Discourse of the Contemplative One
I love peace and solitude; I aspire to live in a spacious and ancient house with no noise besides that of a fountain, when I choose to hear its abundant stream. It will occupy the center of the patio, amid trees that, to save the dream of its waters from the sun and wind, will thread their moaning tops together. I will receive the single visit from the birds who will find respite in my silent refuge. They will entertain my serenity with arbitrary flight and natural song; their simplicity of innocent creatures will dissipate within my spirit the exasperating anxiety of anger, oblivion’s relief soothing my forehead.
Devotion and study will help me cultivate austerity like an ascetic, so that neither human interest nor earthly longing will disturb the wings of my meditation, which will rest from sustained flight on the solemn peak of ecstasy; and from there my spirit will distinguish the ambiguous glare of unattainable truth.
The novelties and variations of the world will arrive mitigated to the place of my withdrawal, as though a heavy atmosphere had muffled them. I will not accept tedious thoughts nor violent impressions: light will reach me after losing its flame in the thick web of the trees; noise will end in the distance before it invades my soothing enclosure; darkness will serve as protection for my stillness; the curtains of shade will circle the diaphanous and imperturbable lake of silence.
I will oppose against the varied course of time the serenity of the sphinx facing the sea of African sands. My equilibrium will not be shaken by the splendid days of sun, that communicate their fortune of blonde and festive squires, nor by the opaque days of rain that display the ash of penitence. In that impartial disposition I will await the moment and I will confront the mystery of death.
She will come, at the quietest instant one night, to surprise me beside the mute fountain. So as to increase the sanctity of my final hour, a beatific rumor will vibrate through the air, as if from winged seraphs, and a transparent effluvium of consolation will descend from the altar of the lit sky. The attention paid to my cadaver by men will be excessive due to lateness; before them, the best rite of my simple funeral will have been carried out by the dawn and the fluttering of friendly birds.
La torre de Timón (1925)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
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