t’s more of a signal, it’s my warning, I assure you, the clairvoyance of a dark premonition goes along with my appeaclass="underline" if there’s a breach in this passion I won’t be pious, I don’t have your faith, I’m unable to find your saints when all goes wrong,’ I said, already hearing the bleating of a lost ewe running through a red meadow, darting out to the valley, and realizing that somewhere a fire was being lit of resinous logs, that it was neither night nor day, but a time that balanced midway, a time that dissolved somewhere between the dog and the wolf: ‘Ana, we still have time, don’t release me with your refusal, do not leave me with so much choice, I don’t want to be this free, don’t force me to lose myself in the bitter dimensions of this immense space, don’t push me away, don’t drive me away, don’t abandon me at the gateway of this vast trail, I’ve already said it, and I’ll say it once more: I’m tired, I want my place at the family table, urgently! I’m begging you, Ana, and just to remind you, the family can be spared; in this imperfect world, this precarious world, where even the greatest truth can’t get beyond the limits of confusion, we must be satisfied with the spontaneous tools we have to forge our union: our recalcitrant secret, tempered with sly lies and subtle cynicism; after all, the balance Father has always talked about applies to everything, wisdom has never been exceedingly virtuous; and not only that, Ana, but in trying to do their best, when has anyone ever reached the core? We can’t forget that roads, like all routes, are only cleared on the surface, and that every trace, even life underground, is still only movement over the vast face of the earth; reason is generous, dear sister, it cuts through in any direction, will agree to any byway, as long as we handle the blade skilfully; to live our passion, let us clear our eyes of all artifice, of magnifiers, and of other tempestuous-coloured lenses, relying only on their own lucid, transparent water: thus, in our unique love, there can be found no sign of egoism, debasement of custom, nor threat to the species: let us not even worry about such trifles, dear Ana, everything is so fragile, with one superfluous nudge we could push the impertinent curator of the collective virtue aside: and what sort of guardian of the order is he? Standing there haughtily, he’s easily caught winking maliciously, and it’s impossible to tell whether he’s calling our attention to the brazen club in his right hand, or to his lascivious left hand, deep inside his trouser pocket; so let’s ignore this pious fraud’s pompous edict, it would be feeble of us to allow ourselves to be lulled by such anachronous hypocrisy, after all, is there any bed cleaner than our own nest of hay?’ And I braced my muscles forthwith to clear my path, my rod-like arms and iron fists gripping my sabre, which struck away at the inhospitable brush, and as the tips of my spurs scraped the ground, I dispensed with the old tape measure, but, driving in stakes, I sharpened my nerves as if I were sharpening a pencil, doing the arithmetic based on my own figures, little did I care that the grounds from my mind might eventually have had to weigh up against those from another milclass="underline" ‘It’s common knowledge, dear Ana, which we ignore like sleep-walkers, but which is, silently, the greatest and oldest scandal of all times: life itself is only organized through contradiction, what is good for some often means death for others, and only the fools among those that have been cast aside would ever borrow the yardstick used by those on top to measure the world; as victims of the order, I insist we have no choice if we want to escape this flaming conflict: we must forge our masks peacefully, draw a scornful mark into the ruby smear of the mouth, and in answer to the choice sbetween forward and backward, we’ll even resort to debauchery and run a greased finger along the crack in the universe; if flowers thrive in marshes, we too can dispense with the acquiescence of those unable to grasp destiny’s baroque geometry; we can’t afford to exchange a precarious situation for no situation at all in the name of discipline, as do the most self-demanding spirits; for my part, I’d even relinquish the possibility of having children, but I want to relish the pleasure of our clandestine love in the old house that much more —’ I said, ready to scale steep mountains, after all, I knew how to choose the right harness, curry horses, lead them to a trot, a slow pace and a canter, I mounted well, was agile with the lasso, and could gallop if I had to, not to mention that I also knew how to break in new colts, determining their elegance at the outset, the firm line of their tendons, their steel hooves and their blazing manes — ‘as a last resort, dear Ana, I appeal to simplicity, answer me reflexively, not from reflection, I entreat you to acknowledge along with me the atavistic line running through this passion: if Father, with his austere manner, wished to make of our home a temple, Mother, with her lavish affection, only managed to render it the house of our damnation,’ I said, lifting my Sagittarius paws, my hooves kicking up at the beams, suddenly feeling my blood swift and virulent, immediately whetted over this irreverent voluptuousness; there was grease in my eyes, they were coated in a dark paste of black smut blended with thick olive oil, my imagination sent forth a torrent of the most lecherous images, and my hands, overcome with fever, tore away at the violent buttons of my shirt, all the way down to my zip; loftily rediscovering their primitive vocation, they had already become the distant hands of an assassin, confidently reinstating the rules of a filthy game, liberating themselves for sweet crime (such orgies!), sweeping across the oratory in search of flesh and blood, dipping the anaemic host into my wine chalice, trscratching into the softness of the lilies in their vases, leaving my fingerprints on their chaste parchment leaves, combing the alcoves for lascivious saints (such a coy, crimson-faced virgin! Such pecking at my liver!), and losing myself in a fog of incense lit in honour of the devil before me, I said, by then covered with burns, ‘I’m thirsty, Ana, I want to drink —’ I was but a slab of raw meat — ‘this wound, this cancerous fester is not my fault, nor is this thorn, I can’t be blamed for this tumour, this swelling, this purulence, I’m not to be blamed for these turgid bones, nor for the mucus flowing from my pores, nor this cursed, hidden slime, I’m not to be blamed for this florid sun, this crazed flame, I cannot be blamed for this delirium: one bead on your rosary for my passion, two beads for my testicles, all the beads on this string for my eyes, say ten rosaries passionately for the brother gone mad!’ I foamed fervently, my hands running up and down my exasperated skin, violating my adolescent body and, with whimsical, artful flair, causing my superb, resolute phallus to emerge from the warm, tender flowering of my pubic hair, and filling my hands with the rough scrotum balls hanging below in my groin, the protectors of my primordial fountain of torment, I made a religious offering to my sister of their dense nutrition, but Ana remained impassive, her eyes definitively lost in sainthood, she was a cold, plaster image under that candlelight, and having set myself up for this turbulence from the outset, for a second I fell into dull, ashen anger: ‘I’m bathed in spleen, Ana, but I can still face your rejection, my violent storm is already perpetually laden with rage, my resistance is strong, plus I’ve got an alchemist’s talent and wisdom, I know how to transform sulphur using the virtue of snakes, and am able to mix dawn’s chilly mist into the vapours hovering over the boiling cauldron; I’m planning to cultivate my eyes, everything I see will be planted with barren seed, yielding infertile earth, dirt that will even decay, just as the frost will sear the leaves on the trees, the petals on the flowers and the pulp of our fruit; I won’t hide my smile if disease plagues our herds, or our crops, I’ll cross my arms while everyone rushes around, turn my back on those asking for my help, cover my eyes so as to avoid their wounds, turn a deaf ear to their cries, and if one day the house tumbles to the ground, I’ll shrug my shoulders; I did not get what I wanted, and I’ll have no pity on the world, to love and be loved was all I ever asked, but I was cast off without appraisal, amputated, I’m now part of the dregs, I’m going to surrender, body and soul, to the sweet delirium of a man who considers himself quite simply finished at the very onset of manhood, nevertheless, a man with yet enough strength to dig a deep hole into the rotten meat of the carcass with his index finger, and to elegantly close the tropical latitudes and the other lines with his thumb and ring finger, hurling the skeleton of this world into a bone pile; now, more than ever, I am a member of the novel brotherhood of the rejected, the forbidden, the cast-offs of love, the restless, the quivering, the squirming, the writhing, the maimed descendants of Cain with their murderous faces (Can’t you hear the cavernous ancestry in my wails?), those with a mark on their forehead, the ancient ash-scar of sacred envy born by those thirsty for equality and justice, those who, sooner or later, end up kneeling before the obscure altar of the Malign, after having laid down their meagre offerings before him: a slab of white, cold fish, black grapes off a rotten vine, the solitary digits of the mathematicians, the mute strings of a lute, a handful of desperation and a piece of sacred coal for his creative fingers, offerings for the scrawling craftsman, the aged, scribbling draftsman, the artisan working from life’s castaways, drawing, with his morsel of coal, the extenuated will of each and every one, and he, the instigator of change, driving us against the current with his murmurs, scraping our ears’ membranes with his harsh, hot breath, seducing us into rejecting the precarious solidness of the order, this stone abuilding whose iron structure, regardless of the architecture, is forever erected on the festered shoulders of the weeping, he, the first, the only sovereign — your generous (would that he be discriminating, lousy and revengeful) God is no more than a vassal, a subaltern, a maker of inadequate rules, incapable of perceiving that his very laws are the resinous wood that fuels the Eternal Fire! The torrent of my spit is not enough, you must contain this fire while there’s still time, I already feel a new wave coming on, a new flame licks at me, I sense the onset of desire to torture your saints, to pierce your tender angels, to bite into the heart of Christ!’ By then, I had taken off, rushing into holy fury, boils began to cover my body from front to back, I was drooling vile nettle sap, bleeding the succulent juices of my cactus, sharpening my teeth to suck the pink liqueur of boys, desecrating the family shrine at the top of my lungs (such turbulence running through my mind, such confusion, so much broken glass and how entangled was my tongue!), but I was abruptly interrupted, Ana stood up in a violent impulse, the vibration in the air stirring the indecisive candle flames, causing the blazing upheaval in the chapel to falter: I could see the horror in her face, her restrained fright gradually giving way, and almost at the same moment, I sensed in her eyes the loving, concerned sister, suffering for me, crying for me, and when I had just barely fallen into the ritual of this old warmth, forever embossed in gold on the spines of sacred books, I suddenly took on the hushed sorrow of the universe, forever embossed in black in the eyes of the sacrificed lamb, I saw myself all at once lying down in a huge grave, surrounded by silent lilies, already asleep in a landscape lined with rows of cypress trees, the density of the uninhabited fields maintained with purple geometry, ‘I’m dying, Ana,’ I said, abandoned in hoarse lethargy, covered in the cold fog seeping from the ceiling, hearing the lamenting beefwoods swaying in the wind, and hearing at the same time, a chorus of bizarre voices, the slow moaning of a horn, the rhythmic hammering on an anvil, the dragging of irons and muffled laughter, ‘I’m dying,’ I repeated, but Ana was no longer in the chapel.