which is the very secret and the mystery
And the center and the heart and the seed of my Creation,

As I created man in my image and likeness,
So I created man’s freedom in the image and
likeness
Of my own, of my original freedom. So when
Saint Louis falls to his knees
On the flagstones of the Sainte-Chapelle, on the flagstones of
Notre-Dame
It is a man who falls to his knees, it is not a
rag, it is not a wreck,
A trembling slave of the Orient.
It is a man and it is a Frenchman and when Saint
Louis loves me
It is a man who loves me. And when Saint Louis gives
himself
It is a man who gives himself. And when Saint Louis
gives me his heart
He gives me a man’s heart and a Frenchman’s heart.
And when he esteems me at my price
That is to say when he esteems me as God,
It is a man’s head that esteems me, a sound French
head.
(And Joinville too, Joinville whom we must not
forget.
When he loves me (for he loves me too).
When he esteems me (for he esteems me too),
When he gives himself (for he gives himself too) and when
he gives me his heart,
He knows what he is, who he is, he knows what he is worth, he knows what he weighs, he knows what he
gives, he knows what he brings
And I know it too.

When Joinville even, and I do not say only Saint
Louis,
When Joinville falls to his knees on the flagstone
In the cathedral of Reims
Or in the simple chapel of his castle of Joinville,
It is not a slave of the Orient who collapses,
In fear and in some cowardly and in some
filthy trembling
At the knees and at the feet of some potentate
Of the Orient. It is a free man and a French baron, Joinville sire de Joinville,
Who gives, who brings and who falls to his knees
Freely and so to speak and in a certain sense gratuitously
And a free man and a French baron, Joinville sire de Joinville of the county of Champagne, Jean, sire de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne.

We must not forget Joinville either, says God. He dared even to take up the king. He took me up indeed a little myself
With his story of the leprosy and the mortal sins. But I let them off so much, I let them off everything they want.

We must not forget Joinville, says God. They were noble men.

If one forgot the sinners, there would not remain many.
Few saints, many sinners, as everywhere.
But this great cortège of sinners is needed
To accompany those few saints. One must think also of the sire de Joinville.

A few saints walk at the head. And the great cortège of sinners follows behind. So is made my Christendom.
That is how one obtains great processions.
A few shepherds walk in front. And the great flock follows behind. So is made the cortège of my Christendom.

As their freedom was created in the image and likeness of my freedom, says God,
As their freedom is the reflection of my freedom.
So I love to find in them as it were a certain gratuity
Which is as it were a reflection of the gratuity of my grace,
Which is as it were created in the image and likeness of the gratuity of my grace.

I love that in a sense they pray not only freely but as it were gratuitously.
I love that they fall to their knees not only freely but as it were gratuitously.
I love that they give themselves and that they give their heart and that they hand themselves over and that they bring themselves and that they esteem not only freely but as it were gratuitously.
I love that they love at last, says God, not only freely but as it were gratuitously.

Now for that, says God, with my Frenchmen I am well served.
They are a people who came into the world with open hand and liberal heart.
They give, they know how to give. They are naturally gratuitous.
When they give, that one does not sell, and does not lend at petty interest.
They give for nothing. Otherwise is it giving.
They love for nothing. Otherwise is it loving.
They do not always propose to me bargains generally shameful.
Free people, gratuitous people, and no longer merely gardener people.
Gratuitous people, gracious people.
People of French barons, people who lift their head, people who know how to speak to the great
And consequently to me the Most Great. Those who always lower their head
One does not see them lower their head also
At the Offertory and at the Elevation of the Body of my Son.
But these Frenchmen who always lift their head,
Who always have their head straight
And high.
When in a church a hundred and fifty or two hundred rows of Frenchmen on their knees
Lower their head together at the same time three times at the three strokes of the bell
For the offering and the offertory
And for the consecration and for the elevation of the body of my son,
It is seen, that they lower their head and everyone understands
That it is worth the trouble,
That it is a solemn instant and the greatest mystery and the greatest instant there is in the world.

They are a people, says God, who have gratuity in their blood. They give and do not hold back.
They give and do not take back.
Their left hand does not hold back what their right hand gives.
Their left hand does not take back what their right hand gives.
Their left hand literally does not know what their right hand does.
And thus they are the people who conforms most literally
To the words of my son. And who most literally fulfills
The words of my son.

Naturally liberal people, says God, people with liberal hands
They do not know how to haggle. They do not haggle over
a prayer.
They do not haggle over a vow. When they give, they
give. When they ask, they ask. They do not drag what they give into what they
ask and what they ask into what they give. They do not muddle all that one in the other. They do not entangle. They do not ask in order to give, they do not
give in order to ask, they do not give in order to receive, they read very well
That all that one brings to me is nothing beside,
In comparison with, at the price of what I give. Also these Frenchmen never propose to me
an exchange, a bargain. They know very well
That my grace is gratuitous, that it is enough to please me,
that I do what I want
And they respond to it by a sort of gratuitous prayer and
even
By sorts of gratuitous vows. They know very well
That they bring me no merits and that what I
do,
I do it for the merits and through the merits of my
son and of the saints.

To a gratuity of my grace they respond by a certain gratuity of prayer. And by a certain gratuity even of the vow.
They respond to me as I ask.
Now if it is thus with the little people and with a French baron
What will it be with a Saint Louis, baron himself and king of barons.

In their story of the leprosy and of mortal sin here is how I reckon, says God.
When Joinville would rather have committed thirty mortal sins than be a leper
And when Saint Louis would rather be a leper than fall into a single mortal sin,
I do not retain from this, says God, that Saint Louis loves me ordinarily
And that Joinville loves me thirty times less than ordinarily.
That Saint Louis loves me according to the measure, to the measure,
And that Joinville loves me thirty times less than the measure.
I reckon on the contrary, says God. Here is how I reckon. Here is what I retain.
I retain on the contrary that Joinville loves me ordinarily
Honestly, as a poor man can love me.
Must love me.
And that Saint Louis on the contrary loves me thirty times more than ordinarily.
Thirty times more than honestly.
That Joinville loves me to the measure.
And that Saint Louis loves me thirty times more than to the measure.
And if I have put him in my heaven, that one, at least I know why.

That is how I reckon, says God. And then my account comes out right. For that leprosy that was in question,
That leprosy of which they spoke, and of being a leper,
It was not a leprosy of imagination and a leprosy of invention and a leprosy of exercise.
It was not a leprosy they had seen in books or had heard tell of
More or less vaguely
It was not a leprosy to talk about nor a leprosy to make people afraid in conversation and in figures,
But it was real leprosy and they spoke of having it, themselves, really,
Which they knew well, which they had seen twenty times
In France and in the Holy Land,
That disgusting floury disease, that filthy scab, that evil ringworm,
That repugnant disease of crusts which makes of a man
The horror and the shame of man.
That ulcer, that dry rot, in short that definitive leprosy
Which gnaws the skin and the face and the arm and the hand,
And the thigh and the leg and the foot
And the belly and the skin and the bones and the nerves and the veins.
That dry white mildew which gains step by step
And which bites as with mouse-teeth.
And which makes of a man the refuse and the flight of man,
And which destroys a body like a granular mildew
And which sprouts upon the body those frightful white lips,
Those frightful dry lips of wounds
And which always advances and never recedes
And which always gains and which never loses
And which goes to the end,
And which makes of a man a walking corpse,
It is of that leprosy they were speaking, of no other. It is of that leprosy they were thinking, of no other. Of a real leprosy, in no way of a leprosy of exercise. It is that leprosy he would rather have, no other. Well, I find that this is thirty times striking
And that this is loving me thirty times and that this is thirty times of love.

Ah, no doubt if Joinville with the eyes of the soul had seen
What that leprosy of the soul is
Which we do not name in vain mortal sin,
If with the eyes of the soul he had seen
That dry rot of the soul infinitely more wicked,
Infinitely uglier, infinitely more pernicious,
Infinitely more malignant, infinitely more odious
He himself would have understood at once how absurd his remark was.
And that the question does not even arise. But not all see with the eyes of the soul.

I understand that, says God, not all are saints, such is my Christendom.
There are also the sinners, they are needed, that is how it is.
He was a good Christian, all the same, together, he was a sinner, they are needed in Christendom.
He was a good Frenchman, Jean, sire de Joinville, a baron of Saint Louis. At least he said what he thinks.

Those people make up the bulk of the army. Troops too are needed.
It is not enough to have leaders who walk
at the head.
Those people set off quite honestly on crusade, at
least once in two times, and quite honestly
make the crusade.
They fight very well and get themselves killed quite properly
and win the kingdom of heaven
Just like any other.
(I mean as another would win the kingdom of
heaven.
Or I mean as they themselves would win
another kingdom,
A kingdom of the earth.) That is what is most
remarkable about them.
They go off, the one like the other, in a troop, one
behind the other.
Without hurrying, without astonishment, without making great
gestures,
Very honestly, quite ordinarily.
Without making a stir, and they end up all the same
By conquering the kingdom of heaven.
Or again they win the kingdom of heaven as one
wins a kingdom of the earth,
They attack the kingdom of heaven as one attacks a
kingdom of the earth,
By a strong hand, and that does not already do so badly. Violenti
rapiunt.
They do all that for you besides quite honestly,
quite commonly, as a matter of course.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world. Only these poor fellows do not want to have the
leprosy. They no doubt find that it is not
clean. They would rather have something else. The wretched, the fools, if they saw the leprosy of
the soul
And if they saw the filth or the cleanness of the soul. But there it is, they say to themselves: I have only one body (the fools,
they forget the main thing,
They forget not only the soul, but the body of
their eternity. The body of the resurrection of the bodies),
I have only one body, they think (thinking only of their
earthly body)
If this filthy leprosy takes me, I am lost
(They mean that their temporal body is temporally
lost).
It is a disease that always takes and never gives
back.
It is a dry rot that makes advance always and
always
The edges of the lips of its frightful wounds.
If I am taken, I am lost.
It begins with a point, it ends with the whole body. It does not forgive, when it is begun it is finished. It is a disease impossible to undo. It undoes everything, what is gone never comes back again.
It breaks everything. This body I have (and which they love so much) would fall into
dust and tatters
And into that filthy granular flour and would never come back to me
again. It is an irrevocable gangrene and which never returns
backward.

Now they cling to their body. One would say they think
they have only that. They know nevertheless that they have a soul. Life is
the union of the soul and the body,
Death is their separation. But their body seems to them
Solid and good and alive. They have the impression that the leprosy will annihilate all their
body and that it will hold them to the very end (they do not consider that at the end of that end
The true beginning begins)
And so they would rather have something else than the
leprosy.
I think they would rather catch
A disease that would please them. It is always the same
system.
They are willing to face the most terrible trials
And to offer me the most formidable exercises,
Provided that it is they who have previously
Chosen them. Thereupon the Pharisees cry out and make
displays
And utter shouts and make faces and these execrable
Pharisees
Pray above all saying: Lord we render you
thanks
That you have not made us like to
this man
Who is afraid of catching the leprosy. Now I say on the contrary, says God,
It is I who say: It is no small thing to catch the
leprosy.
I know what leprosy is. It is I who made it. I know it. I say: It is no small thing to catch
the leprosy.
And I have never said that the trials and exercises of
their life,
And the maladies and miseries of their life,
And the distresses of their life were nothing. I have always said on the contrary and I have always thought
And I have always weighed that it was not nothing. And one must well believe that indeed it was not nothing
Since my son worked so many miracles on the sick
And since I have given to the king of France
To touch scrofula.

The Pharisees utter shouts at him who does not want
to catch the leprosy.
And they are scandalized, these virtuous ones. But I who am not virtuous,
Says God,
I do not utter shouts and I am not scandalized.

I do not reckon, I do not retain that this Joinville
is thirty times below the ordinary.
But I retain, but I reckon on the contrary
That it is this Saint Louis who is uncommon, thirty times uncommon, thirty times extraordinary, thirty times above the ordinary.

I do not reckon, I do not retain
That Joinville is thirty times cowardly.
But on the contrary I retain and I reckon
That it is this Saint Louis who is thirty times brave,
Thirty times brave above the ordinary and more than the measure.

I do not reckon, I do not retain
That Joinville is thirty times lower.
But on the contrary I retain and I reckon
That it is this Saint Louis who is thirty times high,
Thirty times high above the ordinary and more than the measure.

I do not reckon, I do not retain
That Joinville is thirty times small.
But I know only that he is a man.
And on the contrary I retain and I reckon,
Here is how I reckon,
And it is thus.
I retain and I reckon that it is this Saint Louis, king of France,
Who is thirty times great, thirty times above the ordinary and more than the measure
And who is thirty times near my heart and thirty times the brother of my son.

The Pharisees raise the hue and cry against him who does not want to catch the leprosy.

But the saint does not raise the hue and cry and he is not scandalized. He knows too well the nature of man and the infirmity of
man and he is only deeply grieved.

The Pharisees raise the hue and cry against this man who does
not want to catch the leprosy. See on the contrary how the Saint speaks to him gently. Firmly but gently. And this firmness is so much the surer and gives me
so much the more certainty and more assurance and more
guarantee in that it is gentler. The hearts of sinners are not taken by
breaking-in.
They are not pure enough. The kingdom of heaven alone is taken by breaking-in.

The Pharisees rush upon the man who does not want to catch the leprosy.
See on the contrary how the Saint takes him up
gently.
The Saint is invaded by a frightful grief at this word of the sinner.
But he absorbs, he devours his grief and suffers it
himself for himself in himself.
And see how he takes up the sinner gently.

Now I, says God, am on the side of the saints and in no way
on the side of the Pharisees. So I too absorb and devour my grief and suffer it
myself in myself for myself,
And see how I speak gently to the sinner
And how I take up the sinner gently.

And when the brothers had departed,
(He waits till the two brothers whom he had called,
Whom he had had come, have departed. He waits till they
are alone. He does not want
To make a semblance of affront to a French baron),
he called me all alone, and made me sit at his feet and said to me:
“How was it you told me yesterday that?” And I told him that I still told him so.

And I, who never lied to him; in truth, says God,
This frankness of Joinville, who dares to repeat that to the king,
Is precisely what guarantees to me the frankness of Saint Louis.
This frankness of sin of Joinville and of that certain impiety
Is precisely what covers me, what guarantees me,
What so to speak counterbalances for me
The frankness of sanctity of Saint Louis. And what verifies it for me.

Hear me, says God, it is the freedom of Joinville
That covers me, that guarantees me the freedom of Saint Louis.
It is the gratuity of Joinville
That covers me, that guarantees me the gratuity, the grace of Saint Louis.
Hear me, it is the sin of Joinville, that good Christian,
That covers me, that guarantees me the very sanctity of Saint Louis.

I, who never lied to him: it is because Joinville never lied to Saint Louis,
Even at the risk of displeasing him, even at the risk of contradicting him and of giving him a great pain.
That I too am sure and that I am guaranteed
That Saint Louis never lies to me.
That his love, that his sanctity does not lie to me,
That it is not a love, a sanctity of convention,
Of complaisance, imaginary,
But that it is a real love, a real sanctity,
Frank, earthy,
Of the soil, a sanctity of race and of fine race,
Free, gratuitous.

And he said to me: “You speak like a quick fool;”
(Nothing more, like a quick fool, like a quick scatterbrain);
“for you must know that no leprosy is so ugly as to be in mortal sin, because the soul that is in mortal sin is like the devil; wherefore no leprosy can be so ugly.
“And it is indeed true that when a man dies, he is healed of the leprosy of the body; but when the man who has committed mortal sin dies, he does not know nor is he certain that he has had in his life such repentance that God has forgiven him: wherefore he must have great fear that this leprosy may last him as long as God will be in paradise. Wherefore I pray you,” said he, “as much as I can, that you set your heart on this, for the love of God and of me, that you would rather that every mischief should come upon the body, of leprosy and of every malady, than that mortal sin should come upon the soul of you.”

What gentleness, my child, what firmness in gentleness, what gentleness in firmness.
The one and the other bound together indissolubly, the one urging the other on, the one setting off the other, the one supporting the other, the one nourishing the other.
Gentleness all armed with firmness, firmness all armed with gentleness.
The one enclosed in the other, the other enclosed in the one, like a double kernel in a double fruit
Of firmness.
A gentleness so much the better guaranteed by firmness, a firmness so much the better guaranteed by gentleness.
The one bearing the other.
For there is no true gentleness but that founded on firmness,
Clothed with firmness.
And there is no true firmness but that clothed with gentleness.

What gentleness, what tenderness. He who loves
Enters into the subjection of him who is loved.

That is how he speaks, he the king of France.
It is true that it is to a French baron.
What care not to offend.
Not to bruise in any way, not to injure.
Not to wound.
Not to leave any trace,
Any memory of wound and of bruise.
What attention, what dilection.
What care not to give even an appearance of
wrong. What care not to commit the slightest offense. He the king, speaking for God and for himself,
For God and for the king of France he speaks humbly. He speaks like a trembling suppliant. It is that he indeed trembles and it is that he is soliciting. He trembles lest his faithful Joinville not make his
salvation.
And he asks Joinville, he solicits that the faithful Joinville
Make his salvation. Be willing to make his salvation. What
solicitation. He takes care to take him aside. He waits
till the two brothers be gone. What gentleness, what father would speak more gently to
his son.
“How was it you told me yesterday that?” And I told him that I still told him so. And he said to me: You speak like a hastis musars;
(like hasty idler, like hasty scatterbrain,
like hasty starling); he almost pretends to jest, to begin in a tone
fairly pleasant, just like one who is afraid, Precisely like him who is going to enter into the most
grave matter,
Who is going to discuss, who is going to treat of the most grave interest);
(thus begin the most formidable jousts);
And profound seriousness comes immediately after. Enters incontinently into the very body and into the text
of this pleasant,
Of this formidable entry. You speak like hastis
musars; for you must know that no leprosy is so ugly as to be in mortal sin,
because the soul which is in mortal sin is like
the devil: wherefore no leprosy can be so ugly.

And the words which follow are not unworthy, my
child, of the most beautiful words of the Gospels,
Of the greatest words of Jesus in the Gospels.
For in imitation of Jesus
It was given to saints to pronounce words
not unworthy
Of Jesus, words of Jesus,
As in imitation and in honor of Jesus
It was given to martyrs to undergo a death
Not unworthy of the death of Jesus. Thus these words which
come
Are not unworthy of the preaching of Jesus himself. And it is indeed true that when a man dies,
he is healed of the leprosy of the body;
(as it is the same voice as in the Gospels,
my child, the same depth,
The same resonance of the same voice in the same
depth)
(it is also that it is the same sanctity. Jesus and the other
saints.
The same common eternal sanctity,
The same communion of the saints);
but when the man who has committed mortal sin dies, he does not know nor is he certain that he has had in his life such
repentance that God has forgiven him:
wherefore he must have great fear that this leprosy may last him as long as God will be in paradise. But the words which
come, my child,
Are not unworthy of the heart of the Gospels,
Of the three parables of Hope. They are the reflection, they are the carrying-over, they are the recalling
In the same resonance and in the same line
Of the three parables of Hope. A man had
two sons. A king had a baron. A king had a faithful one. A king had a son. A king had
a vassal.
And as the three parables of hope
Are the heart perhaps and no doubt and the crowning
of the Gospels,
So these words of Saint Louis which come are the
heart perhaps and no doubt and the crowning
Not only of Saint Louis and of the sanctity of Saint
Louis.
But of all sanctity perhaps after the Gospels,
Of all sanctity issuing from the Gospels. For it is the
reflection, and the carrying-over, and the recalling
Of that unique parable of the child who was lost.

How he lowers himself, the king of France.
What Christian humiliation, what humiliation of
a saint. He who loves
Enters into the dependence of him who is loved. What
noble humility.
He does not command, he asks. He waits, he hopes, he takes up gently. He prays. What
humility all clothed with nobility.
Wherefore I pray you, said he, as much as I can, that you set
your heart on this, for the love of God and of me,
that you would rather that every mischief should come upon the
body, of leprosy and of every malady, than that mortal sin
should come upon the soul of you.

What insistence, what humble insistence, what noble insistence, what tender insistence.
That is how the saint speaks to the sinner
For his salvation. Jesus himself
Was never more tender to the sinner. It is that the saint by himself knows
What it is to be a man and what is human weakness
And the infirmity of man
And what temptation is for man
Of his own weakness. For the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And I, says God, who am on the side of the saints and in no way on the side of the Pharisees,
I who am all at the far end on the side of the saints
I too know what is the weakness and infirmity of man (it is I who made him),
And I speak to Joinville as Saint Louis does.
How should I be less tender than Saint Louis. Like
him I tremble
For their salvation. Like him I solicit, alas. For their salvation. The Pharisees want others
to be perfect.
And they require and they demand. And they speak only of
that.
But I am not so demanding.
Because I know what perfection is, I do not
ask so much of them.
Because I am perfect and there is only I who am
perfect.
I am the All-Perfect. So I am less hard to please. Less demanding. I am the Saint of saints. I know what it is. I know what it costs. I know what it costs, I know what it is worth. The
Pharisees always want perfection
For others. In others.

But the saint who wants perfection for himself
In himself
And who seeks and who toils in labor and in
tears
And who sometimes obtains some perfection.
The saint is less hard to please for others. He is less demanding for others. He knows what it is. He is demanding for himself, hard to please for himself. That is more
difficult.

The Pharisees always find the others unworthy and
all the world unworthy.
But I who am perhaps not worth those gentlemen
of virtue, says God,
I am less hard to please, I find
That this Joinville is a man and that it is Saint Louis who
has thirty times conquered,
Thirty times surmounted, thirty times climbed again, thirty times
surpassed man’s nature.
I find that this Joinville is common, that he is a good
Christian, a good sinner of the common kind,
And that it is this Saint Louis on the contrary who is thirty
times out of the common, thirty times saintly, thirty times
out of the ordinary kind.

I find that this Joinville is not unworthy and even
that he is worthy,
And that it is this Saint Louis who is thirty times worthy
To be my son in my heart and to rest his shoulder
Against my shoulder.

Besides, what he had in Egypt, says God,
And what he caught in Tunisia,
That great exhaustion of all his body
And that incoercible
Flux of the belly of which he died
Were not better than that leprosy which he consented
to have.
There is no good malady, says God. I know it,
it is I who made them.
That is why so many saints are made, and the most
beautiful, in malady,
And the greatest.
And so many saints come out of malady
Naturally as from the womb of their mother and so
many sanctities
Come naturally out of malady, the most resplendent,
the most tender, the most dear, the most flowering
of all.
And there is a way of turning malady and death
by malady into martyrdom itself.

For me, says God, when I see,
When I consider this disease which is really leprosy,
That inexpiable floury disease with white crusts,
Which undoes them piece by piece,
(Which undoes their carnal body),
That a man who has seen some, really,
Who has seen leprosy and real lepers
Should say tranquilly that he would rather catch leprosy than fall into mortal sin,
That is to say should say really that he would rather catch that disease than displease me,
I am seized by it myself, says God, and I tremble with admiration
Before so much love and I am ashamed
To be so much loved.
My son who loved them so, how right he was to
love them. That a man, that this king who has only this
body after all
(after all this body on earth and who will never have any other
on earth) (and when he is stripped of it, — what a
stripping, — it is once for all)
Should say tranquilly that he would rather catch the
leprosy than fall into mortal sin.
That is to say should say tranquilly that he would rather
catch that disease than displease me,
I myself, I cannot get over it, says God, that there is a
man like this Saint Louis,
(and so many other saints and so many other martyrs)
And I am confounded at being so much loved.

And my grace must be so great.
And eternally I shall be in arrears with them
For in my paradise itself they shall love me eternally as much.
I remain trembling, says God, I remain confounded
at this proof of love.
At so much proof of love and there is only my son
Who is not in arrears with them, for for them as
them he suffered
A man’s martyrdom.
And he died for them as they died for him.

And that there should be a man who said that not
as a remark.
Not as a leprosy of remark,
Of discourse,
But really of a real leprosy,
Of leprosy not of a leprosy of speech, of a leprosy
of narrative,
But of a leprosy all ready, all proposed.

And that he did not say that, that sort of enormity,
With a great gesture, with display,
But that he said that simply,
As a matter of course, as an ordinary thing,
In the very text of his discourse, in the ordinary fabric
of his life,
That is the flower, says God, that ease,
And by that I recognize the Frenchman,
The race to whom all is simple and common and ordinary,
That race of all kindliness.

And I recognize here the resonance and the rank of the Frenchman
And I salute
Their proper order.
People to whom the greatest greatnesses
Are ordinary.
I salute here thy freedom, thy grace,
Thy courtesy.
Thy graciousness. Thy gratitude. Thy gratuity.

Ask this father if the best moment
Is not when his sons begin to love him like men,
Himself like a man, freely,
Gratuitously,
Ask this father whose children grow up.

Ask this father if there is not a secret hour,
A secret moment,
And if it is not
When his sons begin to become men,
Free,
And themselves treat him as a man,
Free,
Love him as a man,
Free,
Ask this father whose children grow up.

Ask this father if there is not an election above
all
And if it is not
When the submission precisely ceases and when his
sons become men
Love him, (treat him), so to speak as connoisseurs,
Man to man.
Freely,
Gratuitously. Esteem him thus.

Ask this father if he does not know that nothing is worth
A man’s look that crosses with a man’s look.

Now I am their father, says God, and I know the condition
of man. It is I who made it.
I do not ask too much of them. I ask only
their heart.
When I have the heart, I find that it is good. I am
not hard to please.

All the slave-submissions of the world are not worth
a fine look of a free man.
Or rather all the slave-submissions of the world
repel me and I would give everything
For a fine look of a free man.
For a fine obedience and tenderness and devotion
of a free man,
For a look of Saint Louis,
And even for a look of Joinville,
For Joinville is less saintly but he is no less
free,
(And he is no less Christian).
And he is no less gratuitous.

And my son died also for Joinville.
To that freedom, to that gratuity I have sacrificed everything, says God,
To that taste I have of being loved by free men,
Freely,
Gratuitously,
By true men, virile, adult, firm.
Noble, tender, but of a firm tenderness.
To obtain that freedom, that gratuity I have sacrificed everything,
To create that freedom, that gratuity,
To set in motion that freedom, that gratuity.

To teach him freedom.
Now I have not too much of all my Wisdom
To teach him freedom.
I have not too much of all the Wisdom of my Providence.
And of the duplicity itself of my Wisdom for this double teaching.
What measure I must keep, and how to calculate it.
What other could calculate it. And as I must be double
And as I must compose prudently this doubling,
(There is what will again scandalize our Pharisees),
As I must calculate prudently this very duplicity.
What must not my prudence be. It is necessary to create, it is necessary to teach that freedom
Without imperiling their salvation. For if I hold them up too much
They never learn to swim.
But if I do not hold them up just at the right moment,
They go nose down, they swallow a bad broth, they
plunge
And it must not be that they founder
In that ocean of turpitudes.

I am their father, says God, I am king. My situation is
exactly the same.
I am exactly like that king, who was, I believe, a
king of England,
Who would not send any help, any aid
To his son engaged in a bad battle,
Because he wanted the child
To win his knight’s spurs himself.
They must win heaven themselves and make
their salvation themselves. Such is the order, such is the secret, such is the mystery. Now
in this order, and in this secret, and in this mystery
Our Frenchmen are advanced above all. They are my
witnesses.
Preferred.
It is they who walk most all alone. It is they who walk most themselves. Among all they are free and among all they are gratuitous. They do not need to have the same thing explained to them
twenty times.
Before one has finished speaking, they are off. Intelligent people. Before one has finished speaking, they have understood.

Laborious people,
Before one has finished speaking, the work is done.
Military people,
Before one has finished speaking, the battle is given.
Soldier people, says God, nothing is worth the Frenchman in the battle.
(And so nothing is worth the Frenchman in the crusade).
They do not always ask for orders and they do not always ask for explanations on what must be done and on what is going to happen.
They find everything by themselves, they invent everything by themselves, as it becomes necessary.
They know everything all by themselves. There is no need to send them orders every instant.
They get along all by themselves. They understand all by themselves. In the thick of battle. They follow the event.
They modify themselves according to the event. They bend to the event. They mold themselves on the event. They watch, they anticipate the event.
They turn about, they always know what must be done without going to ask the general.
Without disturbing the general. Now there is always the battle, says God,
There is always the crusade.
And one is always far from the general.

It is bothersome, says God. When there shall no longer be these
Frenchmen,
There are things that I do, there will be no one any more
to understand them.

People, the peoples of the earth call you light
Because you are a prompt people.
The Pharisaic peoples call you light
Because you are a swift people.
You have arrived before the others have set out.
But I have weighed you, says God, and I have not found you
light.
O people inventor of the cathedral, I have not found you
light in faith.
O people inventor of the crusade I have not found you
light in charity.
As for Hope, it is better not to speak of it, there is
none but for them.

Such are our Frenchmen, says God. They are not without
faults. Far from it. They have even many
faults. They have more faults than the others. But with all their faults I love them still better
than all the others with supposedly fewer faults. I love them as they are. There is only me, says God,
who am without faults. (My son and me. A God had
a son.
And as creatures there have been only three who have been without faults.
Not counting the angels.
And it is Adam and Eve before the sin.
And it is the Virgin temporally and eternally.
In her double eternity.
And only two women have been pure being carnal.
And have been carnal being pure.
And it is Eve and Mary.
Eve until the sin.
Mary eternally.

Our Frenchmen are like everyone, says God. Few saints, many sinners.
One saint, three sinners. And thirty sinners. And three
hundred sinners. And more.
But I prefer a saint who has faults to a sinner
who has none.
No, I mean:
I prefer a saint who has faults to a neutral
who has none.
I am thus. A man had two sons.)
Now these Frenchmen, as they are, are my best
servants.
They have been, they shall always be my best soldiers
in the crusade.
Now there shall always be the crusade.
In short, they please me. That is to say everything. They have good and
bad. They have for and against. I know man.
I know too well what one must ask of man.
And above all what one must not ask of him. (If anyone knows it, it is I.
Since, having created him in my image and likeness,
By the mystery of this freedom my creature
I abandoned to him in my kingdom
A part of my government itself.
A part of my invention.
One must say it, a part of my creation.
We must take them as they are. If anyone knows it, it is I. And also do you know
How much a single drop of Jesus’ blood
Weighs in my eternal balances.

Let him then who is born to sleep, sleep. The earth was without form and void; darkness covered the face of the abyss; and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters. And it was only afterward that I created light. Now God said: Let there be light: and there was light.
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
He called the light day, and the darkness night: and of the evening and the morning was made the first day.

Shall it be said that there will be looks so extinguished, looks so paled
That no spark will ever light them again.
And that there will be voices so withered, and souls so over-ripe
That no fresh source will deepen them again.
And that there will be souls so withered
By trials, by distress,
By tears, by prayer, by labor,
And by having seen what they have seen. And by having suffered what
they have suffered.
And by having passed through where they have passed. And by knowing what
they know.
That they will have had enough of it.
Eternally enough and that all they will ask
is to be left in peace.
Dona eis, Domine, pacem,
Et requiem aeternam. Peace and eternal repose.
Because they shall have known certain stories of the earth.
And they shall no longer want to hear of anything but a
field of rest.
And to lie down to sleep.
To sleep, to sleep at last.
And that all they shall bear and all that I shall be able to put
And to bring
(He whom I take in his sleep of earth is
truly happy, and it is a good sign, my children)
As one too sick and too wounded no longer bears
life and the remedy and the very idea of healing.
But only the balm on the wound.
And has no more taste for health.
Thus shall it be said that on so many wounds.
They will bear only the coolness of the balm.
Like a feverish wounded man.
And that they shall have (no longer) any taste for my paradise
And for my eternal life.
And that all I shall be able to put on so many wounds;
On so many scars and on so many sacrifices;
And on the bitterness of so many chalices;
And on the ingratitudes of so many malices;
And on the spikes of thorns of so many haircloths;
And on the quarterings of so many tortures;
And on the splashings of so much blood;
(I have taken the criminal crouching on his crime
Says God.)
Shall it be said that on so many fatigues.
And so many heart-breakings and complicit murders.
On so many stupefactions and vicissitudes.
On so much disquietude and on so much habitude.
On so much solitude and decrepitude.
On so much lassitude and solicitude.
On so much ingratitude and inexactitude.
On so much uncertainty and so much solitude.
And so much servitude and desuetude.
And so much platitude and on so much bitterness.
And on this foam
Of blood.
And on this foam
Of hatred.
And on this foam
Of ingratitude.
And on this foam
Of love.
And on so many wounds shall it be said.
That on so many wounds all I shall be able to put.
And on so many witherings and on so many bruisings.
And on so many splashings and on so many bitings.

It will be to let descend like a balm of evening.
Like after the wound of a burning noon the great
falling of a fine summer evening
The slow descent of an eternal night.

O night shall it be said that I shall have created thee the last.
And that my Paradise and that my Beatitude
Will be only a great night of brightness.
A great eternal night
And that the crowning of the judgment and the beginning of Paradise and of my Beatitude will be
The sunset of an eternal summer.

Now it would be so, says God.
And all that I could put on the edges of the lips
Of the wounds of the martyrs
Would be the balm, and forgetfulness, and night.
And all would end with lassitude,
This enormous adventure,
As after a burning harvest
The slow descent of a great summer evening.
If there were not my little hope.
It is through my little hope alone that eternity will be.
And that Beatitude will be. And that Paradise will be.
And heaven and all.
For she alone, as she alone in the days of this
earth
Out of an old vigil makes spring forth a new morrow

So she alone out of the residues of the Judgment and out of the ruins
and the debris of time
Will make spring forth a new eternity.

I am, says God, the Lord of virtues.
Faith is the lamp of the sanctuary.
Which burns eternally.
Charity is that great beautiful wood fire
Which you light in your hearth
For my children the poor to come and warm themselves
on winter evenings.
And around Faith I see all my faithful
together kneeling in the same gesture and in the
same voice
Of the same prayer.
And around Charity I see all my poor
Sitting in a circle around this fire
And stretching out their palms to the warmth of the hearth.
But my hope is the flower and the fruit and the leaf
and the branch.
And the bough and the bud and the seed and the button.
And she is the bud and the button of the flower
Of eternity itself.

O my French people, says God, you are the only one who do not make contortions.
Neither contortions of stiffness, nor contortions of
softness.
And in your sin itself you make fewer contortions
Than the others make in their exercises.
When you pray, kneeling you hold the bust upright.
And the legs well joined well upright at ground level.
And the two feet well joined.
And the two hands well joined well applied well
upright.
And the two looks of the two eyes well parallel
rising straight to heaven.
O sole people who look in the face.
And who look in the face fortune and trial
And sin itself.
And who look me myself in the face.
And when you are lying upon the stone of the tombs
The man and the woman hold themselves well upright one beside
the other.
Without stiffness and without any contortion.
Well lying upright one beside the other without fault.
Without lack and without error. Well alike. Well parallel.
The hands joined, the bodies joined and separated parallel, the looks joined.
The destinies joined. Joined in the judgment and in
eternity.
And the noble greyhound well at the feet.

People, the only one who pray and the only one who weep without contortion.
The only one who shed only decent tears.
And perpendicular tears.

The only one who let rise only decent prayers
(And prayers and vows perpendicular)

In every family, says God, there is a last-born.
And he is more tender.
That little hope who would skip rope in the
processions.
She is in the house of the virtues
As Benjamin was in the house of Jacob.

A man had twelve sons. As the forty-six books of the Old Testament walk before the four Gospels and the Acts and the Epistles and the Apocalypse.
Which closes the march.
As the forty-six books of the Old Testament walk before the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.
Having pitched their forty-six tents in the desert.
And as Israel walks before Christendom.
And as the battalion of the just walks before the battalion of the saints.
And Adam before Jesus Christ
Who is the second Adam.
So before every story and before every similitude of the New Testament

O my French people, says God, you are the only one who do not make contortions.

Neither contortions of stiffness, nor contortions of softness. And in your sin itself you make fewer contortions Than the others make in their exercises. When you pray, kneeling, you have the bust upright. And the legs well joined well straight close to the ground. And the two feet well joined. And the two hands well joined well applied well

upright. And the two gazes of the two eyes well parallel rising

straight to heaven. Only people who looks face to face. And who looks face to face at fortune and at trial And at sin itself.

And who looks me myself face to face. And when you are laid out upon the stone of the tombs The man and the woman hold themselves quite upright one beside

the other. Without stiffness and without any contortion. Well laid out straight one beside the other without fault. Without lack and without error. Quite alike. Quite parallel.

The hands joined, the bodies joined and separated parallel, the gazes joined. The destinies joined. Joined in the judgment and in

eternity. And the noble greyhound well at the feet.

People, the only one who prays and the only one who weeps without contortion.

The only one who sheds none but decent tears. And perpendicular tears.

The only one who lets rise none but decent prayers (And prayers and vows perpendicular)

In every family, says God, there is a last-born.

And he is more tender.

That little hope who would skip rope in the

processions. She is in the house of the virtues As Benjamin was in the house of Jacob.

A man had twelve sons. As the forty-six books of the Old Testament march before the four Gospels and the Acts and the Epistles and the Apocalypse.

Which closes the march.

As the forty-six books of the Old Testament march before the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.

Having pitched their forty-six tents in the desert.

And as Israel marches before Christendom.

And as the battalion of the just marches before the battalion of the saints.

And Adam before Jesus Christ

Who is the second Adam.

So before every story and before every similitude of the New Testament

Marches a story of the Old Testament which is its

parallel and which is its like. A man had two sons. A man had twelve sons.

And thus before every Christian sister Advances a Jewish sister who is her elder sister and who

announces her and who goes before. And who pitched her tent in the desert. And the well of

Rebecca Had been dug before the well of the Samaritan woman. Now among them all one story has pitched its tent. And before the story of the man who had two sons My child it is the story of the man who had twelve

sons. And as Benjamin was in the family of that man, So is my Hope in the family of the virtues. Among the three Theologicals and among the four Cardinals. Without counting all the others and notably among

those, Among the seven which are directly opposed to the Capital ones. And before the son who was found again keeper of swine, Marches the son who was found again king, I mean minister of the king and really governor

of the kingdom. Minister of Pharaoh and governor of the kingdom of Egypt. — I am Joseph, your brother. What Jew, what Christian Has not wept at this finding-again. Israel loved Joseph

more than all his other children, because he had had him

being already old.

Jeannette

And he had had a coat of many colours made for him.

Madame Gervaise

It happened also that Joseph reported to his brothers a dream he had had, which was the seed of a greater hatred.

Jeannette

For he said to them:

Madame Gervaise

What Jewish heart, what Christian heart has not trembled at the thread of this story. What Jewish heart, what Christian heart has not trembled at this finding-again.

Jeannette

For he said to them: Hear the dream that I have had.

Madame Gervaise

Jew, Christian, who has not wept at this recognition.

Jeannette

It seemed to me that I was binding sheaves with you in the field; that my sheaf rose up and stood upright; and that yours being round about mine, adored it.

Madame Gervaise

His brothers answered him: Will you be our King, and shall we be subject to your power? These dreams and these talks therefore kindled still more the envy and the hatred they had against him.

Jeannette

He told yet another dream to his brothers, saying: I thought I saw in a dream that the sun and the moon, and eleven stars adored me.

Madame Gervaise

When he had reported this dream to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him for it, and said to him: What would this dream of yours mean? Shall your mother, your brothers and I adore you upon the earth?

Jeannette

Thus his brothers were transported with envy against him: but the father considered all this in silence.

Madame Gervaise

It happened then that Joseph’s brothers stopped at Sichem where they were pasturing their father’s flocks.

Jeannette

And Israel said to Joseph: Your brothers are pasturing our sheep in the country of Sichem. Come, and I will send you to them.

Madame Gervaise

(I am quite ready, said Joseph to him). — Go, and see if your brothers are well, and if the flocks are in

good condition; and you shall bring me back word of what passes. — Having (therefore) been sent from the valley of Hebron, he came to Sichem;

Jeannette

and a man having found him wandering in a field, asked him what he was looking for.

Madame Gervaise

He answered him: I am looking for my brothers; I pray you tell me where they pasture their flocks.

Jeannette

This man answered him: They have withdrawn from this place; and I heard them say to one another: Let us go toward Dothain. Joseph therefore went after his brothers; and he found them in (the plain of) Dothain.

Madame Gervaise

When they had seen him from afar, before he had drawn near to them, they resolved to kill him;

Jeannette

And they said one to another: Here comes our dreamer.

Madame Gervaise

Come, let us kill him, and throw him into this old cistern: we will say that a wild beast has devoured him; and after that we shall see what his dreams will have done for him.

Jeannette

Ruben having heard them speak so, tried to draw him out of their hands, and he said:

Madame Gervaise

Do not kill him, and do not shed his blood, but throw him into this cistern that is in the desert, and keep your hands pure.

Jeannette

as though giving information, so that one might not go astray:

He said this in the design of drawing him out of their hands, and of giving him back to his father.

Madame Gervaise

As soon then as he was come near his brothers, they took off his coat of many colours which covered him down to the bottom;

Jeannette

And they cast him into that old cistern which was without water.

Madame Gervaise

Having then sat down to eat, they saw some Ishmaelites who passed, and who coming from Galaad were carrying on their camels perfumes, resin and myrrh,…

Jeannette

Already the gold, already the incense, already the myrrh.

Madame Gervaise

…and were going down into Egypt.

Jeannette

And it was the first flight into Egypt.

Madame Gervaise

Then Judah said to his brothers: What will it profit us to have killed our brother, and to have hidden his death?

It is better to sell him…

Jeannette

It is better to sell him to these Ishmaelites, and not to soil our hands; for he is our brother and our flesh.

as though condescending:

His brothers consented to what he said:

Madame Gervaise

Having therefore drawn him out of the cistern, and seeing those Madianite merchants who passed, they sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who led him into Egypt.

Jeannette

They sold him for twenty pieces of silver. Another, Another was sold.

Madame Gervaise

Another was sent to his brothers, to know how the sheep were faring. Another was stripped of his coat and thrown into that old cistern which was without water. Another was sold.

Jeannette

Another was led down into Egypt, into the same, into another Egypt. Another was sold.

Madame Gervaise

It is a figure, my child. It is a unique story and it was played twice. Once in Jewry, once in Christendom. And for him who looks the two times are seen in transparency one upon the other.

Jeannette

Another was bound, another was sold.

Madame Gervaise

Another was sold as a slave.

Jeannette

Another also was found again. Another also was recognized. Another also unveiled himself. I am Jesus, your brother.

Madame Gervaise

Another manifested himself in his glory, and in the ministry and in the government of the kingdom.

Jeannette

In the government of an eternal Egypt. Ruben having returned to the cistern, and not having found the child there.

Madame Gervaise

Another broke the seal of his secret. Another appeared in his glory. Another appeared at the right hand. Another appeared in the government. Another appeared upon the steps of the throne. Another appeared in his ascension.

Jeannette

And it was Jesus our brother. I am Jesus,

I am Jesus your brother.

And we ourselves we are those sheaves and those eleven stars.

A man had twelve sons. And we ourselves we are those ungrateful brothers,

the eleven or finally the ten or finally the nine wicked sons of Jacob. Ruben having returned to the cistern, and not having found the child there again.

Madame Gervaise

tore his garments, and came to say to his brothers: The child appears no more, and what shall become of me?

After that they took the coat…

Jeannette

Another coat was taken away. After that they took the coat

of Joseph, and having dipped it in the blood of a kid which they had killed,

Madame Gervaise

they sent it back to the father, making it be said to him by those who carried it to him: Here is a coat that we have found, see if it is your son’s, or not.

Jeannette

The father having recognized it, said: It is the coat of my son, a cruel beast has devoured him, a beast has devoured Joseph.

Madame Gervaise

And having torn his garments, he covered himself with a hair-shirt, weeping for his son a very long time.

Jeannette

Then all his children gathered together, to try to relieve their father in his sorrow: but he would not receive any consolation, and he said: I will weep always until I go down with my son to the bottom of the earth. Thus he continued always to weep.

Madame Gervaise

Meanwhile the Madianites sold Joseph into Egypt.

A man had twelve sons. Now the one he loved more than all the others (Israel loved Joseph more than

all his other children, because he had had him being already old, and he had had a coat of many colours made for him) that very one was a slave in Egypt and he believed that he was dead.

Now it is for that very reason that he had later that great joy.

That he could not have had it otherwise.

Jeannette

…and I shall have above you only the throne and the quality of King.

Madame Gervaise

Pharaoh said also to Joseph: I establish you today to command over all Egypt.

Jeannette

At the same time he took off his ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s; he had him clothed in a robe of fine linen, and put on his neck a chain of gold.

Madame Gervaise

He made him mount upon one of his chariots, which was the second after his own, and caused it to be cried by a Herald, that everyone should bend the knee before him, and that all should recognize that he had been established to command over all Egypt.

Jeannette

The King said again to Joseph: I am Pharaoh; no one shall stir foot or hand in all Egypt but by your command.

Madame Gervaise

He changed also his name, and called him in the Egyptian tongue…

Jeannette

…the Saviour of the World.

Madame Gervaise

The seven years of fertility therefore came; and the wheat having been put into sheaves, was then stored in the granaries of Egypt.

Jeannette

Thirty-three years of fertility therefore came; and the wheat having been put into sheaves, was then stored in the granaries of an eternal Egypt.

Madame Gervaise

There was also stored away in all the cities this great abundance of grain.

Jeannette

There was also stored away in all heaven this great abundance of graces.

Madame Gervaise

For there was so great a quantity of wheat, that it equalled the sand of the sea, and that it could not even be measured.

Jeannette

For there was so great a quantity of graces, that it equalled the sand of the sea, and that it could not even be measured.

Madame Gervaise

These seven years…

Jeannette

He had bound the sacks of wheat for the granaries of wheat. Another

Another bound the sacks of graces for the granaries

of graces. Another bound the sacks of graces for the granaries of heaven. Another bound the sacks of graces for the Eternal granaries.

Madame Gervaise

These seven years…

Jeannette

In the seven fat years he had bound the sacks of

wheat for the granaries of wheat of the country Of Egypt. Another

In the thirty-three fat years another Bound the sacks of virtues, the sacks of merits, the sacks of

graces For the granaries of wheat of the eternal country.

Madame Gervaise

These seven years of fertility of Egypt therefore being passed.

Jeannette

These thirty-three years of fertility of the heart therefore being passed,

Madame Gervaise

The seven years of sterility came next, according to Joseph’s prediction:

Jeannette

The innumerable years of the sterility of the heart

Came next.

According to Jesus’s prediction:

Madame Gervaise

A great famine came upon all the world;

Jeannette

A great famine came upon all the world;

Madame Gervaise

But there was wheat in all Egypt.

Jeannette

But there is wheat in all that Eternal Egypt.

Madame Gervaise

The people being pressed with famine, cried out to Pharaoh, and asked him for something to live on.

Jeannette

And today. And at present it is we, this people, who are pressed with

famine. And we cry out to God, Asking him for something to live on.

Madame Gervaise

But he said to them: Go find Joseph, And do whatever he tells you.

Jeannette

But he says to us: Go find Jesus And do whatever he tells you.

Madame Gervaise

Meanwhile the famine grew every day in all the earth:

Jeannette

and Jesus…

Madame Gervaise

and Joseph opening all the granaries,

Jeannette

was selling wheat to the Egyptians,

Madame Gervaise

because they were themselves tormented by famine.

And people came from all the provinces into Egypt to buy something to live on, and to find some relief

Jeannette

in the rigour of this famine.

Meanwhile Jacob having heard that wheat was being sold in Egypt, said to his children: Why do you neglect (it)?

I have learned that wheat is being sold in Egypt: go there and buy

what is necessary for us, so that we may live and not die of hunger.

Madame Gervaise

Joseph’s ten brothers therefore went down into Egypt to buy wheat there;

Jeannette

Jacob kept Benjamin with him, having told his brothers that he feared

that some accident might befall him on the way.

Madame Gervaise

They entered into Egypt with the others who were going there to buy;

because the famine was in the country of Canaan.

Jeannette

Joseph was commanding in all Egypt,

Madame Gervaise

and the wheat was sold to the peoples only by his order. His brothers having therefore adored him,

he recognized them: and speaking to them rather roughly, as to strangers, he said to them:

Jeannette putting on a slightly gruff voice

Whence come you?

Madame Gervaise

They answered him:

Jeannette putting on a slightly small voice

From the country of Canaan to buy here something to live on.

And although he knew his brothers well, he was nevertheless not known by them.

Then remembering the dreams he had had formerly.

Madame Gervaise

he said to them: You are spies, and you have come here to consider the weakest places of Egypt.

Jeannette

They answered: Lord, this is not so; but your servants have come here to buy wheat.

Madame Gervaise

We are all children of one man,

Jeannette

We are all children of one God.

Madame Gervaise

We are all children of one man, we come with thoughts of peace,

Jeannette

And peace on earth to men of good will.

Madame Gervaise

and your servants have no evil design.

He answered them: No, this is not so; but you have come to mark out what is least fortified in Egypt.

They said to him: We are twelve brothers, sons of one man in the country of Canaan, and your servants. The last is with our father, and the other is no more.

Jeannette

As Benjamin was in the house of Jacob, the

youngest is with our father, so is hope in the house of the virtues.

Madame Gervaise

Behold, said Joseph, what I was saying: You are spies

Jeannette

putting on the gruff voice and softening little by little

[besides, all this sacred recitation, come into the very current of their common prayer, is done: above all as of a beautiful story; together as of an amusing story; underneath as of a story of tenderness; of a growing tenderness, so great that at the same time they constantly defend themselves against it until the final bursting]

I am going to test whether you are telling the truth. By the life of Pharaoh,

[it is above all this By the life of Pharaoh that amuses them. They do it in a very gruff voice]

By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go out of here until the last of your brothers has come here.

Madame Gervaise

Send one of you to bring him here: meanwhile you shall remain in prison until I have recognized whether what you say is true or false, otherwise, same play, by the life of Pharaoh, you are spies.

He had them therefore put into prison for three days.

And on the third day he had them brought out of prison, and said to them: Do what I say to you, and you shall live: for I fear God.

If you come here in a spirit of peace, let one of your brothers remain bound in the prison; and you, go away; carry into your country the wheat that you have bought,

and bring me back the last of your brothers, so that I may recognize whether what you say is true, and that you may not die. They did what he had ordered them.

And they said one to another: It is justly that we suffer all this, because we have sinned against our brother, and that seeing the sorrow of his soul when he prayed us, we did not hearken to him: it is for that that we have fallen into this affliction.

Madame Gervaise

Ruben one of them said to them: Did I not say to you: Commit not so great a crime against this child? And you did not hearken to me. It is his blood that now is demanded again.

Jeannette

They did not know that Joseph heard them, because he spoke to them by an interpreter.

But he withdrew for a little time, and shed tears.

Madame Gervaise

And having returned he spoke to them.

He had Simeon taken, and had him bound before them; and he commanded his officers to fill their sacks with wheat, and to put back in the sack of each of them the money, adding besides provisions to nourish them on the way: which was done at once.

Joseph’s brothers therefore went away, carrying their wheat upon their asses.

And one of them having opened his sack in the inn to give his ass to eat, saw his money at the mouth of the sack,

and he said to his brothers: My money has been returned to me; here it is in my sack. They were all seized with astonishment and trouble; and they said one to another: What is this conduct of God upon us?

When they had arrived at Jacob their father in the country of Canaan, they recounted to him all that had happened to them, saying:

The Lord of that country spoke roughly to us, and took us for spies who came to observe the kingdom.

We answered him: We are peaceable folk, and very far from having any evil design.

We were twelve brothers, sons of one same father.

Jeannette

We were twelve brothers, sons of one same father. One is no more, the youngest is with our father in the country of Canaan.

Madame Gervaise

He answered us: I will test whether it is true that you have only thoughts of peace. Leave with me therefore here one of your brothers; take the wheat which is necessary for you for your houses, and go away;

and bring me back the youngest of your brothers, so that I may know that you are not spies; that you may then bring back with you the one whom I keep prisoner, and that it may be permitted to you in the future to buy here whatever you will.

After having spoken thus, as they were throwing their wheat out of their sacks, they each found their money tied at the mouth of the sack, and they were all terrified at it.

Jeannette

Then Jacob, their father, said to them:

You have reduced me to being without children. Joseph is no more in the world, Simeon is in prison, and you wish to take Benjamin from me. All these evils have fallen back upon me.

Madame Gervaise

Ruben answered him: Put to death my two children, if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to me, and I will give him back to you.

Jeannette

No, said Jacob, my son shall not go with you. His brother is dead, and he has remained alone. If any misfortune should befall him in the country whither you are going, you will overwhelm my old age with a sorrow that will carry me into the tomb.

Madame Gervaise

Meanwhile the famine extraordinarily desolated all the country;

and the wheat that the children of Jacob had brought from Egypt being consumed, Jacob said to them:

Return to buy us a little wheat.

Judah answered him: He who commands in that country has declared to us his will with an oath, saying: You shall not see my face unless you bring with you the youngest of your brothers.

If you wish therefore to send him with us, we shall go together, and we shall buy what is necessary for you.

But if you will not, we shall not go: for this man, as we have said many times, declared to us that we should not see his face, if we had not with us our young brother.

Israel said to them: It is for my misfortune that you let him know that you had yet another brother.

But they answered him: He asked us by order all the line of our family: if our father was alive; if we had a brother: and we answered him in accordance with what he had asked us. Could we guess that he would say to us: Bring with you your brother?

Judah said again to his father: Send the child with me, so that we may depart and have something to live on, and that we may not die we and our little children.

I take charge of this child, and it is of me that you shall demand an account of him. If I do not bring him back, and if I do not give him back to you, I consent that you never pardon me this fault.

If we had not delayed so much, we should already have come back a second time.

Israel their father said to them therefore: If it is a necessity, do what you will. Take with you of the most excellent fruits of this country, to make a present of them to him who commands; a little resin, of honey, of storax, of myrrh, of turpentine and of almonds.

Jeannette

Some gold, some incense, some myrrh.

Madame Gervaise

Carry also twice as much money as on the first journey, and carry back that which you found in your sacks, lest it be a mistake.

Finally take your brother with you, and go to that man.

Jeannette

I pray my God the almighty to make him favourable to you, that he send back with you your brother whom he holds prisoner, and Benjamin: meanwhile I shall remain alone, as though I were without children.

Madame Gervaise

They took therefore with them the presents, and double the money, with Benjamin; and having departed they arrived in Egypt, where they presented themselves before Joseph.

Jeannette

Joseph having seen them, and Benjamin with them, said to his Steward: Bring these persons into my house; kill victims, and prepare a feast: because they shall eat at noon with me.

Madame Gervaise

The Steward executed what had been commanded him, and he brought them into the house.

Then being seized with fear, they said one to another: It is because of that money which we carried back in our sacks that he is bringing us in here, to make this reproach fall back upon us, and to oppress us by reducing us to servitude, ourselves and our asses.

That is why being still at the door, they approached Joseph’s Steward,

and said to him: Lord, we beseech you to hear us. We have already come once to buy wheat:

and after having bought it, when we had arrived at the inn, in opening our sacks, we found there our money, which we now bring back to you at the same weight.

And we bring you yet more of it, to buy what is necessary for us: but we do not know in any way who could have put this money back into our sacks.

Jeannette

The Steward answered them: Have your minds at rest; fear not. Your God and the God of your father has given you treasures in your sacks: for as for me I have received the money that you gave me, and I am content with it. He also brought out Simeon, and led him to them.

Madame Gervaise

After having brought them into the house, he brought them water, they washed their feet, and he gave their asses something to eat.

Jeannette

Meanwhile they held their presents quite ready, waiting for Joseph to enter at midday, because they had been told that they were to eat in that place.

Madame Gervaise

Joseph having therefore entered into his house, they offered him their presents which they held in their hands, and they adored him, bowing down to the ground.

Jeannette

He saluted them also, putting on a good face for them, and asked them: Your father, that old man of whom you had spoken to me, is he still alive? Does he keep well?

Madame Gervaise

They answered him: Our father your servant is still alive, and he keeps well: and bowing down profoundly, they adored him.

Jeannette

Joseph raising his eyes saw Benjamin his brother, son of Rachel his mother, and said to them: Is this the youngest of your brothers of whom you spoke to me? My son, he added, I pray God that he be always favourable to you.

Madame Gervaise

And he hastened, because his entrails had been moved at seeing his brother, and he could no longer hold back his tears. Passing therefore into a chamber, he wept.

Jeannette

And after having washed his face he came back, doing himself violence, and he said: Serve up the meal.

Madame Gervaise

They served Joseph apart, and his brothers apart, and the Egyptians who were eating with him apart: (for it is not permitted to the Egyptians to eat with the Hebrews, and they believe that a feast of this kind would be profane).

Jeannette

They sat down therefore in the presence of Joseph, the eldest first according to his rank, and the youngest according to his age. And they were extremely surprised,

Madame Gervaise

on seeing the portions he had given them, that the greatest portion had gone to Benjamin; for it was five times greater than that of the others. They thus drank with Joseph, and they made great cheer.

Now Joseph gave this order to the Steward of his house, and said to him: Put into the sacks of these persons as much wheat as they can hold, and the money of each at the mouth of the sack;

and put my silver cup at the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with the money he gave for the wheat. This order was therefore executed.

And in the morning they were let go with their asses.

When they had gone out of the city, as they had still gone but a little way, Joseph called the Steward of his house, and said to him: Run quickly after these men; stop them, and say to them: Why have you rendered evil for good?

The cup that you have stolen, is that in which my Lord drinks, and which he uses for divining. You have done a very wicked deed.

The Steward did what had been commanded him; and having stopped them, he said to them all that it had been ordered him to say to them.

Jeannette

They answered him: Why does my lord speak so to his servants, and believe them capable of so shameful a deed?

Madame Gervaise

We have brought back to you from the country of Canaan the money that we found at the mouth of our sacks. How then could it be that we should have stolen from the house of your Lord either gold or silver?

Jeannette

Let whichever of your servants,…

Madame Gervaise

whoever he may be, on whom shall be found that which you seek, die; and we shall be slaves of my lord.

Jeannette

He said to them: Yes, let what you pronounce be executed. Whoever shall be found to have taken what I seek, shall be my slave, and you shall be innocent of it.

Madame Gervaise

They unloaded therefore at once their sacks on the ground, and each opened his own.

Jeannette

Having searched them, from the greatest to the least, the cup was found in the sack of Benjamin.

Madame Gervaise

Then having torn their garments and reloaded their asses, they came back to the city.

Jeannette

Judah presented himself first with his brothers before

Joseph, who had not yet gone out of the place where he was: and they prostrated themselves all together on the ground before him.

Madame Gervaise

Joseph said to them: Why have you acted thus? Do you not know that there is no one who equals me in the science of divining hidden things?

Jeannette

Judah said to him: What shall we answer my Lord? What shall we say to him, and what can we represent to him with any shadow of justice for our defence? God has found the iniquity of your servants. We are all the slaves of my Lord, we and the one on whom the cup has been found.

Madame Gervaise

Joseph answered: God keep me from acting in such a way. Let him who has taken my cup be my slave; and as for you others, go away in liberty to find your father again.

Jeannette

Judah drawing then nearer to Joseph said to him with assurance: My Lord, permit, I pray you, your servant to address his word to you, and do not put yourself in anger against your slave: for after Pharaoh, it is you who are

Madame Gervaise

my Lord. You first asked your servants: Have you still your father or some other brother?

And we answered you, my Lord: We have a father who is old, and a young brother whom he had in his old age, of whom the brother who was born of the same mother is dead: there remains only that one, and his father loves him tenderly.

You said then to your servants: Bring him to me, I shall be glad to see him.

But we answered you, my Lord: This child cannot leave his father, for if he leaves him, he will kill him.

You said to your servants: If the last of your brothers does not come with you, you shall see my face no more.

When therefore we had returned to our father your servant, we reported to him all that you had said, my Lord.

And our father having said to us: Return to buy us a little wheat:

we answered him: We cannot go there. If our young brother comes with us, we shall go

together: but unless he comes, we dare not present ourselves before him who commands.

He answered us: You know that I had two sons of Rachel my wife.

One of them having gone into the fields, you told me that a beast had devoured him, and he appears no more to this hour.

If you take this one also away, and any accident befall him on the way, you will overwhelm my old age with an affliction which will lead it into the tomb.

If I therefore present myself to my father your servant, and the child is not there, since his life depends on that of his son,

when he sees that he is not with us, he will die, and your servants will overwhelm his old age with a sorrow that will lead him to the tomb.

Let it therefore rather be I who am your slave, since I have made myself surety for this child, and have answered to my father for him, by saying to him: If I do not bring him back, I am willing that my father impute this fault to me, and that he never pardon me.

Thus I shall remain your slave, and shall serve my Lord in the place of the child, so that he may return with his brothers.

For I cannot return to my father unless the child be with us, lest I be myself witness of the extreme affliction which will overwhelm our father.

Jeannette

she goes ahead of the recitation.

Joseph could no longer hold himself back;

Madame Gervaise

Joseph could no longer hold himself back; and because he was surrounded by several persons,

Jeannette

no longer holding herself back and seizing the recitation by authority.

he commanded…

she begins again to have the recognition in its fullness.

Joseph could no longer hold himself back; and because he was surrounded by several persons, he commanded that everyone be made to go out, so that no stranger be present when he should make himself known to his brothers.

Then the tears falling from his eyes, he raised his voice, which was heard by the Egyptians, and by all the house of Pharaoh.

And he said to his brothers: I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?

I am Joseph; I am Joseph; I am Jesus your brother. What are you waiting for? Is my father still alive?

Madame Gervaise

But his brothers could not answer him, so seized were they with fear.

Jeannette

He spoke to them softly, and said to them: Come near to me. And having drawn near to him, he added: I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt.

Fear not and grieve not for having sold me into this country: for God has sent me into Egypt before you for your salvation.

It is already two years since the famine began upon the earth, and there remain yet five, during which one will be able neither to plough nor to gather.

God has made me come here before you, to preserve your life, and so that you may have provisions to subsist on.

It is not by your counsel that I have been sent here, but by the will of God, who has rendered me as the father of Pharaoh, the master of his house, and the prince of all Egypt.

Hasten to go find my father, and say to him: Here is what your son Joseph charges you with: God has rendered me the master of all Egypt. Come find me, delay not;

you shall dwell in the land of Goshen, you shall be near me you and your children; and the children of your children; your sheep, your herds of oxen, and all that you possess.

And I shall nourish you there because there remain yet five years of famine, lest otherwise you perish with all your family and all that is yours.

You see with your eyes, you and my brother Benjamin, that it is I myself who speak to you with my own mouth.

Announce to my father what is this glory, and all that you have seen in Egypt. Hasten to bring him to me.

And having cast himself on the neck of Benjamin his brother to embrace him, he wept; and Benjamin wept also while holding him embraced.

Joseph embraced also all his brothers, he wept over each of them; and after that they took heart to speak to him.

At once there spread a great rumour throughout all the Court of the King, that Joseph’s brothers had come. Pharaoh rejoiced at it with all his house.

And he told Joseph to give this order to his brothers: Load your asses with wheat, return to Canaan;

bring from there your father and all your family, and come find me. I will give you all the goods of Egypt, and you shall be nourished on what is best in that land.

Order them also to take chariots from Egypt, to bring their wives with their little children, and say to them: Bring your father, and hasten to come back as soon as you can.

without leaving anything of what is in your houses, because all the riches of Egypt shall be yours.

The children of Israel…

Madame Gervaise

The children of Israel did what had been ordered them. And Joseph had chariots given them, according to the order he had received of Pharaoh, and provisions for the way.

Jeannette

He commanded also that two robes be given to each of his brothers; but he gave five of the most beautiful to Benjamin, and three hundred pieces of silver.

He sent as much money and robes for his father, with ten asses laden with all that there was most precious in Egypt, and as many she-asses which carried wheat and bread for the way.

Madame Gervaise

He sent back therefore his brothers, and said to them on parting: Do not put yourselves in anger on the way.

They came therefore from Egypt to the country of Canaan to Jacob their father.

And they told him this news: Your son Joseph is alive and commands in all the land of Egypt. Which Jacob having heard, he awoke as from a deep sleep, and nevertheless he could not believe what they told him.

Madame Gervaise

His children insisted on the contrary, reporting to him how the whole thing had passed. Finally having seen

the chariots, and all that Joseph was sending him, he came to himself again;

Jeannette

and he said: I have nothing more to wish for, since my son Joseph is still alive. I shall go and shall see him before I die.

Madame Gervaise

Israel therefore departed with all that he had, and came to the Well of the oath, and having immolated in that place victims to the God of his father Isaac,

he heard him in a vision during the night, calling him, and saying to him: Jacob, Jacob. He answered him: Here am I.

And God added: I am the most powerful God of your father, fear not, go down into Egypt, because I will there render you the head of a great people.

I will go down there with you, and I will bring you back from there when you return.

Jeannette

Joseph also shall close your eyes with his hands.

Madame Gervaise

Jacob having therefore departed from the Well of the oath, his children brought him along with his little children and their wives,

in the chariots that Pharaoh had sent to bring that old man,

with all that he possessed in the country of Canaan; and he arrived in Egypt with all his race;

his sons, his grandsons, his daughters, and all that had been born of him.

All those who came into Egypt with Jacob, and who had come out of him, without counting the wives of his sons, were in all sixty-six persons.

Plus the two children of Joseph who had been born to him in Egypt. Thus all the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt, were in number seventy.

Jeannette

Now Jacob sent Judah before him to Joseph to advise him of his coming, so that he might come to meet him in the land of Goshen.

When Jacob had arrived there, Joseph had the horses put to his chariot, and came to the same place to meet his father: and seeing him he cast himself on his neck, and embraced him weeping.

Jacob said to Joseph: I shall die now with joy, since I have seen your face, and that I leave you after me.

Madame Gervaise

Joseph said to his brothers, and to all the house of his father: I am going to tell Pharaoh, that my brothers and all those of the house of my father have come to find me from the land of Canaan where they were dwelling:

that they are shepherds of sheep who occupy themselves in nourishing flocks, and that they have brought with them their sheep, their oxen and all that they could

And when Pharaoh shall make you come, and shall ask you: What is your occupation?

you shall answer him: Your servants are shepherds from their childhood until now, and our fathers have always been so as we are. You shall say this in order to be able to dwell in the land of Goshen; because the Egyptians have in abomination all the shepherds of sheep.

Joseph having therefore gone to find Pharaoh, said to him: My father and my brothers have come from the country of Canaan,

with their sheep, their flocks, and all that they possess, and they have stopped in the land of Goshen.

He presented also to the King five of his brothers;

And the King having asked them: With what do you occupy yourselves? they answered him: Your servants are shepherds of sheep, as our fathers have been.

We have come to pass some time in your lands, because the famine is so great in the country of Canaan, that there is no more grass for the flocks of your servants. And we beseech you to grant that your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.

Jeannette

The King said therefore to Joseph: Your father and your brothers have come to find you.

Madame Gervaise

You may choose in all Egypt; make them dwell in the part of the country which shall seem to you the best, and give them the land of Goshen. And if you know that there are among them able men, give them the intendancy over my flocks.

Joseph then introduced his father before the King, and presented him to him. Jacob saluted Pharaoh, and wished him every kind of prosperity.

The King having asked him what age he was:

Jeannette

he answered him: It is a hundred and thirty years that I have been a traveller, and this little number of years, which has not come to equalling that of the years of my fathers, has been crossed with many evils.

Madame Gervaise

And after having wished every kind of happiness to the King, he withdrew.

Joseph according to the commandment of Pharaoh, put his father and his brothers in possession of Ramesses in the most fertile country of Egypt.

And he nourished them with all the house of his father, giving to each what was necessary for him to live.

For bread was lacking in all the world, and famine was afflicting all the earth; but principally Egypt and the country of Canaan.

Israel therefore dwelt in Egypt, that is to say, in the land of Goshen, of which he enjoyed as of his own property, and where his family increased and multiplied extraordinarily.

He lived there seventeen years; and the whole time of his life was one hundred and forty-seven years.

As he saw that the day of his death was approaching, he called his son Joseph, and said to him: If I have found grace before you, put your hand under my thigh, and give me this mark of the kindness that you have for me, of promising me with truth, that you will not bury me in Egypt;

but that I shall rest with my fathers; that you shall transport me out of this country, and shall put me in the sepulchre of my ancestors. Joseph answered him: I shall do what you command me.

Swear it to me then, said Jacob. And while Joseph was swearing, Israel adored God, turning toward the head of his bed.

After that one day they came to tell Joseph that his father was ill: then taking with him his two sons Manasseh, and Ephraim, he went to see him.

Jacob was therefore told: Here is your son Joseph who comes to pay you a visit. Jacob recovering his strength sat himself up in his bed.

And

He made them also this commandment, and said to them: I am going to be reunited to my people; bury me with my fathers in the double cavern that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.

which looks toward Mambre in the country of Canaan, and which Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite, with all the field where it is, to have his sepulchre there.

It is there that he was buried with Sarah his wife. It is also where Isaac was buried with Rebecca his wife, and where Leah is still buried.

After having finished giving these orders and these instructions to his children, he joined his feet on his bed, and died; and he was reunited with his people.

A man had twelve sons. Such was, my child, This was the first time that a child got lost.

This was the first time that a sheep got lost. This was the first time that a drachma got lost.

But this drachma that had been mislaid.

But this sheep that had strayed,

But this child, this son who had strayed

Was found again upon the throne,

Governing the house of Pharaoh

And revictualling all the kingdom of Egypt.

And the one of Jesus on the contrary, (it is always the contrary),

The one of Jesus, the child lost by Jesus,

In the parable of Jesus,

The one of Jesus was found again as he came back from governing a flock of swine.

And I think that his thirty or forty pigs,

He was revictualling them with acorns and perhaps with some filthy slop.

It is thus, my child. Thus is the old, thus is the new testament.

In the old testament it is more often a question of the throne.

And in the new testament it is more often a question of keeping the swine.

(And the other animals, who are no less noble).

In the old testament there is always a view, a

thought toward command. And in the new testament there is always a thought, An afterthought toward service on the contrary And toward servitude.

In the old testament there is always a gaze, a

thought toward government. And in the new testament there is always a gaze,

a thought toward obedience And toward the simple condition. Toward the simple condition of subject. Toward the simple condition of man.

Or if there is a thought toward a command, and toward

a government, and toward a kingdom, In the new testament it is toward a command

and toward a government and toward a kingdom Which is not the government and the command

of a kingdom of Egypt.

And in the new testament there is no thought except for a kingdom which is not of this world.

In the old testament there is always a thought toward riches, toward the treasures of Egypt and of Babylon,

Toward the talents of gold and of silver.

And the riches, and the throne, and the kingdom, and the government and the command

Are presented as the crowning.

In the new testament there is always a thought,

The secret thought is toward trial, and toward misery, and toward poverty.

And it is she the trial, and it is she the misery, and it is she the poverty

Who is always presented,

Who is the summit and the crowning.

It is she who is the lady and the very dear and the very holy poverty.

In the old testament one always dreads, there is always a thought Of dread toward the famine of hunger. In the new testament one always dreads Another unappeased hunger. There is always a thought

Of dread toward another famine of another

hunger. For it is a spiritual famine. Of a spiritual hunger.

Thus marches the old testament before the new testament. Thus the stories march before the similitudes. And the hymns and the prayers and the psalms Before the hymns and the prayers and the orisons And the slow and the long line of the prophets Before the tight battalions, Before the square battalions Of the saints.

Thus marches the government of the goods of this world Before the government of the goods that are not of this world.

Thus marches the carnal commandment Before the spiritual commandment.

Thus the temporal kingdom

Marches before the eternal kingdom.

And thus the tents of the people of Israel were pitched

in the desert Centuries and centuries before the basilicas, Before the churches, before the cathedrals Were planted on the soil of France.

And in the old testament it is a matter of filling sacks of

wheat, there is, (always),

a thought upon the sacks of wheat. And after that it is a matter, (in the old testament), These sacks being full it is a matter of piling them up in the granaries

of wheat. But in the new testament it is a matter of quite other

sacks and of quite other granaries. For it is a matter, in the new testament it is a matter, they are

Sacks of misery, sacks of trials, sacks of

miseries. And sacks to put the virtues and the merits and the

graces That have been gathered as one could For the years of dearth And they are finally The eternal granaries

And in the old testament it is the father who ends by

coming to find his son And who finds him again full of glory All clothed.

But in the new testament it is the son all naked Who ends by coming to find his father

Thus the old testament is the usher and the quartermaster

And the preparer and the announcer of the new testament.

It is he who prepares the ways for him, it is he who makes his house for him.

It is the old testament that makes in the desert

The long temporal way.

It is the old testament that patiently builds

The temporal house.

Behold, I send my angel before the face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.

And also the old testament is like an image which

marches before the new testament. And like an image at the same time it is very faithful

and at the same time it is reversed. It is contrary. So is sacred history. The carnal testament is a story, an image of the

spiritual testament. The temporal old testament is an image of the new

eternal testament.

And in the new testament if it is a matter of glory, It is a matter of a glory which is hardly gathered up upon

thrones, (Except saint Louis and the throne of France).

All the old testament is a figure, an image of ensemble and of detail

Very faithful, very exact,

(But faithfully inverse, exactly inverse).

Of the new testament in its ensemble and in its detail.

In the old testament creation is at the threshold.

At the beginning which is the beginning of the world.

And in the new testament judgment is at the end.

The judgment which is properly the contrary of creation.

The opposite foot, which is properly a counter-creation.

For in creation I made the world,

(Temporal)

And in the judgment I unmake it.

Thus the judgment is properly the contrary and what counterbalances creation.

What one can put, what is in face of creation.

I cut out time from eternity, says God. Time and the world of time.

Creation was the beginning and judgment shall be

the end. (Of time) (Of the world of time). It is exactly a symmetry, a balancing. What I have opened, I shall close. The day of creation (the six days) I opened a

certain world (It is well known) (One knows it, one has spoken of it enough) Finally the first hour of the first of the six days of

creation I began a certain story, And the day of judgment I shall close it. Now all the old testament starts from this judgment that I

made of creating. And all the new testament goes toward this judgment that

I shall make of judging. Thus the old testament is symmetrical to the new. And (counter) balances the new. And all the old testament starts from this creation. And all the new testament goes toward this judgment And in the old testament Paradise is at the beginning. And it is an earthly Paradise.

But in the new testament Paradise is at the end. And I tell you it is a

heavenly Paradise. And all the old testament goes toward John the Baptist and

toward Jesus. But all the new testament comes from Jesus. It is like a beautiful vault which mounts on the two sides

toward the keystone. And Jesus is the keystone. So is the vault of this

nave.

And the stone that mounts following the curve of this nave,

Deciding, drawing, in advance and as it goes, the curve of this vault,

Forming the curve of this vault,

The stone that mounts from below advances boldly.

And faithfully and surely.

In all security without any disquiet.

Because mounting she knows very well

That she will find the keystone exactly at the meeting-place,

At the just intersection, at the sacred crossing and the keystone, it is Jesus.

And together the whole vault sustains and bears and raises and maintains the key

Like an enormous round shoulder which without a neck would sustain a single head but the key alone,

The key which completes,

Alone also together is what alone sustains the vault and the whole.

And the last stone before the key is John the Baptist.

But the first stone after the key is Peter the founder.

Thou art Peter and upon this rock.

And he was crucified head downwards.

That is to say going back down.

And as the stone is quadrangular,

There are the four angles and the four lines of the square.

And one says according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John,

That is to say following the line of Matthew, following the line of Mark, following the line of Luke,

And following the line of John.

And at the four corners are seated the young man, the lion, the bull and the eagle.

For the Church is quadrangular,

As she is lapidary being founded upon the quadrangular

Stone,

And again the old testament is all linear.

It is a long, it is a slender line of the prophets.

And the prophets come in it one after another

As the poplars come one after another in

that beautiful line. In that beautiful avenue of poplars. And all the old testament is that beautiful, that long

avenue of poplars. Come from the depths of the plain and marching straight

upon the plain. That long avenue, that long faithful line (Without breadth). The poplars are placed in it one after another, the

prophets are placed in it one after another. In double rows. Coming, gone forth, come from the depths of the horizon the

noble alley, The faithful, the direct alley straight linear Straight the avenue advances upon the straight plain. For she knows where she is going. And she goes nothing less than. Directly she goes straight to the threshold of the castle.

And she leads, and she brings, and she introduces the gaze

and the step. She alone leads to the threshold but she does not cross the

threshold, she does not pass the doorway. She does not prolong herself within the castle. But the quadrangular castle of the new testament Opens at this threshold and the long avenue of poplars does not

continue there. But the court of honour opens there, and the buildings of the

castle. And the beautiful perron for going up and the quadrangular

walls. And thus the new testament has one dimension more. For the old testament is a line But the new covers a surface.

Or again the old testament is that fine, that slender

That solely faithful avenue of poplars.

Lost in the bare plain

But the new testament is the solid park of the castle.

The robust oakwood, square,

Well enclosed behind its quadrangular walls.

And which covers all the surface.

Or again the old testament is that vault which rises in a single ridge,

In a single ribbing and the new testament

Is the same vault which falls back,

Which comes back down in a whole sheet.

And the ridge that mounts starts from the earth and is a carnal

ridge. But this sheet that comes back down comes from the spirit And is a spiritual sheet. And the ridge and the ribbing that mounts starts from time and is

a temporal ridge. But the sheet that comes back down comes from eternity and is An eternal sheet.

And the key of this mystical vault.

The key itself

Carnal, spiritual,

Temporal, eternal,

It is Jesus,

Man,

God.

And creation was a kind of opening of time and of

closing in some sort of eternity. Now judgment shall be properly the closing of time And the total and the definitive Reopening of eternity.

Or again the old testament is the deep lake which

reflects the high forest. And the forest is wholly in the lake but it is not there. And the dark lake and the deep lake is sunk in the

earth. And in the lake heaven is at the bottom. But toward the top the high forest. Starting from the edge of the lake. The high real forest. Raises a real head. Makes a real sap rise. Toward the only deep real heaven.

One sends the children to school, says God.

I think it is in order to forget the little that they know.

It would be better to send the parents to school.

It is they who have need of it.

But naturally one would need a school of mine.

And not a school of men.

One believes that the children know nothing. And that the parents and that the grown-up persons know something.

Now I tell you, it is the contrary.

(It is always the contrary).

It is the parents, it is the grown-up persons who

know nothing. And it is the children who know Everything.

For they know the first innocence. Which is everything.

The world is always reversed, says God.

And in the contrary sense.

Blessed is he who would remain like a child

And who like a child would keep

That first innocence.

That first innocence.

My son told them so often enough.

Without any detour and without any softening.

For he spoke plain and firm.

And clear.

Happy not even, not only he

Who would be like a child, who would remain like a

child. But properly happy he who is (a) child, who

remains a child. Properly, precisely the very child that he was. Since it has been granted to every man

To be.

Since it has been granted to every man to have been A young milky child.

Since this blessing has been given to every man. This unique grace.

The kingdom of heaven is not at a lesser price.

At any other price.

My son told them so often enough.

And in terms express enough.

The kingdom of heaven will be only for them.

And there will be enough only for them.

At that hour the disciples drew near to Jesus,

saying: Who, dost thou think, is greater in the kingdom

of heaven?

And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them,

And said: Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as these little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven.

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me.

But whoso shall scandalize one of these least ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

We have schools, says God. I suppose it is to unlearn

The little that one knows.

Life too is a school, they say. One learns there every day.

I know it, that life which begins at baptism and ends at extreme unction.

It is a perpetual wearing-down, a constant, a growing withering. One descends the whole time.

Happy he who can remain such as the day of his baptism

And of his first communion. Life begins at baptism, says God.

Shall it be said that it ends at the first.

And not at the last communion.

Shall it be said that man ends at his first communion. And not at the viaticum, which is his last communion.

They fill themselves with experience, they say; they gain experience; they learn life; from day to day they amass experience. Singular treasure, says God.

Treasure of emptiness and of dearth.

Treasure of the dearth of the seven years, treasure of emptiness and of withering and of growing old.

Treasure of wrinkles and of anxieties.

Treasure of the lean years. Increase it, this treasure, says God. In empty granaries

You will heap up empty sacks

Of an empty Egypt.

You increase the treasure of your pains and of your miseries.

And the sacks of your cares and of your pettinesses.

You acquire experience, you say, you increase your experience.

You are always going downward, says God, you are always going diminishing, you are always going losing.

You are always going on the slope. You are always going withering and wrinkling and growing old.

And you will never climb back up this slope.

What you call experience, your experience, I call

177 innocents. — 12 THE MYSTERY

The wasting away, the diminution, the decreasing, the loss of hope.

For I call it the pretentious wasting away, The diminution, the decreasing, the loss of innocence.

And it is a perpetual degradation.

Now it is innocence that is full and it is experience

that is empty. It is innocence that wins and it is experience that

loses.

It is innocence that is young and it is experience that

is old. It is innocence that grows and it is experience that

decreases.

It is innocence that is born and it is experience that

dies. It is innocence that knows and it is experience that

does not know.

It is the child who is full and it is the man who is empty.

Empty as an empty gourd and as an empty cask:

Behold, says God, what I make of it, of your experience.

Go, my children, go to school.

And you, men, go to the school of life.

Go and learn

To unlearn.

Every history has been played twice, says God. Once

in Jewry. And once in Christendom. The child (Jesus) was played

twice. Once in Benjamin and once in the child Jesus. And the lost child and the lost sheep and the lost

drachma was played twice. And the first time it was in Joseph, I am Joseph

your brother. It had to be played, says God. And twice rather

than once.

For there is in the child, for there is in childhood a

unique grace. A wholeness, a firstness Total.

An origin, a secret, a source, a point of origin. A beginning so to speak absolute. Children are new creatures. They too, they above all, they first, they take the

kingdom of heaven by force. Rapiunt, they ravish it. But what gentle violence. And what agreeable strength and what tenderness of strength. As a father willingly endures

As he loves to endure the violences of that strength, The embraces of that tenderness. For me, says God, I know nothing as beautiful in

all the world As a young scamp of a child chatting with the good God In the bottom of a garden.

And who asks the questions and gives the answers (It is more sure). A little man telling his troubles to the good God Most seriously in the world.

And who makes for himself the consolations of the good God. Now I tell you these consolations he makes for himself. They come directly and properly from me.

I know nothing as beautiful in all the world, says

God. As a little chubby-cheeked child, bold as a page, Timid as an anchorite,

Who says twenty times good morning, twenty times good night, jumping about.

And laughing and (playing) at his play.

Once is not enough for him. Far from it. There is no danger.

They have to, to say good morning and good night. They never have enough of it.

It is because for them the twentieth time is like the first. They count as I do.

It is thus that I count the hours.

And it is for that reason that all eternity and that all

time Is (like) an instant in the hollow of my hand.

Nothing is as beautiful as a child who falls asleep saying

his prayers, says God. I tell you, nothing is as beautiful in the world. I have never seen anything as beautiful in the world. And yet I have seen beauties in the world And I know about them. My creation overflows with beauties. My creation overflows with marvels. There are so many one does not know where to put them. I have seen millions and millions of stars rolling under

my feet like the sands of the sea.

I have seen burning days like flames. Summer days of June, of July and of August. I have seen winter evenings laid down like a cloak. I have seen summer evenings calm and gentle as a

falling of paradise All studded with stars. I have seen those slopes of the Meuse and those churches

which are my own houses. And Paris and Reims and Rouen and cathedrals which are

my own palaces and my own châteaux. So beautiful that I will keep them in heaven. I have seen the capital of the kingdom and Rome capital of

Christendom. I have heard the mass sung and the triumphant

vespers. And I have seen those plains and those rolling valleys of France. Which are more beautiful than all. I have seen the deep sea, and the deep forest, and the deep

heart of man. I have seen hearts devoured by love For whole lifetimes Lost in charity. Burning like flames. I have seen martyrs so animated by faith Holding like a rock on the rack Beneath the iron teeth. (Like a soldier who would stand fast all alone a whole

life By faith

For his general (apparently) absent.) I have seen martyrs blaze like torches Thus preparing themselves the ever-green palms.

182

And I have seen pearled beneath the iron claws

Drops of blood that shone like diamonds.

And I have seen pearled tears of love
Which will last longer than the stars of heaven.

And I have seen looks of prayer, looks of tenderness,

Lost in charity
Which will shine eternally in the nights and the nights.

And I have seen whole lives from birth to death,

From baptism to viaticum,
Unroll like a fair skein of wool.

Now I tell you, says God, I know nothing as beautiful in all the world

As a little child who falls asleep saying his prayers
Under the wing of his guardian angel
And who laughs to the angels as he begins to fall asleep.

And who already mixes it all together and no longer understands any of it
And who jumbles the words of the Our Father helter-skelter pell-mell into the words of the Hail Mary.

While a veil already comes down over his eyelids
The veil of night over his gaze and over his voice.

I have seen the greatest saints, says God. Well I tell you.
I have never seen anything so funny and therefore I know nothing so beautiful in the world

As that child who falls asleep saying his prayers
(As that little being who falls asleep trustfully)

And who mixes his Our Father with his Hail Mary. THE MYSTERY

Nothing is so beautiful and it is even a point On which the holy Virgin is of my opinion. Thereupon. And I can well say that it is the only point on which we

are of the same opinion. For generally we

are of an opposing opinion. Because she is for mercy. And I, I must indeed be for justice.

Also, says God, how I understand my son. My son told them so often enough. (Now one must hear all the words of my son according to the letter. Sinite par- vulos. Let come.

Sinite parvulos venire ad me. Let the little ones come unto me.

The little children.

Then were brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands upon them, and pray. And the disciples rebuked them.

But Jesus said: Suffer the little ones, and forbid them not, to come unto me: talium est enim regnum cœlorum. Of such indeed is the kingdom of heaven. To such, to those like them, belongs the kingdom of heaven.

And when he had laid his hands on them, he departed.

You men, (says God), just try to make a child’s saying. You know well that you cannot. And not only can you not make one Not even a single one, but when one is made for you You cannot even retain them. When a child’s saying

bursts forth among you You cry out, you yourselves burst out in an

admiration Sincere and deep and which would redeem you and to which

I do justice. And you say, from everywhere you say, You say with your eyes, you say with your voice, You laugh, you say within yourselves and you say aloud

at table: That one is good, I shall remember it. And you swear To share it with your friends, to tell it to everyone, So much pride do you take in your children (I bear

you no grudge for it, says God. It is still the best part of you and it is what

would redeem you.) You think you will easily report it. But when you go all aflame to report it,

You realize that you no longer know it. And not only that, but that you can no longer find it

again. It has vanished from your memory. It is a water too pure that has fled from your dirty memory,

from your soiled memory. That wanted to flee, that did not want to remain there. You realize quite well that it was in a certain

place, that it had a certain taste, That it was there, that it occupied that certain place, that it

was in that region, that it held that place, that it

had a certain volume. But you have the clear

sensation That it has gone or rather that it has gone away again and that it will

never come back. That besides you were perfectly unworthy That it should remain and you stand open-mouthed and you have

perfectly the sensation That you would be perfectly incapable of finding it again. That is to say of bringing it back, Because it is of an entirely different quality of soul.

And you feel it well, that it is so, that it is just, and that nothing will bring it back, and that nothing will avail any more. And that it is your former soul, O men, that has passed,

Cunning men, then you no longer play the cunning man.

Learned men, then you no longer play the learned.

Men who have been to school, then you no longer know anything

And you have no choice but to bow your brow

(That is moreover what you do, one must render you that justice)

When a child’s saying passes through the family circle,

When a child’s saying

Falls

Into the daily clutter,

Into the daily noise,

(Into the sudden silence)

Into the sudden recollection

Of the family table.

O men and women seated at this table, suddenly bowing your brow, you listen to passing

Your former soul.

When a child’s saying falls Like a spring, like a laugh, Like a tear into a lake.

O men and women seated at this table suddenly bowing your brow, the eye fixed, and the fingers motionless and stopped and slightly trembling on the piece of bread,

The fingers stirred by a slight trembling, the breath

stopped, You listen to passing Your former soul.

A voice has come,

Men at table.

As from another creation even.

A voice has risen,

Men at table,

A voice has come.

It is from a world where you were.

A spring has gushed forth,

Men at table,

It is the spring of your first soul. You too, you spoke thus.

You were other men, men at table. You were other beings, men at table. You were children like them.

You used to make children’s sayings, men at table. Go then now and make children’s sayings.

A word has passed, a word has risen, a word has come,

men at table. A word has fallen into the silence of your table. And suddenly you have recognized. And suddenly you have saluted. Your former soul.

A word has sprung up giddy.

A word has flown like a starling.

Hastis musurs.

And trembling you have felt pass

All the youth THE MYSTERY Of the old God.

They are milk and honey, says God, an innocence of which one has no idea. (And men are bread and wine.)

Washed by water they are like another flesh, being not only of another soul.

Of another quality of soul.

Washed by water they are another nourishment, a tenderer flesh, they are the very milk and honey.

And man, Men at the holy Table, Men at the

eternal Table, Man is the Bread and the Wine. Man is a stronger nourishment, a virile

nourishment. But the child is a white nourishment, a pure

nourishment, a tenderer nourishment. And the Bread and the Wine are adult Nourishments,

hard Nourishments of man. And that Wine came from that Cluster. But that milk, and that

honey came from the very streams. And having gone as far as the Brook-of-the-cluster of grapes,

they cut down a branch of vine with its cluster, which two men bore upon a pole. They took also pomegranates and figs of that place,

which was afterwards called Nehel-escol, the Brook-of-the- Cluster, because the children of Israel carried thence that cluster of grapes.

They told them: We came into the land whither you sent us, and where there truly flow streams of milk and honey, as one may know by these fruits.

But it has very strong inhabitants, and great cities walled with ramparts. We have seen there the race of Enac.

Sinite parvulos venire ad me.

Talium est enim regnum cœlorum it is the word of my

son. But it is not only the word of my son. It is

my word. What an undertaking, the Church, my daughter the Church makes me

take it back

And makes me say it (now I will never disavow a

liturgy. A prayer, an orison of my daughter the Church). Through the Church, through the ministry of the priest I have taken back

the undertaking, I have taken back the word of my son: Let the little ones come unto me. Of such indeed is the kingdom of heaven. Thus my Roman liturgy is bound to my central and cardinal

preaching And to my Judean prophecy. And the chain is Jewish and Roman by way of a

hinge, of an articulation. By a central origin. All is announced by my Jewish prophecy. All at the center, all at the heart is realized, all is

consummated by my son. All is consummated, all is celebrated by my Roman

liturgy.

The Jewish prophet predicts. My son says. And I, I say again.

And they make me say again.

And there is a recall, an echo, a carrying back and as it were a

return, which is Saint Louis. I mean to say: There is a recall, an echo, a carrying back and as

it were a return which are the saints.

There is a reflection.

There is a light before, a light during, a light, a reflection after.

One has been three times into Egypt, says God. And once it is

Joseph. And once it is Jesus. And once it is Saint Louis.

One has been three times into Egypt and it is a singular land.

And once it was Joseph leading Jacob that is to say Israel.

And once it was Joseph leading Jesus.

And once it was Saint Louis leading Joinville

And the common people of France and the other French barons.

193 innocents. — 13 THE MYSTERY

Singular Egypt, says God, singular destiny of this

temporal Egypt. High and triple destiny. Three voyages were made there. A flight. A flight. A crusade. An entry. A retreat. A crusade. A child sold. A child in flight. A king on crusade. A minister of the king. A king on his ass. A king in prison. O theater of Egypt, three times was play made there.

Once before. Once during. Once after.

Long temporal destiny, says God, temporal patience, in truth this land has been greatly honored.

The footsteps have walked in the footsteps, says God, the heel just in the heel, and the feet have found their own track again.

It is a country of desert, says God, at least so they say.

Or rather it is a long fat valley all bordered, all surrounded by deserts and one accedes thereto no otherwise than by desert and sand.

But on this sand the traces have not been effaced and the feet have found again the trace of feet.

The new feet have fallen back just into the ancient feet.

O ancient land, from afar to afar through the desert, through the sea the traveler has come.

Centuries passed, O ancient land, centuries of interval, and all seemed forgotten.

But after centuries of interval through the desert, through the sea thy king came back, O ancient land, thy traveling king.

And the feet did not hesitate to place themselves in the trace of the feet.

Thy king has come three times, O ancient land, O destined land.

The first time it was a little boy sold a slave

To merchants

And thou madest of him the minister of thy king.

The second time it was a little boy whom they made

flee on the back of an ass. And one day thou didst send him back to become the King of kings.

Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And

the third time it was

the king of France, Newly disembarked from his royal Galleys.

Centuries and centuries passed, O land of Egypt,

centuries of interval, And all seemed forgotten.

But always thy king has come back To the rendezvous.

Ancient land, of fertile heart, of brow crowned with

sands, No sand has ever effaced, Ancient land no sand will efface The trace of those steps.

Ancient land encircled, ancient land hemmed by an impassable

Sand, desert of impassable folds thou hast been crossed three times.

Ancient land three times thy king

Has found the way to thy heart.

Ancient land above all, ancient above all thou sleepest in a long slumber but thou hast been awakened three times.

And once it was a little Jew. And once it was a little Jew. And once it was a French baron.

And the first time it was the Prophet. And the first time it was the Saint. But the second time who was it, if not at once the Prophet and the Saint.

O ancient land, O land of Egypt thou appearest to sleep, but thou hast been honored three times.

And the first time it was under the ancient law, Almost at the beginning of the ancient law.

And the second time; and the third time it was under the

new law, In the flowering of the new law.

But the second time what was it,

If not under that completion, under that crowning of

the ancient law That was that birth and that childhood and that beginning of the new law.

O ancient land, O land of Egypt thou appearest to sleep thou hast been visited three times.

And the first time it was the Just. And the third time it was the Saint.

But the second time who was it, if not at once the Just and the Saint.

O ancient land, O land of Egypt, land of the long memory thou appearest to sleep but thou hast been trodden three times.

And the first time it was the king of the Jews.

And the third time it was the king of Christendom.

But the second time, who was it, rex Judaeorum,

if not at once the king of the Jews And the king of Christendom.

Ancient land, land of Egypt thou appearest asleep, but

thy sleep has been troubled three times By the steps that came.

Land thou hast been blessed three times and thou sterile desert thou hast

been watered three times. Rorate, cœli, desuper. Et nubes pluant justum. Heavens, make your dew, from on high. And let the clouds

rain down the Just.

Heavens, send down your dew. O land of Egypt,

says God, singular land, Thou hast furnished a singular history, Thou hast furnished a singular destiny. Thou hast been greatly honored temporally, Land asleep three times awakened, Land unknown three times visited. Land forgotten three times remembered.

Thus, says God, all is played three times. The prophet

speaks before. My son speaks during. The saint speaks after.

And I, I speak always.

And it is there that one sees that my son is the center and the

heart and the vault and the keystone And the nave and the crossing of the axis, And the point of articulation. And the hinge that makes the door turn. The prince of prophets and the prince of saints.

The prophet, the just, comes before. My son comes during. The saint comes after.

And I, I come always.

And the Church, which is the communion of saints and the communion of the faithful comes also after, comes also always.

Now I shall not let my Church be wanting, says God, I shall not let her stray, I shall not let her fail.

Ancient land of Egypt who sleepest falsely, says God, who really watchest,

I commit myself as much in the commandments of the Church as in my own

(Commandments.

I commit myself as much in the teachings of the Church

as in my own Teachings. I commit myself as much in a liturgy as I committed

myself with Moses And as my son with them committed himself on the mountain. Now this, what my son said once, sinite parvulos

venire ad me, — let the little ones come to me, — I

say it again, they make me say it again every time (what

an undertaking). And my son had said it of some children who were playing,

and who, having been blessed at once, left him to return

to playing. But I, I say it, they make me say it for each child

who will no more return to playing, If not in my paradise.

Now this (what an undertaking) I say it again at this office of the dead, in which all comes to its end.

To which all is led on. Office of the dead for the burial of a child. The celebrant clothes himself in a surplice and a white stole.

And as on the day of baptism he has gone to fetch the child to the threshold of the church.

Which is the threshold of my house.

And thus the threshold of the House of his Father.

So on the day of this burial he goes to fetch the child in the parish to the House of his father.

To the threshold of the house of his father.

And the Cross itself walks borne before this

child who has died in the parish. And when the procession returns toward the church The cross walks borne before. The cross and the priest and the respondent and the children of

the choir walk in front. And along the great street of the village the whole village. The whole parish follows behind. The men and the women and the children. And the women weep. And all is white. And the celebrant chants the old psalm of king David, Beati immaculati in via. Blessed the undefiled in the way.

Blessed the immaculate in the way.

Beati immaculati in via.

Shall it be said, says God, that of so many saints and so many

martyrs. The only ones who shall be really white. Really pure.

The only ones who shall be really without stain shall be These wretched children whom the soldiers of Herod Massacred at the arm of their mother. O Holy Innocents shall ye then be the only. Holy Innocents shall ye then be the pure.

Holy Innocents shall ye then be the white and the without

stain. Beati immaculati in via.

Blessed the innocent, the without stain in the way. Ego sum via, veritas et vita. I am the way, the truth and the life. O Holy Innocents shall it be said that ye shall be and that

ye are The only innocent. And that Francis himself my servant beside you

is not poor. And that my servant Saint Louis of the French Beside you is not innocent. Shall it be said that there is in life, and in the existence of

this earth, such a bitterness, such a weariness. Such an ingratitude. Such a withering. Such a veiling.

Such an irrevocable aging of soul and body. Such a mark, such ineffaceable wrinkles. Such a stupor that will no more be sharpened. Such a fever that will no more be cooled. Such a slope that will not be climbed back up. Such a fold of memory, of inability to forget, such a principle, such a fold of wounding at the corner of the lips That the greatest sanctities of the world will never

efface this fold. And that the greatest sanctities of the world will never be worth The lips without a fold, the souls without memory, the bodies without wound Of those great saints and those great martyrs who left the bosom of their mother 203 THE MYSTERY

Only to enter the kingdom of heaven.

And who knew nothing of life and who received from

life no wound But that wound which made them enter the kingdom

of heaven. The only of Christians assuredly who on earth never

heard tell of Herod. And to whom the name of Herod on earth never said

anything. Shall it be said that the greatest sanctities of the world Whole lives of sanctity

Shall not have unfolded, shall not have unwrinkled souls. And that the rack itself shall not have won for martyrs A certain whiteness, a certain firstness, A certain wholeness Of the very first Innocent childhood. And that what is regained, defended foot by foot, taken back,

won, Is not the same as that which has never been lost. And that a whitened paper is not a white paper. And that a whitened fabric is not a white cloth. And that a whitened soul is not a white soul. And that the closest to me will be these milky white

children Who have never known anything of life and have done nothing of existence But receive a good stroke of the sabre, I mean placed at the right moment.

At that time, the Angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying: Arise, and take thy child, and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I tell thee. For it shall come to pass that Herod will seek the child to destroy him. Who arising, took the child, and his mother, by night, and withdrew into Egypt: and he stayed there until the death of Herod: that what was said by the Lord speaking through his Prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, seeing that he had been mocked by the Magi entered into a great wrath, and sent to kill all the children, who were in Bethlehem, and in all its country, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had inquired of the Magi. Then was fulfilled what was said by the Prophet Jeremy saying: Vox in Rama audita est, ploratus et ululatus multus: Rachel plorans filios suos, et noluit consolari, quia non sunt.

A voice was heard in Rama, a weeping and a great wailing: Rachel weeping for her sons, and she would not be consoled, — quia non sunt, — because they are not.

I saw, says John,

In those days: I saw upon the mount Sion the Lamb standing, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name, and the name of his Father written upon their forehead. And I heard a voice from heaven, as a voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and a voice, which I heard, as of harpers harping upon their harps.

And they sang

quasi canticum novum,

as a new canticle before the throne,

and before the four living creatures, and the elders:

et nemo poterat dicere canticum,

and no one could utter that canticle, 206 OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS

nisi illa centum quadraginta quatuor millia,

if not these hundred and forty-four thousand,

qui empti sunt de terra.

who were taken up,

who have been taken up from the earth.

Thou hearest well, my child, qui empti sunt de terra, who have been taken up from the earth. Everyone is taken up from the earth, on his day, at his hour.

But everyone is taken up from the earth too late, when already the earth has taken hold upon him.

Everyone is taken up from the earth when he is already earthy.

When his memory is earthy and when his soul is earthy.

When the earth has stuck to him and when it has left upon him

An ineffaceable mark.

But they, they alone, empti sunt de terra, literally

they were taken up from the earth Before they had in any way entered into earth. — Before that earth had given to them, had left to them The least earthy mark. Empti sunt de terra. The earth did not take them, did not

have them. The earth had no command upon

them. Did not nourish them. Did not imprint upon them this

stamp. This indelible mark. They were taken up from the earth, that is to say from that

earthy ingratitude. And from that earthly bitterness and from that earthly

aging. They were taken up from the earth, not having been there,

as we, as everyone. But they were taken up from the earth, that is to say from being

there at all. From being there and eternally from having been there. Shall it be said, says God, that all the greatnesses of the

earth and the very blood of martyrs Shall not be worth not having been of the earth. Not having that earthy taste. Having been taken up at the beginning, At the origin, at the point of origin of this earthly life. Not having that fold and that taste of an ingratitude. Of a bitterness. Earthy.

Beati ac sancti. Blessed and holy these holy Innocents. These, says John,

These follow the Lamb wheresoever he shall go.

Hi sequuntur Agnum quocumque ierit.

Hi empti sunt. Again. Empti sunt. Were taken up

hi empti sunt ex hominibus.

These were taken up from men, (From among men, from amid men),

primitiae Deo, et Agno:

first-fruits unto God, and unto the Lamb:

et in ore eorum non est inventum mendacium:

and in their mouth,

and on their lip was not found the lie:

The lie of man, the adult lie, the earthly lie. The earthen lie. The earthy lie.)

sine macula enim sunt ante thronum Dei.

without stain are they indeed before the throne of God. 209 innocents — 14 THE MYSTERY

Such is, says God, that secret of tenderness and grace That is in childhood itself, at the point of origin of

the child. Such is that innocence, that whiteness, that uncommencement.

Such is that secret, that favor of my grace, (That unjustifiable justice), That there are those who have steeped in the earth and those who

have not steeped in the earth. Those who are marked, stained, splashed by the earth

and those who are not splashed by the earth. And that there is enough only for those who have not steeped

in the earth and who are not splashed by the

earth. It is they, says the Apostle, who upon mount Sion surround the Lamb standing. They are a hundred and forty-four thousand and it is they who

have My name and the name of my Son written on their forehead. And the apostle heard a voice from heaven. As a voice of many waters. And as the voice of a great thunder. And as the voice of harp-players playing the

harp upon their harp. And mark, they did not sing only a canticle. But they sang as a new canticle before

the throne.

And before the four living creatures, and the elders:

It is a new canticle to mark

That eternal newness which is in childhood.

And which is the great secret of my grace.

That reborn, that perpetually reborn, that eternally reborn newness.

And this new canticle comes from that very newness. It comes out of it. It is born of it.

Now such is their privilege. And there is none greater:

No one, (that is to say the greatest saints and the very martyrs,

Centuries and lives of trials and sanctity,

Of exercises, of prayers,

Of labor,

Of blood, of tears;

Nemo, no one, that is to say not even Francis my servant and not even Saint Louis my servant;

Nemo, no one, that is to say not even the four

witnesses, the four reporters; Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John;

and the young man, and the lion, and the bull, and the eagle;

Nemo, no one, that is to say not even Peter the Founder;

And not even those who met death fighting for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre;

Nemo poterat dicere canticum, no one could utter

this canticle. (Such is their exorbitant privilege and the great unjust

favor Of my eternally just grace.)

nisi illa centum quadraginta quatuor millia, qui empti sunt de terra.

if not these hundred and forty-four thousand, who were taken up from the earth.

Christianus sum, I am a Christian, that cry of testimony.

Uttered in the most frightful tortures,

Cried in the face of heaven.

Cried softly in the face of the executioners,

That cry of testimony, of that testimony which we

name martyrdom. Uttered upon such a stage and in such, in so

hard a condition, To the greatest martyrs has not opened that singular,

that eminent privilege. That exorbitant privilege, that unique privilege. Unjust. Just. Purely gracious. Properly gracious. And behold.

Behold that these hundred and forty-four thousand innocents. Behold that these hundred and forty-four thousand children Had only to be born, and nothing more. Such are the

mysteries, such are the secrets.

Such are the games, such are the inequalities of my grace. And the secret kinship, the secret connection Of my grace with tenderness and with milk. So many others. So many others have testified beneath the talon and the beak and beneath the claw Beneath the tooth of lions and beneath the lash and beneath the

burning pincers (For there were of all sorts) And beneath the hoots of the nations and beneath the rush of the people

and beneath the clamor of the people. And beneath the interrogation of the praetor.

And to all those witnesses and to all those martyrs. So many others.

So many others have died on lost roads in

lost plains marching to the deliverance of the

Holy Sepulchre. Loins broken, lying on the ground, dying of fatigue. Dying of hunger, dying of thirst, dying of sand. Ribs cracked, laid on the ground, eighteen hundred

leagues from their castle. Dying of their wounds. Drained of their blood like

pierced wineskins, (Of their blood that ran upon the sand, and that the sand

drank, and that was lost in the sand, Until the resurrection of the bodies). So many others.

So many others set out, so many others died. Dead of battle, dead of misery, dead of leprosy. And to so many others.

(And they had set out for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. And they found Only the kingdom of God and life eternal).

To so many others. To all those other witnesses, to all those

other martyrs it was not given. Eternally it is not given to sing this new canticle.

Such is my order, such is the secret of my hierarchy. A whole life of exercise and of prayer. A life of trial, a life of humility does not suffice. A life of merit, a life of virtue serves nothing. A life of blood, a life of tears, a life even of

grace counts for nothing. For what is required precisely is a life that is not

whole. That be even exactly the contrary of being

whole. That be the least lived, that be barely begun. That be the least begun possible. Et nemo poterat

dicere canticum. Now these hundred and forty-four thousand Who alone could sing this new canticle,

What had they done?

Admire here the order of my grace. They had done this That they had come into the world. A point, that is all. Or

if you prefer, They had done this that they were little newborns. They were a kind of little Jewish nurslings. Boys

and girls. Their mothers said as in all the countries of the

world: Mine is the most beautiful. They, it was quite indifferent to them, being beautiful. Provided they

slept and that they sucked. When they were sleepy.

When they wanted to sleep they slept; When they were hungry and thirsty (together)

When they wanted to suck, they sucked; When they wanted to cry they cried: These were their greatest occupations. It is thus

that they found Not only the kingdom of God and life eternal. But alone to bear written on their forehead my name and the

name of my Son. And alone to sing there this new canticle.

Qui empti sunt de terra. So many others have died in the

name of my Son. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. So many others have died to save the honor Of the Name of my son. And they. Who alone bear that name written on their forehead THE MYSTERY And alone can sing this new canticle, They are also assuredly the only ones who on earth Ever totally ignored the name of my son. Such

is my decree. That name for which they died, they did not

know it. They never knew it on earth. That is what I love,

says God. Now they know it perhaps. Eternally one can

read it written On a hundred and forty-four thousand foreheads. On no other. On not one more. But living, but on earth One can say that they never knew what one was talking about Nor even that one was talking and that one could talk (Of any thing). That is what pleases me, says God. Now they wept, and they laughed, and they sucked, and they

cried, and they slept. It was their great, it was their most serious occupation. And a day came. That. One day (they no more knew the name of Herod

than the name of Jesus) (and they no more knew the name of Jesus than the

name of Herod. I dare say That those two names were equally indifferent to them.

Now those two men, Jesus, Herod, Herod, Jesus,

Antagonists, were simply going to procure for them The glory of my paradise. The kingdom of heaven and glory eternal. One day

came That a horde of brute soldiers, who were doing their

trade, OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS (But who were exceeding it perhaps a little) A rush of brutes passed, sorts of gendarmes,

ogres as in fairy tales, Bogeymen for children. Bearing sabres which were like great cutlasses. And these were the soldiers of Herod. A rush, a tumult. A din, arms rolled up.

A clamor. Cries. Teeth. Gleaming looks. Women fleeing, women biting As they always bite when they are not

the strongest. And there was nothing more in the blood and in the milk But a great strewing of dead bodies A graveyard of babes and young Jewish women. You know, says God, what we made of them. Those eyes that had barely opened to the light of

the carnal sun. Eternally were closed to the light of the carnal

sun. Those eyes that had barely opened to the light of

the earthly sun Eternally were closed to the light of the earthly

sun. Those eyes that had barely opened to the light of

the temporal sun Eternally were closed to the light of the temporal

sun. Those looks that had barely risen toward the day and

toward the sun of time Eternally were closed to those passing,

To those perishable lights. Those voices, those lips that had never sung the

praises of God on earth, That had never opened save to ask to

suck. (But it pleases me thus, says God.) Are thus the only ones, are today the only ones, Are also the only ones who can sing this new

canticle. Qui empti sunt de terra. You see what we

have made of them, says God. To the Innocents the hands full. It is the case to say so.

These Innocents had simply gathered in the

scuffle The kingdom of God and life eternal. What matters

today Their white limbs broken in all the towns of

Judea. And their little plump arms cut as by

men who prune. And their little clenched fingers that closed back upon the

palm of the hand. And the cries pushed back down into the throat, criminal hands

pushing them back down, sinking into the throat like a

stopper. Like a plug. And the young blood gushing from the heart. What matter the

severed limbs. The thighs white as kid meat

and as the tender thighs of suckling piglets. And their mothers who cried like madwomen and who

bit the soldiers at the wrist. As in a

battle, after the battle The prowlers, the thieves come to strip the wounded

and the dead and the dying and to carry off and steal

all that counts. All that is worth something, new prowlers,

new thieves these innocents In this battle after this battle stripped themselves And in the din of arms, in the tumult and in

the cries. In the frenzied gallop, in the unbridled pursuit,

among the women on the ground they gathered all that

counts. They stole all that is worth something for they

made plunder Like despoilers of corpses and they

despoiled themselves and what they gathered in

the scuffle is nothing less Than the kingdom of heaven and life eternal. Hi empti

sunt ex hominibus. They alone. Who alone perhaps on earth not only had

never sung the praises of God, But had never even pronounced my name nor the

name of my son, They alone also do not bear at the corners of the

lips the ineffaceable fold, That fold of misfortune and ingratitude And of a bitterness that will never be sated. Now if

we have made of them what you see, says God, There are seven reasons that I am willing to tell you.

The first, it is that I love them, says God, and that one

suffices. Such is the hierarchy of my grace.

The second, it is that they please me, says God, and that one

suffices. Such is the hierarchy of my grace.

The third, it is that it pleases me thus, says God, and that one suffices.

Such is the hierarchy, such is the order, such is the ordinance of my grace.

Now I am going to tell you, says God, the fourth It is precisely that they do not have at the corners

of the lips That fold of ingratitude and of bitterness, that wound of

aging.

That fold of warning, that fold of memory that we see on all lips.

The fifth, says God, it is that by a sort of equivalence,

By a sort of balancing these innocents have paid for my son.

While they lay on the paving of the roads, on the paving of the cities, on the paving of the towns

In the dust and in the mud, less considered than lambs and kids and piglets.

(For lambs and kids and piglets

Are highly considered by the butcher and by the consumer)

Abandoned upon the bodies of their mothers

During that time my son was fleeing. It must be said.

It is therefore, it is a sort of quid pro quo. It must be said.

It is a misunderstanding.

Willed, which is grave. It must be said.

They were taken for him. They were massacred for him. In his stead. In his place.

Not only because of him, but for him, counting for him.

Representing him so to speak. Being substituted for him. Being like him. Almost being (other) hims.

In representation, in substitution, in replacement of him. Now all this is grave, says God, all this counts. They were found like my son and replaced him.

Exactly when it was no less a matter

221

When it was nothing less than to massacre him,

(Prematurely, before he was ripe),

When Herod wished to massacre him. All this is paid for,

says God. And since they were found like my son

exactly at the hour of that massacre. Now, it is for that reason that now they are found

like the Lamb in that eternal glory. During that time led by a second Joseph My son was fleeing toward ancient Egypt. They were thus acquiring,

These urchins, these less-than-urchins were thus procuring for themselves A claim upon us. Mounted on an ass with his mother (As thirty years later mounted upon the foal of an

ass He was to enter Jerusalem) Thirty years earlier mounted on an ass with his mother my

son Was making again the journey of the ancient Jacob. And these children

were gathering in the fray. In their own blood these nurslings were gathering A claim upon me. They were quite right. Happy those who have a claim upon us. We

are very good debtors.

The sixth reason, says God, (I think it is the sixth), (it is a very good piece of business to be taken for my son and it brings in a return),

the sixth reason, it is that they were contemporaries of

my son. Of the same age and born in the same time. Just at that point of time.

We too we favor our class-fellows of the same

promotion. Such is the fortune that we have made for time. It is a great fortune or a great misfortune for

every man. To be born or not to be born at a given moment

of time. It is a fortune or a misfortune over which nothing

prevails. Over which one does not go back, over which nothing

comes back. And it is one of the greatest mysteries of my grace, this

part of fortune, This irrevocable part, undoable That we have left to the goods of fortune before the

goods that are not of fortune; To the carnal before and in the spiritual; To the temporal before and in the eternal, that is to say To matter in creation, and to the creature, and to

creation, and to the matter itself of creation before

the Creator.

To this point, says God, that we ourselves we are not indifferent to the date; to the time;

To the taking of a date and that we secretly love these

hundred and forty-four thousand because they happened to be there and we love them with a

secret unique love because they happened to be born there, because they were, because they happened to be Of the same age as my son, born of the same time, of the

same race. At the same date.

In short because they made together one class. No longer only a class of Jews but a

class of men. (Such was the new law) The class of Jesus Christ. And undeniably they were (time has always a certain force, brings always

a certain proof of the undeniable) Undeniably they were His class-fellows. (There is always in time, in date An I-know-not-what irrefutable.)

The seventh reason, says God, why hide it. It is

that they were like my son. And he was like them. (A generation of men, says God, a class is like a beautiful long wave that advances from one end to the other on a single front

and that all at once on a single front from one end

to the other altogether breaks upon the shore of the sea. Thus a generation, a class is a wave

of men, all together it advances on a single front, and all together on a single front it crashes down

like a wall of water when it touches the eternal shore.) My son was tender like them and like them he was

new. He was unknown enough. Like them. That great double adoration, which (without that) had

already set him apart. The great double adoration of the shepherds and the magi

was already a little forgotten. He had become again unknown enough. And the magi

had mocked Herod.

He was not two years old, he was like them. He was a beautiful child, and his mother said so.

He did not yet suspect the ingratitude of man.

He had not yet at the corners of the lips the fold of bitterness and ingratitude.

He had not yet at the corners of the eyelids his wrinkle, the fold of tears and of having seen too much.

225 innocents — 15

He had not yet at the corners the fold of not being able to forget.

He still ignored, as man he ignored the vicissitudes. He ignored, as man he ignored what will leave

an eternal trace, the crown of thorns and the reed sceptre, and that frightful agony of Calvary, and that agony still more frightful of the evening before on the mount of Olives. Like them he was a vase of alabaster That no trace had yet soiled, No dregs of any foam. And it is the sixth reason, says God, and the seventh, they

remind me of my son. As he was if he had not changed since, when he

was so beautiful. If this enormous adventure Had stopped there. That is why I love them, says God,

among all they are the witnesses of my son. They show me, they are as he was, if only He had not changed. Of all the imitations of

Jesus Christ It is the first and it is the very newest; and it is the

only one Which is not to any degree Which is not even for one atom An imitation of any withering and of any

bruising and of any wound of the soul of Jesus. It is a total ignorance of insult and of affront. And of injury and of offense.

They know only murder, and to have been killed, which would be nothing.

They were never turned into derision.

That is what I love in them, says God. That is in what, why I love them.

They are for me children who never became

men. Lambs who never became goats.

Nor sheep. (And these follow the lamb wheresoever he shall go.)

Child Jesuses who never grew old. Who never

— grew up. Now mine grew

in wisdom, and in age, and in grace

with God and with men.

I love them innocently, says God. And it is the seventh

reason. (It is thus that one must love these innocents) As a father of a family loves the comrades of his

son Who go to school with him.

But they they have not stirred since that time.

They are the eternal imitations 227 THE MYSTERY Of what Jesus was for a very short time For he was profiting, he. He was growing for this enormous adventure.

And the sevenfold reason, says God, it is that they are thus

as David wished them. Immaculati in via. Such is the order, says God. The prophet predicts. My son says. And I, I say again.

Or again:

The prophet predicts.

My son says.

And I confirm and I consecrate.

And my Church confirms and celebrates. And consecrates and commemorates.

Thus the Apostle takes them back from the Prophet and John takes them back from David. And as David had wished that they should be

Immaculate in the way thus John has seen them

Upon the mountain of Sion

Around the Lamb standing. There is enough only for them.

These follow the Lamb wheresoever he shall go. (The greatest saints apparently do not follow him

everywhere.)

These have been taken up from men:

(from among men, from amid men, from being

men.) The greatest saints have been men, have not

been taken up from being men.)

and in their mouth was not found the lie: they are indeed without stain before the throne of God.

And the Apostle names them primitiae Deo, et Agno: first-fruits unto God, and unto the Lamb. That is to say first fruits of the earth that one offers to God and to the Lamb. The other saints are the ordinary fruits, the fruits of the season. But they they are the fruits

Of the very promise of the season.

And following the Apostle the Church repeats: Innocentes pro

Christo infantes occisi sunt,

the Innocents for Christ 229 THE MYSTERY children were massacred,

(infantes, very young children, very little child not yet speaking)

ab iniquo rege lactentes interfecti sunt:

by an iniquitous King

milky they were slain:

(lactentes, full of milk, milky, at the age of milk, being

still on the regime of milk, nourished with milk)

ipsum sequuntur Agnum sine macula they follow the Lamb himself without stain

(and the text is such, my child, that it is together

the Lamb who is without stain and they with him who are without stain)

But the Church goes further, the Church passes beyond, the Church surpasses the Apostle.

The Church no longer says only that they are first-fruits

unto God, and unto the Lamb. The Church invokes them and names them

230

flowers of Martyrs.

Understanding literally by that that the other martyrs are the fruits but that these, among the martyrs,
are the very flowers.

Salvete flores Martyrum,

Hail FLOWERS of Martyrs.

Laid upon the rack, bound to the rack like fruits bound to the espalier
The other martyrs, twenty centuries of martyrs
The centuries of centuries of martyrs
Are literally the fruits of season.
Of each season ranged along the espalier
And notably fruits of autumn
And my son himself was plucked
In his thirty-third season. But they these simple innocents,
They are before the fruits themselves, they are the promise of the fruit.
Salvete flores Martyrum, these children of less than two years are the flowers of all the other Martyrs.
That is to say the flowers that give the other martyrs.
At the fine beginning of April they are the rose flower of the peach.
At full April, at the fine beginning of May they are the white flower of the pear.
At full May they are the red flower of the apple.

THE MYSTERY

White and red. They are the flower itself and the bud of the flower and the cotton

of the bud. They are the bud of the branch and the bud of the

flower. They are the honor of April and the sweet hope. They are the honor both of woods and of months. They are young childhood. The Sunday of Reminiscere is only for them, because

they remember. The Sunday of Oculi is only for them, because they

see. The Sunday of Laetare is only for them, because they

rejoice. The Sunday of the Passion is only for them, because

they were the first Passion. The Sunday of the Palms is only for them, because

they are the very branch that has borne so many fruits. And the Sunday of the day of Easter is only for them,

because they are risen. They are the flower of the hawthorn that blossoms during

holy week And the flower of the forerunning black thorn, that blossoms

five weeks earlier They are the flower of all these plants and all these

rosaceous trees. Promise of so many martyrs they are the buds of

rose Of that dew of blood. Salvete flores Martyrum, Hail flowers of Martyrs,

quos, lucis ipso in limine, Christi insecutor sustulit,

ceu turbo nascentes rosas.

whom, upon the very threshold of the light, the persecutor of Christ took away, (carried off)

ceu turbo nascentes rosas.

as the tempest nascent roses. (that is to say as the tempest, as a tempest takes away, carries off nascent roses).

Vos prima Christi victima, Grex immolatorum tener, Aram sub ipsam simplices Palma et coronis luditis.

You first victim of Christ, Tender flock of the immolated. At the foot of the very altar simple, Simplices, simple souls, simple children, Palma et coronis luditis. You play with the palm and the crowns. With your palm and your crowns.

—233 Such is my paradise, says God. My paradise is the simplest

thing there is.

Nothing is as stripped bare as my paradise.

Aram sub ipsam at the foot of the very altar

These simple children play with their palm and with their

crowns of martyrs.

That is what happens in my paradise. With what indeed can one play

With a palm and crowns of martyrs.

I think they play at hoop, says God, and perhaps

at jackstraws

(at least I think so, for do not believe

that anyone ever asks me for permission)

And the ever-green palm apparently serves them

as a stick.