Swimming
A dream last night that was in many ways beautiful and moving--a hieratic dream.
I am invited to a party. I meet some of the women going to the party, but there is an estrangement. I am alone by the waterfront of a small town. A man says that for five dollars I can get across on a yacht to where I want to go. I have five dollars and more than five dollars, hundreds of dollars, and also francs. I am conscious of my clerical garb. The yacht is a small schooner, a workaday schooner, and no yacht. It does not move from shore--we make it move a little by pushing it from inside. Then I am swimming ahead in the beautiful water, magic water from the depths of which comes a wonderful life to which I am entitled, a life and strength that I fear. I know that by diving into this water I can find something marvelous, but that it is not fitting or right for me to dive, as I am going to the further shore, with the strength that has come from the water, immortality.
Then in the summerhouse on the other side, where I have arrived, first of all I play with the dog, and then the child brings me two pieces of buttered white bread that I am to eat on arrival.
September 12, 1961, III.161-62
No comments:
Post a Comment