Maintained tension

“Not writing is sometimes, for me, the only way to remain faithful to what I feel. Every letter I begin gives me the feeling of betraying something right and fragile, something that cannot bear being exposed. Silence, in those moments, is not an escape, but a precaution.
I keep silent so as not to scatter myself, so as not to turn into sentences what can still live only in waiting. Writing too early would be a form of lying. Silence, on the contrary, maintains the tension; it keeps intact what could be weakened by explanation.”

Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

Dear Félix,
I continue this correspondence because what is unfolding around Igniatius has taken a turn that I neither anticipated nor entirely feared, and which seems to me to deserve being set down somewhere before it becomes unrecognizable. You will understand, as you read what follows, that I am no longer speaking merely of a passing disturbance, but of a profound shift in the very nature of his narrative.
Don Carotte no longer merely resists. He has withdrawn. The nuance is decisive. Until now, Igniatius could still believe himself contested from within his own apparatus. He thought he was confronting a dissidence that he had, in a way, made possible. What is happening now escapes that logic. Don Carotte no longer defines himself in relation to him. He has stepped away from the stage where he was expected.
This withdrawal did not take place in silence. It was accompanied by a gesture that profoundly destabilized my patient: Don Carotte changed his name. Not out of direct provocation, nor as a game, but as one discards a garment that has become unfit. He now calls himself Anatole. The choice is not innocent. It evokes the beginning of a day, a light that no longer asks permission to appear. This new name does not converse with the old one. It renders it obsolete.
What unsettles Igniatius even more is that this departure did not leave a lasting void. The place abandoned by Don Carotte was immediately occupied by Sang Chaud. You will readily recognize, under this vivid name, the shadow of the one who once accompanied, commented, followed. Sang Chaud does not remain beside the scene. He advances. He takes a position. He in turn adopts the name Don Carotte, as if this newly freed identity were calling for a relay rather than an heir.
This is therefore not an orderly succession, but a circular movement that defies any stable hierarchy. The name detaches from one body to be taken up by another. The role changes bearer without losing its force. Igniatius, accustomed to assigning places, finds himself the spectator of a permutation he no longer directs. He still tries to speak of it as a complex narrative game, but I perceive in him a deeper unease.
This slippage produces a singular effect on the observer. One no longer knows clearly who speaks from which place, nor at what moment a figure ceases to be itself in order to become the extension of another. This whirl, which I would readily call choral were I not afraid of softening its violence, threatens to dissolve the thread that had guided the reading until now. Igniatius senses this. He fears that the reader, already strained beyond comfort, may give up following.
What strikes me, Félix, is that this fear does not lead him to simplify. It excites him. He is both alarmed and held by this disorder he has been unable to prevent. Seeing him deprived of his position as master of the game reveals a fragility he had concealed beneath the elegance of control. He wonders, without formulating it as such, whether there remains anyone to receive what is being written.
I confide this to you without concluding. It is possible that this movement will exhaust itself. It is just as possible that it will draw Igniatius to a place he had never consented to go, namely into a space where meaning circulates without his being able to discern an assignable center. As for the reader, if one remains, he will no longer be able to content himself with a single point of view. Perhaps that is the greatest risk, or the most demanding promise.
I remain attentive, more than ever, to what is transforming before my eyes, knowing that any attempt at stabilization would be premature.
With a vigilance I no longer try to conceal,
Lucian