A dove’s wing sprouted from her shoulder, I say, and the novelty of her feathers amazed the soul at first and stimulated the exercise of her mind, as she reflected now on the sign of the wing, now on the number of the dove. And if the nascent wing spoke to her of the potential for flight, the number of the dove announced she was destined to love. So it was that she at last discovered the nature of her movement in the loving transports so clearly being promised her. But she was not long in noticing that the loving transport requires not only a moveable Lover but also an immobile Beloved; nor did she take long to observe that, if the capacity of the Lover was in all certainty within her, the figure of the Beloved remained hidden from her, as though the wing’s moment were still far away.
IV
Henceforth my soul lived in a twilight state that might equally have been the prelude to a night or the dawn of a morning. While her understanding had enlightened her will, pointing out to it not only a means of transport but also the necessary existence of a Beloved toward whom she ought to move, the will was nevertheless unable to emerge from its immobility; for, even though it knew of him, it did not yet know the flavour of the Beloved; and since it was missing the flavour, its appetite was as if vacant; and when the appetite is vacant, the will does not stir itself; above all when its wing is that of a dove. I say, then, that her will remained motionless. At the same time, she held her peace, and her mind was falling asleep for lack of any new subject on which to place its attention. For this reason, the soul found herself doubly immobile, with no other action than that of her wakeful eyes and no other life than her impatience. She clearly divined, however, that if the Beloved existed (as her understanding let her know), he would not fail to show himself at some point, nor to call her name. Now, the soul did not know her true name; nor was she acquainted with the voice of the Beloved who would pronounce that name; and yet she was quite sure she would recognize the name and the voice as soon as they made themselves heard. As she waited for that to come to pass, she revolved around herself, listening closely to the murmurs of the earth; and as she revolved, she extended her wing of love, like one who lets a feather flutter in the air so as to find out from what quarter the wind may come. But everything around her was mute; no calls came from the earth, and the soul had no invitations.
Around that time, as I recall, my heart (due to its vigilance or the tension of waiting and hoping) was so full it would dissolve in tears at the slightest brush, like a moist little leaf at the lightest breeze. A mere look from man or woman, the timbre of a voice passing by, a colour or a gesture were enough to set off a sweet flood of tears in my heart. And it was because, by coming out of herself now and contemplating the world with eyes of love, the soul not only suffered but also came to suffer with, as though she were suddenly finding in the countenance of the other creatures something reflecting, resembling, or corresponding to her own enigma. And, I recall, it was around then that I had an extraordinary dream, whose exact meaning I grasped only later:
I found myself in an immense wasteland and in the middle of a night so deep that not a vestige of form or colour could be distinguished in either earth or sky. And as I tried to advance through the desolate place, it seemed to me huge columns of darkness were plummeting noiselessly down upon my head, and I could not lift my feet free of the sandy ground I was walking on; all of which plunged me, struggling, into a desperation as limitless as the nocturnal wasteland holding me prisoner. Thus lost in that clime of terror, I seemed to see a marvellous human figure suddenly rise up beside me and begin to look at me in a way no earthly eye had ever done. The face of that admirable gentleman was resplendent with so much light, so much power was in his beauty, and so much glory in his majesty, that my whole being was moved and began to forget its terrors, converted entirely to the grace in that vision. And I felt, in my dream, that in the presence of this Man there awoke in my memory the notion of I know not what lost flavours, what faraway music. And I felt, upon recognizing him, that my mind knew itself for the first time in the Man, and my will wanted to surrender, offer itself to him as a banner of love. Then, it seemed, he spoke to me in a fiery idiom, and since I did not understand the words of fire issuing from his mouth, the Man began to walk in the blackness, and I followed him, afraid of losing him. Then I seemed to see a miracle unfold: no sooner had the Man stopped walking than burning suns, pink moons, and golden comets took shape behind him, in the pure sky, until the night was transformed into a splendid noontide; and the wasteland, at the mere touch of his feet, turned into a most pleasant garden where, amid the flowers, thronged bright and nimble beings who, seeking one another, joined to dance in a thousand rounds. And it seemed that my eyes, upon seeing such beauty as was manifest in the garden, began to wander away from the Man leading me, and that my heels began to tarry near the circles of dance; until I felt as though I were caught up in the whirlwind of the fiesta and completely given over to its magic and madness. But, at the peak of my rapture, a chill wind seemed to blow over the garden, and forms, colours, and sounds all grew suddenly old; and the earth withered like the leaf of a tree; and suns, comets, and moons were going out like lamps at the end of a party. It happened then that, finding myself again in the night and on the barren plain, I looked for the Man who had previously appeared before my eyes. And as I did not find him, I wept, in my dream, with so much sorrow that at last I awoke and saw the reality of my lament.
V
I know not how much longer my soul lived that way, making real in dreams what wakefulness denied her. And still she knew not whether she waited in hope or despair, when there dawned for her a day exceedingly beautiful and open to all revelations. She was waiting, as I said, with her ear attuned to the world’s sounds, when suddenly it seemed to her that invisible brass instruments rang out in the springtime and that all creatures, putting aside their silence, began to raise their voices and express themselves in an idiom both direct and passionate. That language had the mettle of the voice of beauty, the “voice that calls.” And since the call of beauty is the call of love, and love tends toward happiness, it is no wonder my soul felt moved and jubilantly saluted the advent of those voices. What good fortune! So very recently, the soul had been wanting a call of love that might set her in motion, and now here were thousands of calls resounding in her ears, as though the earth had begun to sing through the myriad mouths of her creatures! So very recently, the soul, alone, had been asking for a Friend who might relieve her solitude, and now she recognized, in all those calls, the voices of a hundred friends inviting her from without!
Thus did my soul emerge from her first immobility, on a day not lost to memory. When she steered her movement toward creatures exterior to herself, her course did not follow a straight line but spiralled outward, plucking her from her centre, leading her further and further away in ever-widening revolutions around the centre. And I emphasize the nature of her movement so that my reader (should these pages of mine ever have one) may follow the soul on her path of love and surmount the obscurity, more apparent than real, of her story.3 I said she distanced herself from her centre in each revolution of the spiral; I say now that, from call to call and from love to love, she went so far away that she eventually lost and forgot herself. In forgetting her own essence, she was converted to the essence of what she loved; a singular being, she found herself divided into the multiplicity of her loves.