Mouroir

Book, a Mirror

“During this period the evenings become purple. This phenomenon should probably be ascribed to the fluctuation of seasons — change summed up in a combination of factors: the days longer and ever warmer so that more unused light is left over at the fall of evening; even when day has already died the evening initially has more light and is, apparently, reluctant to confound itself with the pillared portals of darkness; evenings thus have more of a glimmer and the transitions aren’t abrupt or clogged; the heat of the elapsed day causes a partial evaporation more visible above the horizons and the resulting condensation becomes a prism and acts as a refractor of the death-flame’s longer rays; simultaneously the earth is more powdery day by day and languishing dust clouds, as if the planet were a coach on the dusty road of space, contribute to the manifestation of staining; and the plant life and harvests, both cultivated and indigenous, have just about attained the fullness of their growth, leaves and blades are swollen with sap and the green which will fade a lighter shade as the buds burst forth and the small fruits become fruit, develop flesh and cheek and eyebrow and form around the thought-kernel of the stone, are as yet blue with greenness. All of this taken together and being gathered in a larger totality creates the effect of evenings having for a brief transitional period — between day’s sharply outlined depths and night’s approach, but also between one season and the next — a purple cape being dragged lightly over the ridges of the amphitheatre. ‘Cape’ and ‘light’ — words bringing to mind a bullfight, the ‘at five o’clock in the afternoon’, the moment of truth during the faena, the final quites with the sword cloth, the muleta which is already impregnated with blood and the rosy froth around the nostrils of the bull being driven back, plod-hoofed now in the querencia which no longer offers any protection against the swordbright piercing of death, the eyes also of a light red colour but already glassy and less mobile, and the matador on his toes, with love and respect and arrogance, he is going to do it from the front in a recibir, he takes aim down the silver beam; it brings to mind the dark roaring of the crowd, the handkerchiefs like so many butterflies when darkness descends. But this is no treatise on bullfighting. Hemingway proclaimed: ‘The author should tell us only of that part of the external world which the consciousness of the hero perceives in the moment the two coincide.’ A symbiosis: the mutually beneficial internal relationship between two organisms of different nature. It is all very well, even though the danger exists that this statement, narrowly interpreted, may lead to a blinkered vision. Isn’t the consciousness of the outside world, the non-I, often exactly the explosion point of a boundless stream of associations breaking free in the I? Isn’t Lowry’s consul closer to reality than Hemingway’s Robert Jordan? And the true nature of the observer, that consciousness, cannot be circumscribed by the human mind since that mind knows only of objects: that which I name ‘I’ is in no sense I. With the best comprehension in the world the self remains merely a little bundle consisting of five tendencies, five skandhas or branches — form, emotions, observing faculties, characteristics and spiritual powers or discrimination, also the idea of the self among others. (There must be a new tearing: the hole-in-the-belly experience of such-ness, tathatā̄, which is the void, sunyata, empty of all imaginable things or ideas.) Besides, Hemingway is cheating. It is true that we are being made aware at a given moment, through lean and tense descriptions, of the interpenetrating and mutually complementary protagonist and surroundings, but we become especially attentive to that which is not expressed. And who is the observer? Is the mood in which we are placed or transposed by the description — better still, by the way of describing — experienced by the hero as well? Isn’t one of Hemingway’s ‘manly’ attributes really that we are seldom offered a glimpse of the hero’s way of consciousness or even his perceptions? Unless the telling is unfolding from the point of view of the first person of course, one can say a personal I. Unfolding like the cape before the nose of the snorting bull. . Or should it be argued that Hemingway, in his non-first-person stories, succeeds in creating a certain symbiosis between the invisible narrator (the absent I on the spot) and the indicated third person or hero? Are we therefore served the writer and the writer’s writing writhing in the awareness of the penned-down character? Are we led by a ring through the nose? ‘You can make an ox of the bull but he still remains a beast. . ’ But this here is not an attempt at polemics, nor an analysis nor even an approach to Papa Hemingway’s theories. It is only: a tentative description of the moth chamber which Angelo and his wife, Giovanna Cenami, so much wanted to see. (Concerning the moth chamber more extensively later on.) At the same time the viewing of the moth chamber will give them the chance to spend a few days with Gregor Samsa and Elefteria. Angelo had already developed guilt feelings concerning the companion of his youth. It is true that he had promised repeatedly to go there on a visit… True too that Angelo, pressed by his wide-ranging activities as a writer, only very seldom could find the time-space for going away a few days. And that he shrank from the idea of a trip to the highlands. The heights in more ways than one. But after the telephone conversation with Elefteria of last week a plan will just have to be made. No excuse will let him off the hook concerning his responsibilities to Gregor Samsa. For, according to Elefteria, it is not at all going well with her husband. His work, the demands made upon him — all these, it would seem, are grinding him down. Would it not be possible, Elefteria asked, for Angelo and wife to come spend a day or more with them. . ”

When he reached this far in his writing he laid down the pen, pushed the notebook away. He removes his thick spectacles and rubs his eyes with the knuckles of his thumbs. He is tired, worn out. Night has long since fallen outside and the wind is playing hide-and-seek with the trees, laughing softly like a servant girl furtively with her lover in the darkened garden. In a moment she will sigh a few times and start biting the air with the small of her back and the lower part of her body thumping and sucking the soft seed bed by the humid hedge. He squints at his watch, brings his wrist right up to the eyes, for without the eyeglasses his vision is weak and blurred and it is only from close up that he can focus. It’s true that he feels morally obliged to go and visit Gregor Samsa — old bonds of friendship probably impose it — and half sullenly he remembers that it has been agreed that he and Giovanna Cenami should leave the following day. There is of course the temptation of the strange room. . The house also, except for the pool of light over his desk-top, is shrouded in darkness. Just the mirrors glow vaguely as if reflecting something which somewhere gave off some light. He will just have to accommodate himself to the thought of pushing aside his work programme for a few days.

Differential, disc brakes, distributor and contact points, carburettor, gearbox, acceleration pump, de-aerator checked. The glareproof windows defogged. Luggage in the dustfree boot. Fitted into the casing of metal alloys and chromium. Rocking softly on plastic-foam cushions. By the afternoon of the next day Angelo and Giovanna Cenami were on their way. According to Angelo’s calculation they should reach their destination towards the hour of dusk. Along the route, climbing and turning, the vegetation gradually became denser; rushing past the car it was often a solid green wall. The trees which exceptionally engage the eye are also stockier of trunk, taller and with leafier crests than those of several hours ago in the lower valleys. After a while it started raining. Like silver wires stretching through the forests on either side, like telephone lines full of dripping sounds, like soft spectacles, like balls which are just contents without any shape against the motor car’s windscreen. And when the showers faded away from time to time, the remaining spattering of droplets reminded one of insects, of the inner life of insects. But the reader should keep in mind that this is not a landscape, only words, like a landscape. Angelo remembered again that house which they had bought many years ago somewhere in this area. He was absent, taking part in some seminar, and Giovanna Cenami had to take care of the house-moving all by herself. When he went there for the first time it was on a rainy afternoon much like this one now. The house was situated on a little rise deeper in the forest and quite some way from the tarred road. When he arrived that first evening after several kilometres of sludge, his shiny automobile was splashed with mud. He was upset. The house was still a mess, cardboard boxes and the crates which had contained their furniture scattered all over. Still, when he climbed the steps of the high terrace — somewhat disgusted by the caterpillars of mud clinging to his soles — he was surprised to see how shiny the floors of the corridor and the living room were. There was a sombre glow in the house. Straight-backed leather chairs were grouped provisionally, without any pattern, and there were elegant, long-stemmed candlesticks; so many candlesticks and so many mirrors. Light, which had moved into the house from somewhere, rested with an intimate sparkle on the ribbed silver of the chandeliers and the looking-surfaces of the mirrors. As if the building were full of unworldly but fashionable guests. Do we possess only mirrors and candlesticks? he asked, playfully worried, and his lovely wife came with a tinkle of laughter to be embraced by the reach of his arms. They were young then, carefree, a bow and arrow pointed at life. Later on they sold the house. . And the bowstring. .

And when they approach the yellow-brick building rain has already died away. As he had foreseen the sun too had started falling behind the horizon, cloudless now and very distant, for they found themselves on the most elevated knoll of the multiple series of hills. In extremely fine fishing nets the raindrops were spun over the dark green lawns, with flowers a startling red and orange caught in the nets. On the terrace of the Director’s wing Elefteria waited for them. Heaven a magnificent ink blot, all the tinges of purple and violet, spreading fast to suck up everything. In the wash of twilight Elefteria’s white, flowered dress was nearly luminous. Now there remained just a few sunbeams shooting over the ridge of blue shade, low and long and blinding like sword blades, and where they hit the earth with flat edges there was a sprinkling of drops, lilac-coloured and white. The swords were cutting the fishing nets to ribbons. With a travelling bag in the hand Angelo stood looking at the letters, in all the colours of the rainbow, splashed against the wall of the balcony jutting out above the main entrance: THE YELLOW SUBMARINE. A nice name, but is it really fitting for an institution which has such a sombre function? When he sees the iron bars in front of all the windows he tries to shake the shivers from his clothes.

Gregor Samsa was busy somewhere. He had to supervise personally (some responsibilities cannot be delegated) the evening lock-up of prisoners, and had to verify that all are counted, that the count tallies with the morning’s total and with the numbers in the books — drudgery, Elefteria hinted. Only in the rooms of the Director’s living quarters some last coals of sunlight still flared. And these rooms were incredibly stately with decoration and furniture testifying to wealth and impeccable taste. Thick wool carpets to hush the sound of footfalls. The dying sun shimmered and pulsated in dark wall-hangings, in countless candlesticks with slim silver arms, in rows of mirrors, each in its Venetian baroque frame of old blue and gold, at an angle over low tables massively carved from precious wood and decorated with motifs under chestnut-brown or ambercoloured glass tops, with here and there, discreet but opulent, the flash of an ashtray hewn from jade, an antique silver platter from Samarkand or Fez, Delft porcelain on a shelf or a Greek vase now flowing over with freshly cut snapdragons or bougainvillaea.

They had already lip-tastingly finished the first cocktails, a rusty red liquid since the sun finally withdrew from here too and left behind only a purple bruise, a cool afterburn, when Gregor Samsa turned up. He was glad to see them, so very glad; grasped Angelo’s hands in his and squeezed them, but there was an evasive and bashful look in his yellowish eyes. Angelo felt that the hands were cold and clammy. Gregor Samsa sat bolt upright in one of the leather chairs and started talking excitedly, in one flow, about everything, in a disjointed way. At times he interrupted his own jumble of words and, with hands which unconsciously opened and closed over his knees, tilted his head to listen. In the background one could hear uninterruptedly the humming of hundreds of birdies’ voices, a warbling and a chirruping. In one wall of the room there was a window reinforced with bars — an abomination in this exquisite space making the harmonious ensemble perverse, obscene. This aperture became ever more conspicuous. Once you’ve noticed it, it can no longer be ignored. Once you’ve become aware of the humming of voices, they keep on throbbing in your ears. With the delicate crystal glass still in his hand Angelo finally rose from his chair and sauntered over to the opening. Through the bars (there was no glass in the frame) he looked down upon a large hall lying quite a way lower than the floor of the sitting room towards which the voices rose. Along colourless tables row upon row of prisoners were thronged: the clothes shapeless and of a dull grey material, the heads shaven — he saw the yellowish scalps through the stubble of hair, often fresh scabs or the fainter lines of older injuries, knife wounds, tracks of the ringworm, skin diseases. And all the faces were turned upwards to the window where he stood watching. Some had eyes white with cataracts, sunken in sockets and closed tight, swollen or red from ophthalmia; some eyes were incisively mad, others expressionless as if blind lipoma. And the excretions, the warts and blotches, probably neurofibromatosis. All uttered sounds with pouted lips or with slack and dribbling mouths. The majority had red fists all knobbly and raw before them on the tables, but a few with bent backs clutched their hands (those hurting toys) between the knees or desperately pushed them under the armpits. What does it bring to mind? Bats? On the sidewalk before a pet shop in Paname he once saw an enormous hairy vampire hanging in a cage, a threadbare fox, upside down from nearly human little feet, naked and blinded by the fierce light of day and the screeching and the poisonous fumes of cars caught in the streets. Angelo started noticing the musty body odours filtering into the sophisticated living room, finally not to be evicted by the flower smells or the perfume emanating from the women’s little hollows. Why doesn’t anyone say something? Obscuring, all of it a glossing over. When he turns around with a sense of loathing his eyes meet the pleading, nearly doglike expression in those of Elefteria. And Gregor Samsa was no longer in his chair. Alone, totally alone, a thought said to him. Like a mirror.

Down the corridor he heard the high anxious voice of Gregor Samsa. There was a small space, long but narrow, rather like a waiting room, with a row of chairs down each wall. (Against one wall there was a painting on the theme of Napoleon leaving Moscow; snow already, and flames lapping at the city walls; the fat little fellow in the big, military grey coat. Facing it exactly there was a framed text; “About thirty years earlier four Frenchmen were eaten to celebrate the Fourteenth of July. They had organized a big fête for the natives to inspire them with a patriotic love for France, when, halfway through the festive proceedings, they were suddenly seized by their ungrateful hosts.” Since his student days already Gregor Samsa was a francophile. .) He sat in one of the chairs, a rag doll, arms and hands limp over the arm rests, head thrown back. Over his face he had draped a handkerchief. It was as if he had surrendered himself completely to the senseless words which on a poignant note kept bubbling out of him, insatiably. Like a rhetorician having fudged all limitations and parameters. Angelo remained standing in the dark just inside the door with the icy feeling one has when a well-known face is abruptly unmasked, the features distorted and the facial planes undone into something horrible stalking the edges of your awareness, something which yawns and snarls — but he was nevertheless fascinated. Perhaps five minutes went by before there came a break in the monologue. Gregor Samsa pulls the handkerchief away from his face. His face is a filthy mouth, red and wet. Why do you stand there staring at me with an open mouth? he brutally asks Angelo. Haven’t you ever seen evening prayers? But when Angelo doesn’t react in the least he wipes the sweat from his face with the same handkerchief and continues in a resigned voice: Never mind, you need not be afraid or alarmed, it is all over for the time being — look, I’m absolutely normal. . Please believe me. . Let’s go back to the salon. . Forgive me. .

In the living room the two unhappy women sat waiting. During Angelo’s absence, so they now inform him, a secretary, deus ex machina, called to say that he should return to the city, unexpectedly but urgently, for talks with his agent and publishers. Concerning a question which definitely cannot be solved by telephone. Elefteria who had so looked forward to Giovanna Cenami and Angelo’s visit, probably with the fond hope that it may in some way be of succour to Gregor Samsa, was clearly upset at this reversal of her projects. With drooping shoulders and downcast eyes Gregor Samsa went to sit in the same chair as before. Apparently the news didn’t concern him at all. Only Angelo was briefly and secretly relieved: thank the gods that I need not stay here now, that I have a justified excuse, and there are truly stacks of work and responsibilities. . Why should it be expected of me to help him — just because we were friends when young? People change, circumstances don’t remain the same, Life unfolds, gets folded, wrinkled. . There is a separation, secretion and segregation sometimes. I do not know this man. . And at the same time he stood wondering in which trouser or jacket pocket Gregor Samsa tucked the handkerchief after using it. He could still see the darker stains caused by the pearling perspiration. And he knew then that he couldn’t leave Gregor Samsa in the lurch, couldn’t wipe him off his conscience just like that, not now — and particularly not when thinking of Elefteria. Perhaps, he further reasoned, I can redeem my accountability by suggesting that Gregor Samsa come with me for a little trip to the city. Should he, or they, say “no”, then I’m free after having done my duty. Should he agree, well, it will be good for him to get away from here for a while. And if necessary Giovanna Cenami can remain to keep Elefteria company. Perhaps, he says, Gregor can come with me for a quick there-and-back to the city? At least I’ll have a companion for the road and Giovanna Cenami could well stay here in the meantime so that you women may talk your little talks. Ha-ha-ha. Am I right? He turns to Elefteria.

It was decided, with a view to the urgency of his appointment, that he and Gregor Samsa would depart later that same evening so as to be on time the following day in the city. After supper he had a shower and started dressing. Gregor Samsa was ready, stood waiting in the living room, sharply dressed in an expensive summer suit of some light cloth, his damp old-wheat-coloured hair slicked back and his yellow eyes clean and peaceful. (Now that all the decisions have been taken from his hands.) When Giovanna Cenami had felt the quality of Gregor Samsa’s tailored suit between the thumbs of her eyes, she convinced Angelo in the guestroom to don his best clothes too, of sayette, and to tie a hand-woven tie of black wool around his neck: a different, more sedate elegance, that of an influential author. It was as if the two women wanted to compete.

The night was tight and still except for the quick quivering of wind in the branches and coppices. Like pilot-lights on high masts were the stars in the blown-clear spaces of heaven, like the mirroring in a dark surface of the rain-eyes on leaves. When they leave the big building is a load of darkness behind them, but they could still perceive the murmuring of many voices beyond the walls — it was as if the whole prison were filled with fast-running water. The headlights of Angelo’s Silver Phantom lit up a shallow plane before them, in dust-coloured powder the light-cones for an instant touched the scrubs on either side of the road — the pale plants without chlorophyll, shining — and when later it starts raining again the drops are moths breeding miraculously in the folds of the night, from Saturniidae to oleander hawk and Lophostethus demolini and H. osiris with the sheath like a blade and the death’s-heads whose larvae live on the potato, he, Acherontia atropos (O river of Hades, O Fate!) who, when fully grown, with his yellow abdomen and stocky proboscis and skull emblem will rob the beehives and utter tiny screams there. . Night unfolded. Directly from the front. Gregor Samsa says nothing and his hands are quiet, all trembling gone.

With the climbing of the sun above the ridges they have long since left the wooded area behind them. Not a single cloud in the vicinity. A chain of purplish blue mountains blocked off the horizon in front. Towards nine o’clock they stopped at a filling station. Opposite the road was a motel extending to a café and a supermarket; a little further to the right of the blue asphalt road a town was spread over several hills and in the early morning light, also falling at an angle, the white houses glittered like bottle-shards, so much so that Angelo had to think that these houses were still uncompleted. At a distance beyond these white houses against the slight rise of a further hill with a strip of uninhabited land between the two developments (a no man’s land), the first town’s sister township commenced, a second half. The first building of this location — it looked like an entry gate or perhaps a tollhouse — was big and yellow but also as if snapped in two, all crumpled and with a hump in the centre: exactly as if it had been hit and summarized by an earthquake. Further back then are strung out the other little houses: small, crooked, poor, and of all the colours of the rainbow. It was very clearly the living area for Coloureds as opposed to the preceding area for Uncoloureds. A pump attendant with a big florid face wiped the last tracks of dust from the Silver Phantom’s windscreen with his yellow rag and then planted himself with arms akimbo next to them. With the rag hand he pointed to the shimmering town. Worcester, he said.

Accompanied by the attendant they crossed the road to go and look for breakfast in the roadhouse. They mounted the few steps and pushed open the glass doors. Around smart little tables on high chromed legs several people sat drinking and smoking (although there were no cars parked in front of the motel), mostly farmers from the surrounding fields, with friendly blue-eyed faces and black coats. At the table nearest to the entrance sat a couple, both dressed in Chinese clothes, unaware of the slurping mouths and the looking eyes of the other customers, lost in a game of tiny sticks and cards. Their hands particularly attracted Angelo’s attention: flabby, bleached fingers with red tips in which no graphic of mercy could be detected. When Angelo out of curiosity tried to follow the game from close up, the attendant pulled him by the sleeve over to one side and placed a warning finger to his mouth: they are playing “swallow”, he explained. Cruel? He repeated the unworded question and winked at Gregor Samsa. Isn’t it rather a case of love? And who can stop that? You certainly must know Molière’s La Princesse d’Elide:

Soupirez librement pour un amant fidèle,

Et bravez ceux qui voudraient vous blâmer

Un coeur tendre est aimable, et le nom de cruelle

N’est pas un nom à se faire estimer:

Dans le temps où l’on est belle,

Rien n’est si beau que d’aimer.

Literature, oh dear — and he shakes his head very primly. Keen apparently to act as guide and let them see all the advantages of this motel complex, the attendant invited them to follow him to a large area lying somewhat lower than the café’s floor. They found themselves in a self-service shop with counters and shelves exhibiting all kinds of toys, condiments, bottles of wine, and especially motor accessories: from dashpots to piston springs to valves and sparkplugs, from filters to radios and lubricants. There is also a wheel-shaped bookcase which can be pivoted. A clerk or salesman presents himself. He wears a neat and expensive striped suit with a bow tie and a thick black moustache tied like a supplementary tie under the nose. This is our Travelling Library, all the most recently published books immediately available — the petrol attendant proudly whispers in Angelo’s ear whilst clutching at his sleeve with a hand rimmed with black nails. Indeed, the newest editions are there and each volume has a mirror for a cover: one by one the books are pulled with a flash from the shelves by the agent (or librarian perhaps) and given into Angel’s hands with an expectant smile and a twinkle in the eye above the moustache. There is something by Jorge Luis Borges; there is a totally unknown long poem by Dostoevsky entitled “The Kiss” and there is another one dealing with the tactical problems of Bonaparte’s retreat from Moscow; There is the Popol Vuh; there is Ludwig Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis and next to it Abdul Ahazreed’s Necronomicon; there is The First Principle; there is D. Espejuelo’s On the Noble Art of Walking in No Man’s Land; there is a treatise on the first French motor enthusiasts who traversed the Sahara from the Algerian coast and far past Pépé de Foucauld’s wind-covered grave in Tamanrasset to Timbuktu (that is, those enthusiasts who weren’t stuffed into a cooking pot along the way); there is something about popes and something concerning space travel. He takes a thin volume and opens it. Starts reading. “During this period the evenings become purple. This phenomenon should probably be ascribed to the fluctuation of seasons — change summed up in a combination of factors: the days longer and ever warmer so that more unused light is left over at the fall of evening; even when day has already died. .

“But this is no treatise on bullfighting. . ”

He turns the pages, reading a paragraph here and a sentence there. The excellent type page and the neat type font please him: it resembles a carefully penned handwriting.

“It is only: a tentative description of the moth chamber which Angelo and his wife, Giovanna Cenami, so much wanted to see. (Concerning the moth chamber more exte — ”

“. . oozing water, salty, and not of the cleanest, of course constituted a major problem which the guardians didn’t know how to solve. How water could so constantly penetrate the room, in fact the whole house, was in itself an enigmatic mystery which even the most acute research has not yet been able to elucidate. Although there’s water over the surface and although the chairs stand several centimetres deep in water (but the upholstery remains dry) — the moths’ appetites don’t seem to be stimulated. The question thus arises: how do the moths procreate and what do they live from since the ceiling too is smooth and no one has ever observed them clinging to the walls. For certain these are not the same moths (of the Sphingidae family alone several kinds have been identified: Leucophlebia afra with pink and orange wings, the ochre-coloured Polyptychus contrarius, Sphinx funebris — several varieties here of, such as conimacula, peneus, maculosa and ovifera — the Atemnora westermanni, and many more) it was argued at a given time. The answer to this was: (i) that there’s no window or aperture through which new arrivals could enter; (ii) that nowhere in the rest of the house and in truth nowhere in the immediate environment have any other moths or even butterflies or dragonflies or wasps or meatflies or suchlike (lepidoptera of whatever nature, be it as eggs, caterpillar, pupa, chrysalis, cocoon or in the final stage as imago) ever been noticed; (iii) that the moths, whenever the door is opened to enter the dark room, have never attempted escaping; and (iv) that, according to the calculations of the supervisors — difficult to be sure, and not scientifically exact — an unchanging number of moths are present. One must make certain that all are counted, that the total tallies with that of the morning and the numbers entered in the book: a drudgery.

“Apart from the mysterious origin (or apparently mysterious, because although the phenomenon has not yet been explained the modern researchers never say die: let’s rather state that comprehension is provisionally absent) it is not at all a weird or even a creepy experience to visit this room. Inside there is a gloom of a shade between violet and mimosa which, if one could believe one hypothesis, could be ascribed to the colours of the moths’ wings. If this were the case these wings would have to be mirrors³ (or like mirrors). In fact the wings (and at times the bodies too) are covered with microscopic scales, together with hair, and these scales are easily rubbed off like coloured dust: the colour of the wings is defined in this way, be it as pigment itself or through the intervention of light in a kind of erosion. Don’t handle them: when dead they become extremely fragile. The space is filled with the ceaseless whispering of wingbeats and if the visitor has enough pluck to stop moving and extend his hands and face, he will feel the fluttering touch as leaves of a book full of wind when, let’s say, he should one sunny afternoon under a tree touch sleep with his eyelids, like the grazing lip-kisses of a pair of lovers under the hedge. So incessant and unbroken is the muttering and so gratifying the fluttering that the visitor truly loses all sense and knowledge of his own suchness (quiditas), decomposes, becomes absorbed in — ”