17 —
When Ana de Peñalosa heard that Friedrich N. had received her letter she thought again about Saint John of the Cross and Thomas Müntzer.
The cat had lain down on her lap for a few moments because,
soon,
the fire of the day
would be consumed.
In the caves where they were living, Saint John of the Cross and Thomas Müntzer had become unaffected by the persecutions: water circulated at the opening and the boat moored to the rock plunged its seasoned hull into the vibrations of thought.
The bird circled around John. He landed on his hand and an intense cold rose in the water, covered it with frozen particles — the thicknesses of the texts were looking at one another.
It is a glacial day. We haven’t given up:
we are still alive. I must make
an effort to write. What pleasure
in our hands; we warm our fingers
to write.
This cold day can only be compared
to one other day.
Place 18 —
I read a text and I cover it with my own text, which I sketch at the top of the page but which casts its written shadow over the entire printed surface. This textual overlap comes from my eyes, it seems to me as though a thin cloth floats between my eyes and my hand and ends up covering like a net, a cloud, what has already been written. My text is completely transparent and I perceive the topography of the first words. I concentrate on Saint John of the Cross when the text speaks of Friedrich N.
he left the prow of the boat; his small body walks here; he pierces them with his bright-sharp eyes; he roams freely in the garden; he settles on the plants that Ana de Peñalosa watered this morning.
They then sat down near each other, a text on their knees, the breeze descended and impelled the words to the next body. Ana de Peñalosa did not have a book, she had thrust the needle into the fabric and contemplated the wandering of the fish
I embroider and think I know how to embroider; I don’t know how I made this association but shortly thereafter I reflect. Knowing and seeing. I can choose the colors, I chose the colors of the threads which are reddish-pink and red, and I chose the color of the fabric, brown — which, for me, is the color of the community’s reformulation. What I embroider is an insect, I feel the urge to classify it, know its name and I am, for a few moments, sojourning within in the vast animal kingdom. A finger on the thread, I also fasten my eyes upon the fabric; I find that I see an expansive panorama, my eyes fixed on the velvety brown seem to look all around; I lift the needle from the felt, to me the movement seems similar to that of writing, but inverse.
It was not I who traced this design I embroider but, making my way along it with the needle, I reconstruct the birth of the act of drawing; I lose the notion of time slightly as if my embroidery had come from an archive and was about to disappear within it. I situate myself historically alongside other hands that embroidered fabrics from another era. I wonder, when they find it, what meaning they will ascribe to the insect I encountered today. I pass from writing to embroidery, translating as if both were my speech; at times, I even forget I’m embroidering, in such a way that my fingers become dexterous and my thinking, reflected in the embroidery, a thought. With a book is written another book. As a book is vegetal.
When the clock at the entrance fell out of step and the golden box filled with hours and the shudderings of sound, I realize it is time to change colors on the surface where I’m working. My hands close to my eyes, I notice, for the first time, the skin resting on my bones. She asked herself: “Will they come with someone?” “Will they bring someone?” She was then certain that they would bring someone and she arranged her hair for Nietzsche.
Place 19 —
Resting at the edge of the lake, she ended up smiling; someone had passed by like an illusion, in a boat and rowing — a shadow still unmet; I heard the sound of the water and the oars thrusting. She startled, would it be Nietzsche?; the same boat passed by again. She looked forward at the shadow’s solidity, particularly his head, where only his hair could be made out. She heard the sound of his voice: “You the semi-living who surround me, and enclose me in a subterranean solitude, in the speechlessness and cold of the tomb; you, who condemn me to lead a life it would be better to call death, you will see me again, one day. After death I shall have my revenge: we know how to return, we, the premature. It is one of our secrets. I shall return alive, more alive than ever.”
She moved with him toward the house, through the thick silence that had followed. But it was a child’s shadow: — Where do you come from? From the body. From the place of memories and vibrations. — I don’t know what you mean — I have memories I don’t remember: they are the most beautiful ones; the vicissitudes of ideas and systems affect me more tragically than the vicissitudes of real life. — They sat down leaning against one another. Then, Friedrich N. lay down on Ana de Peñalosa’s lap, ready to fall sleep
(I speak to myself and hear my voice resonating like that of a moribund. With you, dear voice, whose breath delivers me the last memories of any human happiness, with you, let me speak a minute longer. Is it you I hear, my voice? My future, which I will reach if they give me enough time…)
for that night.
She did not marvel when she saw the child sputter fire. She left him to go make dinner. On her way, she lit all the lamps in the great hall. Leaning out the window, she looked at them in the courtyard. Without any light, they were still writing: “It is the radiant night. There will not be many nights like this.”
But those nights were repeated until her old age, which began on that day.
Place 20 —
To keep her company on the long nights when they did not come to see her, Ana de Peñalosa adopted a red and reddish-pink fish who retraced different paths in the water, already overcome by the spirit of dispossession in light of everything capable of disturbing his serenity. Ana de Peñalosa named him “reddish-pink fish,” or Suso. She examined him carefully during forgotten hours: his scales, the pink and the red. When she had spent a long time observing him and his itinerary, she saw the beginning of a line appear from his tail, like pearls. Like the beginning of a written work, she thought. But writing doesn’t let itself be characterized by only one comparison. This was what was written and quickly vanished: when, so many nights ago, I arrived at this house, I found a tomb covered with sage and other plants; here lies the friend of a man. Around the stone was a vast expanse of grass. Eckhart had not met Ana de Peñalosa. But Ana de Peñalosa had met him on the night when, embroidering next to Suso the fish, she had seen his sermons penetrate the water drop by drop, written in the undulations of the aquarium. It had been a cadenced writing, guided by the fish and the evolution of the shells: all living beings are pure nothingness.
Place 21 —
During the gentle time of her old age she had never forgotten
the portrait
of the adult
Friedrich Nietzsche
as a child.
His straight, receding
