CLXVII
Five steps,
ten steps.
Correct mannerisms of style.
Begin everything over again from
Zero.
Old themes, one doesn’t discard them but one is wary of them.
The book
to be written.
Thirsting heart.
No more to lose.
CLXVIII
Holly on the
mantelpiece
He reopens the book at the page with the illustration which he
compares with the figure on the cup. They are similar, and seem newly made.
The shepherd among his flock is dressed in white and playing a reed pipe.
The halo crowning his head is the heart of a masterly composition in which
each extended line at an equal distance one from the other joins the
ecliptic of the heavenly body that governs the system. And then he closes
the book.
