Thirst

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The time has come: I am lying on the cross. What I carried will henceforth be carrying me. I see the nails and hammers coming. I’m so frightened that I find it hard to breathe. They nail my feet and my hands. It doesn’t take long, I hardly have time to realize. And then they raise my cross between my brothers’.

Now I feel this incredible pain for the first time. To have nails through my palms was nothing compared to having my weight upon them, and what is true for my hands is a thousand times worse for my feet. The rule is, above all, don’t move. The slightest movement increases what is already unbearable pain.

I tell myself I’ll get used to it, that my nerves cannot go on feeling something this horrific for long. But I find out that they most certainly can, and that this equipment of mine can record the most infinitesimal variations as well as the most enormous.

To think that when I was dragging this cross, I believed that the purpose of life was to avoid carrying any heavy burdens! The meaning of life is to avoid pain. That’s it.

There’s no way out of this. I am entirely absorbed by my pain. No thoughts, no memories can set me free.

I look at the people looking at me. “What’s it like, this thing you’re going through?” That’s what I read in countless gazes, both compassionate and cruel. If I had to answer them, I couldn’t find the words.

I’m not holding it against the cruel ones. For a start, because all my faculties have been monopolized by my pain, and then, because if my pain can bring someone pleasure, it’s better that way.

Madeleine has come. I didn’t like seeing my mother, but it moves me to see my beloved. She is so beautiful that compassion cannot disfigure her. My suffering is so great that my soul cries out, even if my lips are silent, unable to imagine a fitting cry.

The cry in my soul penetrates Madeleine. This is not a metaphor. Is it a surfeit of pain or death approaching? I see Madeleine’s love in the form of rays. The word ray is not quite right, it’s both more delicate and rounder, more concentric, she emanates a luminous wave, and I receive it, and it’s as gentle as what I give her is painful.

I can see this howling in my soul, or rather my soul in the form of a furious current going to meet Madeleine’s loving soul and mingling with it. And it gives me, if not a sense of lightening, a very mysterious joy.

My thirst, which I had kept as a secret weapon, now sends me a reminder. An excellent idea. The extreme torment of my throat enables me to emerge from the horror of my lacerated body; there is some concrete salvation in this alteration.

The wave that links me to Madeleine is an oblique one, and this slant owes less to my raised position than to the nature of its blue light. My beloved and I secretly exult over what we alone know.

And when I say alone, this means that my father doesn’t know. He has no body, and the absolute nature of the love that Madeleine and I share at this moment rises from the body the way music flows from an instrument. You only learn such powerful truths when you are thirsty, when you experience love, and when you are dying: three activities that require a body. Naturally the soul, too, is indispensable for this, but in no way can it suffice.

It’s enough to make you laugh. I don’t risk it, it might bring on a spasm of pain. If I really do have to die, under no circumstances must I die laughing. I’m horribly afraid of ruining my death. This pain is so extreme that I might even miss the great moment.

What a blunder this crucifixion is. My father’s intent was to show how far one could go out of love. If his plan had been no more than just silly, it could remain pointless. Unfortunately, it’s so noxious that it’s terrifying. Masses of men will embrace martyrdom because of my foolish example. And if only it had stopped there! Even people wise enough to choose a simple life will be contaminated. Because this thing my father is inflicting on me is proof of such deep scorn for the body that something of it will always remain.

Father, you have just been surpassed by your invention. You could take pride in the fact, proof of your creative genius. But instead, under the guise of giving an edifying lesson of love, you have staged this punishment, the most hideous imaginable, heaviest with consequence.

It did start off well, for all that. To engender a solidly incarnated son, now there was a good story; you could have learned a lot from it, if only you had really sought to understand what you have failed to understand. You are God: what does this pride mean to you? Is it even pride? Pride in itself is not a bad thing. No, I see a ridiculous trait therein: susceptibility.

Yes, you are susceptible. Another sign of this: you won’t be able to stand the various forms that revelation will take. You will be offended when men from opposite ends of the earth, or from just next door, seek to experience their verticality in a number of fashions. Occasionally with human sacrifices, which you will have the nerve to find barbaric!

Father, why are you behaving in such a petty way? Am I being blasphemous? It’s true. Punish me, then. Can you punish me even more?

Yes, you can: now my pain is a thousand times greater. Why are you doing this? I’m criticizing you. Have I said that I didn’t love you? I am full of resentment, you make me angry. Love allows such feelings. What would you know about love?

That really is the problem. You don’t know love. Love is a story, you need a body to tell it. What I have just said makes no sense to you. If only you were aware of your own ignorance!

The pain has become so intense that I hope I’ll die very soon. Alas, I know I’m still long for this world. The flame of life has not flickered. Above all, I must stay still; the slightest movement comes with a price that is beyond thinkable. Here’s something else that is awful about indignation: it makes you squirm. Those who are indignant cannot stay still.

Accept it, my friend. Yes, that’s me I’m talking to. Extend your friendship to yourself, that’s what’s needed. Love would be unpleasant: love overdoes it, and that’s bad for your health. Hatred is the same, but even more unjust. I am my friend, and I’m fond of the man I am.

Accept it, not because it’s acceptable, but because you will suffer less. Not accepting is fine when it’s of some use: in this case it will serve no purpose.

Haven’t you hit the trifecta, in a way? You’ve summed up the three most radical situations: thirst, love, and death. You are at the intersection of all three. Make the most of it, my friend. What an abject expression. But I can’t go saying, “rejoice in it,” it would sound like I’m making fun of myself.

These are the facts: what I am living through is life-changing, there’s no mistaking it. I cannot put this suffering to one side, therefore I’ve immersed myself in thirst, in order that I might, if not escape it, at least sidestep it.

What grandiose thirst! A masterpiece of alteration. My tongue has been transformed into pumice stone, and when I rub it against my palate, it’s abrasive. Explore your thirst, my friend. This is a journey, it is leading you to a source, how lovely it is, have you heard it, yes, it’s the right song, hearken to it, there is some music that is worth it, this tender murmur makes me happy right to my core, I have this taste of stone in my mouth. There will be a country so poor that in their language, to drink and to eat will be one and the same verb, to be used with extreme parsimony, to drink is a bit like eating liquid pebbles—no, that only works if the water is oozing, and in my journey, it’s not oozing, it’s gushing, I am lying in such a way that I can make contact with the water, it loves me the way it loves the chosen source. Drink me without limits, my love, may your thirst fulfill you and never be quenched, since that word does not exist in any language.

Is it any surprise that thirst leads to love? Loving always begins by drinking with someone. Perhaps because no other sensation disappoints so little. A dry throat imagines water as ecstasy, and the oasis is proof against waiting. He who drinks after crossing the desert never says, “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” To offer a drink to the woman you are about to love is to suggest that the delight will be at least as great as the expectation.

I became incarnate in a country of drought. Not only was it imperative that I be born in a place where thirst reigns supreme, but it also had to be a hot place.

From the little I know of the cold, it would have skewed everything. Not only does it numb thirst, it also eliminates all additional sensation. If you’re cold, you’re cold and nothing else. If you’re dying from the heat, you are perfectly capable of suffering from a thousand other things at the same time.