[BNP/E3, 94 – 85]

– I worked on Cairo with its minarets and therein I saw myself. I shut my[1] eyes unto the minarets of Cairo and I saw[2] myself still. If I see, I have not what I desire; if I make me blind I am without it. Oh that it were possible to see not the[3] minarets and towers and to conceive no possibility of seeing them. Oh, to put myself outside myself I have a desire to fly from myself. I do conceive, though very vaguely, a life where we are ourselves yet are not. Oh, doubt! Oh torture!

– I have looked on the idols that men adore and I have seen stones and wood. I have looked upon the jewels that delight them, on the approval they have to wear. I have seen one crushed to pounder by the blow of a hammer; the other I have seen burnt to ashes. Houses, cities, countries I have seen to have death, I have seen a thing that loved, hated, had hunger and thirst, lust and fear, made still and turned soon to worms and to dust. Rottenness and odour this is what we love, and our love itself is of their kind.

– In the hours of affliction, I lifted up my hands and I cried God’s mercy upon me. But even in the God that I invoked I saw myself and had pain.

– Every thing is infinitely divisible. Infinity is not there? Everything is infinitely multipliable. This I know but I know not what is means.

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How to escape myself? I longed to say to my body: warmth on that side.

I have seen men in lust and women in lust and they have made me think naught of life. I have heard of the point of |*inferno|. Oh the eyes that see.

[85^v]

Book of Friar

Maurice

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[1] saw ^/recognized\ myself. I shut my ^/mine\

[2] saw ^/recognized\

[3] the ^/these\