too cruel, I then respond with the purity of an indomitable happiness. I refuse to become sad. Let's be happy. If you're not afraid of being happy, of just once trying this mad, profound happiness you'll have the best of our truth. I am—despite everything, oh despite everything—I am happy this very instant that's slipping by if I don't stick it down with words. I'm being happy this very instant because I refuse to be vanquished: therefore I love. As an answer. An impersonal love, an it-love, that's happiness: even love that doesn't work out, even love that ends. And my own death and that of those we love must be happy, I don't yet know how, but it must be. To live is this: the happiness of the it. And I'll yield not as someone vanquished but in an allegro con brio.
Besides, I don't want to die. I rebel against "God." Shall we not die as a challenge?
I'm not going to die, do you hear, God? I don't have the courage, do you hear? Don't kill me, do you hear? Because it's infamy to be born only to die not knowing where or when. I'm going to remain very happy, do you hear? As an answer, as an insult. One thing I guarantee: we are not guilty. And I need to understand while I'm alive, do you hear? because afterward it'll be too late.
Ah, this flash of instants never ends. Will my song of the it never end? I'm going to end it deliberately, with a voluntary act. But it continues on in constant improvisation, creating always and forever the present which is the future.
This improvisation is.
Do you want to see how it continues on? Tonight— it's difficult to explain it to you—tonight I dreamed I was dreaming. Is it possible that death is like that? . . . the dream of a dream of a dream of a dream?
I'm a heretic. No, that's not true. Or am I? But something exists.
Oh, living is so uncomfortable. Everything presses in: the body demands, the spirit never ceases, living is like being weary but being unable to sleep—living is upsetting. You can't walk around naked, either in body or in spirit.
Didn't I tell you life presses in? Well, I went to sleep and I dreamed I was writing you a majestic largo and it was even truer than what I'm writing you now: it was fearless. I've forgotten what I wrote you in the dream, everything returned to nothingness, returned to the Force of what Exists and is sometimes called God.
Everything ends but what I write you continues on.
Which is good, very good. Still, the best hasn't been written. The best is between the lines.
Today is Saturday and it's made of the purest air, only air. I speak to you as a profound exercise, and I paint as a profound exercise of myself. What do I want to write now? I want some tranquil and unaffected thing. Something like the memory of a tall monument that seems taller because it's a memory. But, in passing, I want to have really touched the monument. I'm going to stop because it's Saturday.
Saturday continues on.
What is going to be later on — it's now. Now is the domain of now. And while the improvisation lasts, I'm being born.
And behold, after an afternoon of "Who am I?" and of waking up at one o'clock in the morning still in despair— behold, at three o'clock in the morning I awoke and found myself. I went to meet myself. Calm, happy, plenitude without fulminations. I am, simply, I myself. And you are you. It's vast, it will last.
What I write you is a this. It won't stop: it continues on.
Look at me and love me. No: look at yourself and love yourself. That's what's right.
What I write you continues on and I am bewitched.
Afterword
Hélène CIXOUS
Translated by Verena CONLEY
Is the text readable? One may have to find other modes, other ways of approaching it: one can sing it. One is in another world. The text does not keep, hold back, and one cannot retain it. Does this mean it is only water? Absolutely not. It is living water, full water. It escapes the first rule of text. It is not linear, not formally
Besides, I don't want to die. I rebel against "God." Shall we not die as a challenge?
I'm not going to die, do you hear, God? I don't have the courage, do you hear? Don't kill me, do you hear? Because it's infamy to be born only to die not knowing where or when. I'm going to remain very happy, do you hear? As an answer, as an insult. One thing I guarantee: we are not guilty. And I need to understand while I'm alive, do you hear? because afterward it'll be too late.
Ah, this flash of instants never ends. Will my song of the it never end? I'm going to end it deliberately, with a voluntary act. But it continues on in constant improvisation, creating always and forever the present which is the future.
This improvisation is.
Do you want to see how it continues on? Tonight— it's difficult to explain it to you—tonight I dreamed I was dreaming. Is it possible that death is like that? . . . the dream of a dream of a dream of a dream?
I'm a heretic. No, that's not true. Or am I? But something exists.
Oh, living is so uncomfortable. Everything presses in: the body demands, the spirit never ceases, living is like being weary but being unable to sleep—living is upsetting. You can't walk around naked, either in body or in spirit.
Didn't I tell you life presses in? Well, I went to sleep and I dreamed I was writing you a majestic largo and it was even truer than what I'm writing you now: it was fearless. I've forgotten what I wrote you in the dream, everything returned to nothingness, returned to the Force of what Exists and is sometimes called God.
Everything ends but what I write you continues on.
Which is good, very good. Still, the best hasn't been written. The best is between the lines.
Today is Saturday and it's made of the purest air, only air. I speak to you as a profound exercise, and I paint as a profound exercise of myself. What do I want to write now? I want some tranquil and unaffected thing. Something like the memory of a tall monument that seems taller because it's a memory. But, in passing, I want to have really touched the monument. I'm going to stop because it's Saturday.
Saturday continues on.
What is going to be later on — it's now. Now is the domain of now. And while the improvisation lasts, I'm being born.
And behold, after an afternoon of "Who am I?" and of waking up at one o'clock in the morning still in despair— behold, at three o'clock in the morning I awoke and found myself. I went to meet myself. Calm, happy, plenitude without fulminations. I am, simply, I myself. And you are you. It's vast, it will last.
What I write you is a this. It won't stop: it continues on.
Look at me and love me. No: look at yourself and love yourself. That's what's right.
What I write you continues on and I am bewitched.
Afterword
Hélène CIXOUS
Translated by Verena CONLEY
Is the text readable? One may have to find other modes, other ways of approaching it: one can sing it. One is in another world. The text does not keep, hold back, and one cannot retain it. Does this mean it is only water? Absolutely not. It is living water, full water. It escapes the first rule of text. It is not linear, not formally
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