(102) The boundaries of this world

Where saying that the world is limited... is not the same as reaching the limits of the world...

 

 

 

– Do you believe this tale can be understood?

– Certainly... most certainly.

– And yet you let your voice linger, as though something remained indistinct... perhaps even hidden.

– That is indeed the case. You see, what is spoken does not come entirely from me. I receive it from other voices.

– The voice of our master?

– Among others. But what I say also comes from voices whose origin I do not know. I do not always know who is speaking through them.

– So you repeat words while sometimes ignoring who their author is?

– I merely transmit them.

– That is precisely what troubles me. You repeat without always knowing.

– Perhaps. But repetition is not necessarily reproduction.

– How so?

– Because what passes through us is never repeated exactly. The words return; the situation does not.

– You mean that the story changes even when the words remain the same?

– I mean that it is re-presented rather than repeated.

– I think I understand the distinction. It presents itself again... in another form.

– Exactly. And that is why an attentive reader may discover more than what is shown at first glance...

– ...provided that he accepts not to understand everything immediately.

– Yes. What he cannot do is declare that the tale lacks logic simply because its logic escapes him.

– Yet it seems natural that he should examine it according to the logic that is his own. How could he do otherwise?

– Natural... yes. Sufficient... no.

– Why?

– Because beyond familiar forms of logic there sometimes exist other coherences, governed by less familiar laws, though no less rigorous.

– Then the reader ought to suspend judgment?

– At the very least, he should avoid excluding too quickly what he does not understand.

– That is exceedingly difficult.

– No doubt. Each of us is limited.

– Everyone knows that...

– No. Everyone knows only something of their limits. That is quite different.

– There you go again, moving in circles.

– Perhaps. But is that not how our world itself functions?... And how could I show you the limits of what I know except through what I already know?

– And I can understand your limits only through my own.

– Precisely.

– So when we say that the world is limited...

– ...we never speak from the limits of the world.

– Only from our own.

– Which is already a great deal.

– And very little.

– Like every story worthy of being told.