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Everything was so calm that if it hadn’t been  for the soft, continuous pressure exerted on me,

2
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an extremely light and extremely firm pressure that I wasn’t  sure I wasn’t exerting on it by my resistance and by the direction of my waiting,

3
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I could have believed I had already reached some goal  an ultimate one, perhaps, one of the ultimate goals.

4
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And yet, the calm also seemed to interpose itself between us,  not as an obstacle, true, nor as a distance, but as a memory.

5
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A dangerous calm, I realized once again,  and one that was in some sense a danger even to itself,

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threatened, threatening, yet unshakable,  indestructible—it was final,

7
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a word which here appeared opaque, but light.

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It was dark, it was cold.

9
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The waiting (the calm)

10
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made me feel that over there,  on one of the slopes which I could only situate over there,

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was an opening onto a different region,  one that was even more useless and more hostile

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 and that we both dreaded in the same way.

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The space was evasive, wily, frightened.

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Maybe it had no center, which was why it disoriented me  by its evasion, its wiliness, its temptation.

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It stole away; it kept stealing away, and yet not always.

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Abruptly,

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I had before me a hungry evidence,  an ultimate avidity which I had to escape,

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as though it were drawn, in me, by the sense of that center  which it didn’t have or by that calm that awaited me.

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A terrible feeling that immediately made me draw back.

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But I, too, became wily, I learned not to be content with it,  not to return to myself.

21
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I never despaired, I tirelessly prowled around.

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I had lost every habit, every path.

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The only firm thing I had was the motionless thought  that enveloped us and perhaps protected US.

24
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And yet, I had glimpsed some possibilities, recognized  the places where everything became denser, more real.

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It was like a slope one had only to follow,  a slope that started off from calm and ended in calm.

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On either side were shining images, an endless din.

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That din made me drunk, perhaps crazy.

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It seemed to me motionless, high, and smooth,  it was a height that pushed me back down toward the bottom,

29
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a speech untouched by the silence.

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It was at once powerful and empty, authoritarian and docile.

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It was uttered far away from here,  far away even from the space, and as though outside,

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over there in the useless region, and yet also in me.

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A feeling that at no price should I make use of  the agitation of that speech,

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nor adhere to it.

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But I stayed on the crest of that narrow drunkenness,  cramped against a phantom of lightness,

36
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controlling a feeling of pain, of joy,  not controlling it.

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It was light, joyous, of an amazing lightness,

38
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it allowed itself to be seen rather than heard,

39
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a shining sphere, a sphere that merged with its surface,  kept growing, and was calm as it grew.

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The agitation of a speech in no way confused

41
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and when it falls silent, it does not fall silent:

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I could distinguish myself from it,  only hear it while hearing myself in it,

43
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this immense speech which always said “We.”

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The sort of drunkenness that sprang from it  came from that “We” which sprang from me

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and which, far beyond the room  where the space began to enclose itself,

46
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obliged me to hear myself in that chorus  whose base I situated over there,

47
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somewhere in the direction of the sea.

48
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That was where we all were, over there,  erect in the solitude of our unity,

49
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and what we said ceaselessly praised what we were:

50
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“What else is there now but us?”

51
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“No one.”

52
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“Who are the distant ones and who are the close ones?”

53
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“We here and we over there.”

54
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And who are the oldest and who the youngest?” “We are.”

55
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“And who must be glorified, who comes to us, who waits for us?”   “We must and we do.”

56
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“And the sun—where does it get its light from?”

57
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“From us and only us.”

58
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“And the sky  what exactly is it?” “The solitude that is in us.”

59
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“Then who must be loved?”

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“I.”

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A mysterious answer,  a strange murmur that disturbs us:

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the voice is weak, harsh like the squeak of a lizard.

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Our own has the volume and strength of worlds added onto worlds, but it is also silent.

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The other has something animal about it, too physical. Almost imperceptible, it shakes us.

65
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Even though it may be a sort of ritual,  hearing it is a disquieting, sublime surprise.

66
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A feeling of immense happiness  this is what I can’t get rid of,

67
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what radiates eternally from these days,  what began the first moment,

68
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what makes that first moment still continue,  always continue.

69
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We remain together.

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We live turned toward ourselves as though toward  a mountain lifting vertiginously from universe to universe.

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 Never any stop to it, no limit,  a drunkenness ever drunker and calmer.

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“We”, the word glorifies itself eternally,  rises endlessly, passes between us like a shadow,

73
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lies under our eyelids like a gaze  that has always seen everything.

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It is the shelter we hurry under, knowing nothing,

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our eyes closed, and our mouths are also closed.

76
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How we nevertheless see things, that strange sun,  that terrible sky, this is what doesn’t preoccupy us.

77
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Insouciance is the gift we have been given,  and from the first moment, it was already a very old thing

78
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the feeling of that altitude, an immense column whose top  and bottom, merging, put us within reach of an infinite growth.

79
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Yes, it always goes farther.  It is always more indestructible, always more immobile.

80
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Eternity is achieved, but grows on.

81
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Such a discovery is accepted right away.

82
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No beginning and yet the soar of a perpetual awakening.

83
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No end, but an aspiration always satisfied and always desiring.

84
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This thought scarcely weighs upon our shoulders,  there is nothing solemn or grave about it,

85
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it is lightness itself

86
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it makes us laugh,  that is our way of examining it.

87
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Frivolity is what is best about us.

88
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It unsettles us to praise ourselves for being frivolous:  as though an unknown center were being touched in us.

89
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Sometimes, the sky changes color.  Already black, it becomes blacker.

90
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It increases by one tone, as though to show that the impenetrable has withdrawn still further.

91
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I could be afraid I am the only one to realize this.

92
0:07:06.798 --> 0:07:11.030
Everything, it claims, is common to us,  except the sky

93
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our share of solitude passes through this point.

94
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But it also says this share is the same for everyone

95
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and we are all united within this point even in our separation, united only here and not elsewhere

96
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this would be the ultimate goal.

97
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What proves it is that every time the black becomes blacker,  by a nuance that can only be communicated within our very midst,

98
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what each of us then secretly says,  in order to give reality to that sign,

99
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rises from all sides into one common cry that alone  reveals to us what we have caused ourselves alone to hear.

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A terrible cry, apparently always the same.

101
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What is terrible about it at its highest point  does not change,

102
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and yet we know that it varies imperceptibly  in response to the intangible variation of the sky.

103
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That is why it is terrible.

104
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We wouldn’t tolerate the sky being a single point.

105
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This is probably the source of  the thought that has lain down on me,

106
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that wraps me around and protects me like a veil:

107
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“But if it weren’t a point, if it weren’t as infinitesimal  as the sharpest needle point,

108
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how could I bear it?

109
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Do you mean the sky  sinks into us like the point of a needle?”

110
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“That’s it, yes, that’s right.”

111
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This point would therefore be what pierces  the most distant of memories.

112
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The greatest calm reigns.

113
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It’s a unique moment.

114
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Certainly, here we are attaining something  that was not hoped for, that comes unexpectedly,

115
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that happens the very moment we expected the opposite

116
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one gets up if one was lying down,

117
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one freezes,

118
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if one was running  perhaps one was running away,

119
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or, to put it better, one stops  and bows one’s head as though to reflect.

120
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True, I don’t remember this.

121
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Speech informs us about it,

122
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image shows it to us,  memory does not encounter it

123
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we move about uselessly behind ourselves.

124
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And yet, I remember many things, everything,  maybe, but not that moment,

125
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and as soon as I move toward it more boldly,

126
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I run up against that extremely fine  and amazingly distant point

127
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that black point we call the sky,  that single changing point, ever blacker and sharper,

128
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which we find suddenly before us

129
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and which is there only to urge us to withdraw,

130
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go back inside the calm

131
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from which our lightness has also eternally made us go forth.

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What, then, would remove us from the calm?

133
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Why is this equilibrium, once attained,  lost again, as though forever?

134
0:10:01.358 --> 0:10:08.693
What is the source of the feeling we have that we must  look after everyone around that moment of calm,

135
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that cold moment whose memory is nevertheless strange to us?

136
0:10:13.282 --> 0:10:16.691
Why do we know that thing of which there is no knowledge?

137
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Imperceptibly the question raises us up, throws us upon one another,  is our balance, the balance of a happy day.

138
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The happiness of always saying Yes,  of endlessly affirming.

139
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We have known other days.

140
0:10:33.487 --> 0:10:42.508
Back there, in the past, it seems we walked more quickly,  close together we glided more furtively.

141
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Toward what place? Why such haste?

142
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Sometimes, we look at one another  as though between us there were a memory,

143
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not a memory, forgetfulness, the touch of an instant,  the hope that draws a circle and isolates us.

144
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Is it the past this suddenly visible face?

145
0:11:01.290 --> 0:11:06.355
We knew those days, they don’t belong to yesterday,  they are eternally those that are coming,

146
0:11:06.355 --> 0:11:10.144
those that do not pass, and they are the joy  of the brightness that comes from us,

147
0:11:10.144 --> 0:11:13.045
and they are the surprise of having breached the wall,

148
0:11:13.045 --> 0:11:18.772
and, without error or doubt, going by every road  joyously toward ourselves.

149
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Why should all that have changed?

150
0:11:21.267 --> 0:11:24.902
Why should what had been said, the eternal,  cease to be said?

151
0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:30.015
“But nothing has changed.  It’s only that you also have to know eternity in the past.

152
0:11:30.015 --> 0:11:34.557
You have to raise yourself high enough to be able to say: that was.

153
0:11:34.557 --> 0:11:37.397
Such is the mission now reserved for you.”

154
0:11:37.507 --> 0:11:41.395
I don’t believe in that speech,  but I don’t have the power to avoid it either.

155
0:11:41.395 --> 0:11:44.486
It is as though I had to hear it in the past too,

156
0:11:44.486 --> 0:11:52.467
and I feel that not to believe it is to fall more quickly  than it is falling down the slope it has already dug.

157
0:11:52.668 --> 0:11:56.002
Spirit of lightness, it must not be betrayed.

158
0:11:56.002 --> 0:12:03.845
[ Metro Line 4 - Last / Man]  It is when one moves away from it that the feeling of  a constant thought turns into the feeling of an unmoving surveillance.

159
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It still protects, but it also bears down  ”lightly”

160
0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:13.210
it couldn’t bear down more than  the gravity toward which we let ourselves fall.

161
0:12:13.703 --> 0:12:17.056
And where would we fall, if we fell a little more?

162
0:12:17.056 --> 0:12:20.530
If we were capable of becoming terribly, guiltily heavy?

163
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Isn’t that question already the weight that  could precipitate us, make us tumble, into an answer?

164
0:12:28.890 --> 0:12:33.156
The answer is that perhaps we would fall back into the calm

165
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from which one doesn’t emerge except through lightness,

166
0:12:35.876 --> 0:12:42.856
because in it everything becomes infinitely light,  too light to remain there.

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[ Metro Line 4 - Last / Man ]