She was secretly rejoicing: despite what Daniel had thought, she loved the basement and had never feared it. She said nothing however because if she confessed then the location for thinking deeply would be moved. She was trembling at the thought that Daniel could send her to think in the middle of the forest at nightfall. Not having a difficult task for the next day was like getting a holiday. Daniel scrutinized her a bit surprised that night, seeing her happy, talking almost by herself at the dinner table, and receiving without sadness a wallop from Father. Beyond the clearing though they couldn’t speak of the Society of Shadows and that way she was free, observing almost mischievous and happy Daniel’s uneasiness.
The next morning, since she wasn’t supposed to bother with the family, she made sure the family didn’t bother with her. So she didn’t avoid the habit of having breakfast with everyone and answering their questions. Obedient to Daniel, however, she was clenching her heart without rage and without glory, as in a sincere task, hiding it intact in a dark and quiet region. She had to take care not to mix, not to move anything around her with her thinking in order not to be imperceptibly moved. Distracted she was guessing: thinking deeply she’d find out what was hers like water mixed with river water and what wasn’t, like stones mixed with river water. Ah, she was understanding so much. She was sighing from joy and a sort of incomprehension. One day she might not show respect for her parents, the pleasure of strolling, the taste of coffee, the thought of liking blue, the pain of hurting her leg. Though that had never worried her. She walked to the basement slowly, pushed open its grate and dove into the cold smell of the half-light where washbasins, dusts, and old furniture were timidly living. She sat by the black clothes of an old bereavement. The waft of the trunks was wheezing, a smell of cemetery was rising from the slabs of the floor. She sat and waited. She clasped her thick dress against her chest every once in a while. The birds outside were singing but that was silence. In order to think deeply a person shouldn’t remember anything in particular. She purified herself of memories, stayed attentive. Since for her it was always easy to desire nothing, she remained frozen without even feeling the black shadows of the basement. She moved off as if on a journey. Slowly she started getting a thought without words, an ashen and vast sky, without volume or thickness, without surface, depth, or height. Sometimes, like light clouds released from the depth, the sky was crossed by the vague consciousness of experience and of the world outside of itself. The fear of disobeying Daniel — a fear that wasn’t a thought and didn’t disturb her thoughts — was assailing her and also a curiosity to go forward without interruptions, that made her move above her own knowledge. Without effort, without joy — as if not to linger in any defined feeling — she was pushing away perception and the sky was becoming pure again. Could she be thinking deeply? a separate consciousness was inquiring within her. Luminous lines, dry and fast, were scratching out her inner vision, without meaning, crawled out from some mysterious crevice and then, beyond their own place of birth, weak and dizzy. She could think in every direction; closing her eyes, she would direct inside her body a thought of the kind that emerges from bottom to top or otherwise of the kind that rides running through open space — that was neither word nor content but the mode of thinking itself finding its bearings. Could that be what thinking deeply was — not having so much as a thought to bring to the surface . . . Silence would follow ashen and light. In the sky a hesitant clearing would open for a second, but she was confusedly discovering that the opening was that of her own concentration; and it remained dense, of a density without form or volume, the accumulation of a substance more impalpable than the air, of an element more vague than perfume through the air. For an instant she was rejoicing tenuously and sharply for having obtained — just an instant, light that goes on and off. Could she have been thinking more than deeply and already seeing nothing? she was thinking frightened. The sky was still going on monotonous, monotonous, rolling. Though it had no image on its surface, it was not immobile, its expanse-without-measure was being substituted continuously like the unfurling of the sea — always moving forward without ever leaving itself. She tried to transform it by moving the position of a body tired of existing with such brutality. She stretched out on a colorless sofa, head beneath her limbs, pale face expressionless. In an uncomfortable clairvoyance she was seeing black clothes hanging, piano bench, blackened basin, doll without legs, lamp, cup. Slowly, in a concentrated effort that was arising from the center of her body, she freed herself from the basement and could wait without sensations. The sky appeared to her again. Outside, on the weeds dried by the sun steps made a sound. They were moving off . . . And since she’d allowed herself to hear steps instead of not hearing them everything would now come together suddenly in an undeniable reality. She got up and still
