Tropic of Capricorn exerpt

I have a friend who talks to me from time to time about the Miracle of Golgotha of which I understand nothing. But I do know something about the miraculous wound which I received, the wound which killed me in the eyes of the world and out of which I was born anew and rebaptized. I know something of the miracle of this wound which I lived and which healed with my death. I tell it as of something long past, but it is with me always. Everything is long past and seemingly invisible, like a constellation which has sunk forever beneath the horizon. What fascinates me is that anything so dead and buried as I was could be resuscitated, and not just once, but innumerable times. And not only that, but each time I faded out I plunged deeper than ever into the void, so that with each resuscitation the miracle becomes greater. And never any stigmata! The man who is reborn is always the same man, more and more himself with each rebirth. He is only shedding his skin each time, and with his skin his sins. The man whom God loves is truly a right living man. The man whom God loves is the onion with a million skins. To shed the first layer is painful beyond words; the next layer is less painful, the next still less, until finally the pain becomes pleasurable, more and more pleasurable, a delight, an ecstasy. And then there is neither pleasure not pain, but simply darkness yielding before the light. And as the darkness falls away the wound comes out of its hiding place: the wound which is man, man's love, is bathed in light. The identity which was lost is recovered. Man walks forth from his open wound, from the grave which he had carried about with him so long. In the tomb which is my memory I see her buried now, the one I loved better than all else, better than the world, better than God, better than my own flesh and blood. I see her festering there in that bloody wound of love, so dose to me that I could not distinguish her from the wound itself. I see her struggling to free herself, to make herself clean of love pain, and with each struggle sinking back again into the wound, mired, suffocated, writhing in blood. I see the terrible look in her eyes, the mute piteous agony, the look of the beast that is trapped. I see her opening her legs for deliverance and each orgasm a groan of anguish. I hear the walls falling, the walls caving in on us and the house going up in flames. I hear them calling us from the street, the summons to work, the summons to arms, but we are nailed to the floor and the rats are biting into us. The grave and womb of love entombing us, the night filling our bowels and the stars shimmering over the black bottomless lake. I lose the memory of words, of her name even which I pronounced like a monomaniac. I forgot what she looked like, what she felt like, what she smelt like, what she fucked like, piercing deeper and deeper into the night of the fathomless cavern. I followed her to the deepest hole of her being, to the charnel house of her soul, to the breath which had not yet expired from her lips. I sought relentlessly for her whose name was not written anywhere, I penetrated to the very altar and found - nothing. I wrapped myself around this hollow shell of nothingness like a serpent with fiery coils; I lay still for six centuries without breathing as world events sieved through to the bottom forming a slimy bed of mucus. I saw the constellations wheeling about the huge hole in the ceiling of the universe: I saw the outer planets and the black star which was to deliver me. I saw the Dragon shaking itself free of dharma and karma, saw the new race of man stewing in the yolk of futurity. I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous breasts, as though I were swim- ming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision. How had she come to expand thus beyond all grip of consciousness? By what monstrous law had she spread herself thus over the face of the world, revealing everything and yet concealing herself? She was hidden in the face of the sun, like the moon in eclipse; she was a mirror which had lost its quicksilver, the mirror which yields both the image and the horror. Looking into the backs of her eyes, into the pulpy translucent flesh, I saw the brain structure of all formations, all relations, all evanescence. I saw the brain within the brain, the endless machine endlessly turning, the word Hope revolving on a spit, roasting, dripping with fat, revolving ceaselessly in the cavity of the third eye. I heard her dreams mumbled in lost tongues, the stifled screams reverberating in minute crevices, the gasps, the groans, the pleasurable sighs, the swish of lashing whips. I heard her call my own name which I had not yet uttered, I heard her curse and shriek with rage. I heard everything magnified a thousand times, like a homunculus imprisoned in the belly organ. I caught the muffled breathing of the world, as if fixed in the very crossroads of sound. Thus we walked and slept and ate together, the Siamese twins whom Love had joined and whom Death alone could separate.