62 
I shall not seek to appear stronger than I am. For I know 
well, and man has never been really strong. Shall I make myself 
weaker than I am? It would need too great patience. How 
malleable I have felt myself, at certain moments, between my 
two hands. And a suppleness that did not arouse any fear in me 
at all. I should have preferred myself harder, and my perme 
ability to other things less subtle. 
The play of imponderables. A smile causes a great hate to 
be born, as a word incites a crime. No matter what the effort, 
I can never seize exactly the moment which determines a senti 
ment. Or perhaps that is because it is so slight and so dependent 
upon the sacrifice (more or less complete) that one makes of one 
self to the world. 
And for that matter can we choose from the gamut of pos 
sible emotions (a man encountered). I oscillate a whole friend 
ship between love and hatred. Not that I amuse myself by 
clever artifices, but by the most natural currents of our pas 
sions . . . One may love without esteem and this love is colored 
by the scorn that kills. If love assumes more and more esteem, 
it is not long before some jealousy still more certainly diverts it 
into hatred. 
(If you take Dostoyeffski for instance, I feel 
that for me Svidrigailof is far more human than Sonia, his exas 
perating daughter.) 
At the whim of fevers. Must there not be some unexpected 
vision for these rhythms which one would have preferred 
masked? And yet: I see nothing arbitrary or preciose in that. 
Shall I admit having no fear of apparitions at night? I am 
terror-stricken by no curiosity, little as its gratuitousness leaves 
unsatisfied, and of this most beautiful gem which I should rather 
lose at the bottom of the sea than have my life determined by. 
II 
—“Is it really a new faith,” asked Tertullian, “that we need?” 
ARIEL—It is so easy to have a new faith. 
I may have faith in yesterday 
(in the night I pass tomorrow). 
And nothing limits my faith which I create in my 
own measure. 
I may have new faiths for every moment that I live. 
TERTULLIAN—I have seen certain illuminations and 
renounced them. 
ARIEL—In itself renunciation is measureless, since there is no 
resonance in us. 
(Febrile resonance and the veins we tear from a 
leaf. What does renunciation mean?)