Anathemas and Admirations (34 page)

Music exists only so long as hearing it lasts, just as God exists only so long as ecstasy lasts. The supreme art and the Supreme Being have this in common, that they depend entirely on ourselves.

For some — indeed, for the majority — music is stimulating and consoling. For others it is a longed-for dissolving agent, an unhoped-for means of losing themselves, of melting into what may be the best of themselves.

To break with one’s gods, with one’s ancestors, with one’s language and one’s country, to break
tout court
, is a terrible ordeal, that is certain; but it is also an exalting one, avidly sought by the defector and, even more, by the traitor.

Of all that makes us suffer, nothing — so much as disappointment — gives us the sensation of at last touching Truth.

As soon as one begins to “fail,” instead of being upset about it, one should invoke the right of no longer being oneself.

We obtain almost everything, except what we secretly crave. No doubt it is fair that what we most desire should be unattainable, that the essential of ourselves and of our course through life should remain hidden and unrealized. Providence has managed things well; let each of us derive the pride and the prestige linked to intimate debacles.

Remaining consistent: to this end, according to the Zohar, God created man and recommended frequentation of the Tree of Life. Man, however, preferred the other tree, located in the “region of variations.” His fall? A craving for change, fruit of curiosity, that source of all misfortunes. Thus what was only a whim in the first among us was to become
law
for us all.

A touch of pity enters into any form of attachment, into love and even into friendship, though not into admiration.

To leave life unscathed — this could happen but doubtless never does.

A too-recent disaster has the disadvantage of keeping us from perceiving its good sides.

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, in the last century, spoke best of love and of music. Yet each frequented only brothels and — of all composers — the former adored Rossini, the latter Bizet.

Happening to encounter L., I remarked that the rivalry among the saints was the sharpest, and the most secret, of all. He asked me for examples; I found none at the moment, and find no more now. Nonetheless the fact seems to me established. . . .

Consciousness: summa of our discomforts from birth to the present. Such discomforts have vanished; consciousness remains — but it has lost its origins, it doesn’t even know what they were.