Woman Part 29

The wind rises on the right. Is it not the wind that has extinguished those dots of gold, the houses, without deepening the dark of the town?

I see the wind, it is blowing near. And here, immobile, upright in my heavy rect.i.tude, I share with the wind the moments which are driving it on. One by one. I fly with them, one by one.

I go where they are going, even elsewhere, and my death perhaps is far from reaching its limits. It has been on the way a long time, it will stop when I am completely tired out, when there will be nothing more for me to do, when my breath will not be an indispensable breath. Then that will be all. They say it is hard to die. Does that mean that the world holds something more tragic than life?

The wind has swollen the whole sky. The sky is ready to drop down from on high--ah, let the sky fall! The wind pins itself to my face. It has become so violent that I cross my arms on my breast to brave it. The infinite future, as though it too were swollen, approaches the houses.

How can I tell what the future holds? No use searching the violet depths of the horizon or breathing in the whole of the sky. The times to come are beyond my reach. They give no sign.

There, below, all I see is my own existence. But how I see it! Flas.h.i.+ng, a.s.siduous, full of free s.p.a.ces, brooding, crimson in my veins, paling slightly at the horizon, departing in the starless wind, and returning in haste to my limbs.

The woof of the night has changed color again.

Can it be that what I am is a promise of something that should be?

The wind blows stronger.

No, it is not for nothing that to-night I am drawing a deeper breath than on all other nights, a breath stronger than my strength, rising up over my life.

Night pa.s.ses, as pure as a summoning voice.

Then it must be, Lord, that soon, perhaps at dawn, you must go further than your journey and, in flashes of your being, reach heights higher than everything you have said, live to the last drop of your blood, live more than life?

Here I am.

THE END