June 7, 1958
Found in a corner a bit of cheese, thrown there long ago. An army of black insects all around. One might imagine these same insects consuming the last remains of a brain. Thinking of one’s own corpse, of the horrible metamorphoses to which it will be submitted, is somewhat calming: it inures you against troubles and agonies; one fear destroys a thousand others.
The persistence of macabre visions in me forever brings me closer to the Fathers of the desert. A hermit right in Paris.
I do not believe that the virtues could be connected, or that possessing one of them is possessing all of them. In reality, they serve to neutralize each other; they are jealous. Thus comes our mediocrity and our stagnation.
Lord, why don’t I have the vocation of prayer? There is no one in the world closer to you, nor farther. One strand of certitude, just a bit of consolation, that’s all I ask. But you cannot respond, you cannot.