(20) The abracadabrant story of the Moon Child

— Certainly… you are only repeating… but may I know when the story of the Moon Child will begin?
— You know as well as I do…
— The story begins without warning… well, not exactly: it sets itself in motion as something that had already begun elsewhere, even before being perceived.

Lucian first notes a sentence that seems to him trivial, almost technical: “Igniatius says that the images speak of him.” He barely notices the word “speak.” He thinks it is just a manner of speaking… He tells himself he will come back to it.
Igniatius, sitting opposite him, does not look at Lucian. He looks at the images he has placed on the desk. He brought them “from elsewhere,” he says. The phrase remains suspended. Lucian copies it as it is. He does not yet understand why it “keeps turning in his head.”
— I did not draw them, says Igniatius, speaking of the images.
Then, after a silence:
— I found them. Downstairs.
Lucian does not ask “downstairs where.” He knows that certain locations must not be fixed too quickly. He simply notes: “downstairs.”
The drawings seem simple… but far from poor. Nothing that, at first glance, imposes an interpretation. And yet, something holds Lucian’s gaze and thoughts. This gaze, he knows it. It is the one he usually casts upon narratives. But here, there is not yet a narrative. Or rather, the narrative… this narrative… barely sketched does not hold.
He waits for something to create a link.
But the drawings do not speak… and do not “pass.”
They do not fit into familiar categories. They remain there, as if in waiting…
— These images speak of me, Igniatius repeats.
Lucian raises his head.
— How do they speak?
— They say nothing… says Igniatius.
— But?
— But when I look at them… it’s as if… I hear a voice.
Lucian notes this sentence without understanding it. Gradually he understands that he must not yet try to understand it. The narrative, tenuous as it is, could stop here. He could be tempted to explain… or to invent. The paths exist. They are ready.
But something resists.
Lucian feels it in his own gaze. The drawings slightly displace the categories. They introduce a perfectly perceptible mystery.
So he continues to look.
By returning again and again to the images, he notices repetitions. Not obvious motifs, but insistences…
These repetitions do not yet form a system. They trace a kind of fragile path.
He notes: something gives itself to be seen… but immediately, it comes undone.
One of the drawings catches his attention. It seems to come from elsewhere. It does not extend, it interrupts.
Igniatius points to it.
— That one… I do not recognize it.
Lucian hesitates and asks:
— And yet?
— And yet… it is inside, replies Igniatius.
Lucian pauses on this sentence. He leaves it open.
And the word “inside” resonates in his mind.
Not as a place already constituted, but as something that forms at the very moment it is said. “Inside” here does not refer to a pre-existing container. It comes into being with what enters it.
But what troubles Lucian is not, at first, the inside.
It is the “he.” “He” is inside. Who is “he”?
Lucian does not ask the question aloud. He observes what this pronoun does here. It designates nothing stable. And yet, Igniatius pronounced it clearly… as if something had announced itself, without being distinguishable.
— It is not me… “he” is not me… says Igniatius.
He falls silent… and suddenly adds:
— But it is not something else either.
Lucian does not correct this inwardly. He does not replace “something” with “someone.” He suspends.
For on the sheets, he sees it more clearly now, there is indeed a figure. It is there, distinct. The resemblance is obvious. It requires no particular effort. It is almost given. And yet, Lucian does not recognize it. Not at first glance.
He sees characters and unfamiliar situations, many repetitions. His gaze moves only within what he already knows. It follows its own paths.
The resemblance is there, but it does not enter his movement. So it remains invisible.
Igniatius, too, does not see it as a resemblance.
— It looks like me… he says.
Then, almost immediately:
— But it is not me.
Lucian notes the sentence, without yet fully understanding what is at stake.
It is only later—he does not know exactly when—that he feels that… something shifts. He looks again. They are the same images. Nothing has changed. And yet, he sees differently.
The resemblance appears all at once. Not as a construction, but as an evidence that was already there… from the beginning…
He does not produce it. He recognizes it… belatedly.
Lucian notes: “at the second glance.”
He then understands that what he had not seen was not hidden. It was not concealed. It was out of reach of the first glance.
The first glance does not lack attention. It is often very attentive. But it is caught within its own connections.
The second glance does not add itself. It displaces.
It does not look more… nor better. It looks otherwise.
Igniatius, for his part, remains in this first glance that he prolongs. He looks for a long time, but without surprise. The resemblance is there, obvious, and yet it does not become visible to him.
Lucian says nothing.
He could point it out. He could say: “look, it is you.” It would be true, in a certain way.
But that would miss what is at stake.
For seeing in place of Igniatius would not produce a second glance in him. It would substitute knowledge for experience.
Lucian writes:
“There are evidences that become visible only at the second glance. Not because they were hidden, but because the first glance cannot receive them.”
He pauses.
Then adds:
“The second glance does not correct the first.
It transforms it.”
He then returns to this other sentence by Igniatius:
“It is not something else either.”
Why “something”?
To say “someone” would already suppose a possible identity. Yet everything here resists identity.
To say “something” is not to reduce… it is to suspend… the temptation to recognize too quickly. To suspend entry into ready-made categories… me… the other… a person.
Igniatius resumes, slowly:
— If I say “someone”… it becomes someone… and that is not it.
Lucian hears the rigor of this sentence.
To name “someone” would already be to fix.
— But if I say “something”…
Igniatius searches.
— It remains open.