Chapter Thirteen

 

There was no pain any longer, no more need to gasp for breath, and the tiled floor of the lavatory had ceased to be cold and hard.

      All sound had died away, and it was quite dark.  But in the void and the silence there was still a kind of knowledge, a faint awareness.

      Awareness not of a name or person, not of things present, not of memories of the past, not even of here or there - for there was no place, only an existence whose single dimension was this knowledge of being ownerless and without possessions and alone.

      The awareness knew only itself, and itself only as the absence of something else.

      Knowledge reached out into the absence that was its object.  Reached out into the darkness, further and further.  Reached out into the silence.  Illimitably.  There were no bounds.

      The knowledge knew itself as a boundless absence within another boundless absence, which was not even aware.

      It was the knowledge of an absence ever more total, more excruciatingly a privation.  And it was aware with a kind of growing hunger, but a hunger for something that did not exist; for the knowledge was only of absence, of pure and absolute absence.

      Absence endured through ever-lengthening durations.  Durations of restlessness.  Durations of hunger.  Durations that expanded and expanded as the frenzy of insatiability became more and more intense, that lengthened out into eternities of despair.

      Eternities of the insatiable, despairing knowledge of absence, everywhere, always, in an existence of only one dimension....

      And then abruptly there was another dimension, and the everlasting ceased to be everlasting.

      That within which the awareness of absence knew itself, that by which it was included and interpenetrated, was no longer an absence, but had become the presence of another awareness.  The awareness of absence knew itself known.

      In the dark silence, in the void of all sensation, something began to know it.  But gradually the presence approached.  The dimness of that other knowledge grew brighter.  And suddenly the awareness had become an awareness of light.  The light of the knowledge by which it was known.

      In the awareness that there was something other than absence the anxiety found appeasement, the hunger found satisfaction.

      Instead of privation there was this light.  There was this knowledge of being known.  And this knowledge of being known was a satisfied, even a joyful knowledge.

      Yes, there was joy in being known, in being thus included within a shining presence, in thus being interpenetrated by a shining presence.

      And because the awareness was included by it, interpenetrated by it, there was an identification with it.  The awareness was not only known by it but knew with its knowledge.

      Knew, not absence, but the luminous denial of absence, not privation, but bliss.

      There was hunger still.  Hunger for yet more knowledge of a yet more total denial of an absence.

      Hunger, but also the satisfaction of hunger, also bliss.  And then as the light increased, hunger again for profounder satisfactions, for a bliss more intense.

      Bliss and hunger, hunger and bliss.  And through ever-lengthening durations the light kept brightening from beauty into beauty.  And the joy of knowing, the joy of being known, increased with every increment of that embracing and interpenetrating beauty.

      Brighter, brighter, through succeeding durations, that expanded at last into an eternity of joy.

      An eternity of radiant knowledge, of bliss unchanging in its ultimate intensity.  For ever, for ever.

      But gradually the unchanging began to change.

      The light increased its brightness.  The presence became more urgent.  The knowledge more exhaustive and complete.

      Under the impact of that intensification, the joyful awareness of being known, the joyful participation in that knowledge, was pinned against the limits of its bliss.  Pinned with an increasing pressure until at last the limits began to give way and the awareness found itself beyond them, in another existence.  An existence where the knowledge of being included within a shining presence had become a knowledge of being oppressed by an excess of light.  Where that transfiguring interpenetration was apprehended as a force disruptive from within.  Where the knowledge was so penetratingly luminous that the participation in it was beyond the capacity of that which participated.

      The presence approached, the light grew brighter.

      Where there had been eternal bliss there was an immensely prolonged uneasiness, an immensely prolonged duration of pain and, longer and yet longer, as the pain increased, durations of intolerable anguish.  The anguish of being forced, by participation, to know more than it was possible for the participant to know.  The anguish of being crushed by the pressure of that too much light - crushed into ever-increasing density and opacity.  The anguish, simultaneously, of being broken and pulverized by the thrust of that interpenetrating knowledge from within.  Disintegrated into smaller and smaller fragments, into mere dust, into atoms of mere nonentity.

      And this dust and the ever-increasing denseness of that opacity were apprehended by the knowledge in which there was participation as being hideous.  Were judged and found repulsive, a privation of all beauty and reality.

      Inexorably, the presence approached, the light grew brighter.

      And with every increase of urgency, every intensification of that invading knowledge from without, that disruptive brightness thrusting from within, the agony increased, the dust and the compacted darkness became more shameful, were known, by participation, as the most hideous of absences.

      Shameful everlastingly in an eternity of shame and pain.

      But the light grew brighter, agonizingly brighter.

      The whole of existence was brightness - everything except this one small clot of untransparent absence, except these dispersed atoms of a nothingness that, by direct awareness, knew itself as opaque and separate, and at the same time, by an excruciating participation in the light, knew itself as the most hideous and shameful of privations.

      Brightness beyond the limits of the possible, and then a yet intenser, nearer incandescence, pressing from without, disintegrating from within.  And at the same time there was this other knowledge, ever more penetrating and complete, as the light grew brighter, of a clotting and a disintegration that seemed progressively more shameful as the durations lengthened out interminably.

      There was no escape, an eternity of no escape.  And through ever-longer, through ever-decelerating durations, from impossible to impossible, the brightness increased, came more urgently and agonizingly close.

      Suddenly there was a new contingent knowledge, a conditional awareness that, if there were no participation in the brightness, half the agony would disappear.  There would be no perception of the ugliness of this clotted or disintegrated privation.  There would only be an untransparent separateness, self-known as other than the invading light.

      An unhappy dust of nothingness, a poor little harmless clot of mere privation, crushed from without, scattered from within, but still resisting, still refusing, in spite of the anguish, to give up its right to a separate existence.

      Abruptly, there was a new and overwhelming flash of participation in the light, in the agonizing knowledge that there was no such right as the right to separate existence, that this clotted and disintegrated absence was shameful and must be denied, must be annihilated - held up unflinchingly to the radiance of that invading knowledge and utterly annihilated, dissolved in the beauty of that impossible incandescence.

      For an immense duration the two awarenesses hung as though balanced - the knowledge that knew itself separate, knew its own right to separateness, and the knowledge that knew the shamefulness of absence and the necessity for its agonizing annihilation in the light.

      As though balanced, as though on a knife-edge between an impossible intensity of beauty and an impossible intensity of pain and shame, between a hunger for opacity and separateness and absence and a hunger for a yet more total participation in the brightness.

      And then, after an eternity, there was a renewal of that contingent and conditional knowledge: 'If there were no participation in the brightness, if there were no participation ...'

      And all at once there was no longer any participation.  There was a self-knowledge of the clot and the disintegrated dust; and the light that knew these things was another knowledge.  There was still the agonizing invasion from within and without, but no shame any more, only a resistance to attack, a defence of rights.

      By degrees the brightness began to lose some of its intensity, to recede, as it were, to grow less urgent.  And suddenly there was a kind of eclipse.  Between the insufferable light and the suffering awareness of the light as a presence alien to this clotted and disintegrated privation, something abruptly intervened.  Something in the nature of an image, something partaking of a memory.

      An image of things, a memory of things.  Things related to things in some blessedly familiar way that could not yet be clearly apprehended.

      Almost completely eclipsed, the light lingered faintly and insignificantly on the fringes of awareness.  At the centre were only things.

      Things still unrecognized, not fully imagined or remembered, without name or even form, but definitely there, definitely opaque.

      And now that the light had gone into eclipse and there was no participation, opacity was no more shameful.  Density was happily aware of density, nothingness of untransparent nothingness.  The knowledge was without bliss, but profoundly reassuring.

      And gradually the knowledge became clearer, and the things known more definite and familiar.  More and more familiar, until awareness hovered on the verge of recognition.

      A clotted thing here, a disintegrated thing there.  But what things?  And what were these corresponding opacities by which they were being known?

      There was a vast duration of uncertainty, a long, long groping in a chaos of unmanifested possibilities.

      Then abruptly it was Eustace Barnack who was aware.  Yes, this opacity was Eustace Barnack, this dance of agitated dust was Eustace Barnack.  And the clot outside himself, this other opacity of which he had the image, was his cigar.  He was remembering his Romeo and Juliet as it had slowly disintegrated into blue nothingness between his fingers.  And with the memory of the cigar came the memory of a phrase: 'Backwards and downwards.'  And then the memory of laughter.

      Words in what context?  Laughter at whose expense?  There was no answer.  Just 'backwards and downwards' and that stump of disintegrating opacity.  'Backwards and downwards', and then the cachinnation, and the sudden glory.

      Far off, beyond the image of that brown slobbered cylinder of tobacco, beyond the repetition of those three words and the accompanying laughter, the brightness lingered, like a menace.  But in his joy at having found again this memory of things, this knowledge of an identity remembering, Eustace Barnack had all but ceased to be aware of its existence.