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La arrebatada y no correspondida pasión que Marguerite Yourcenar sentía por su editor, André Fraigneau, dio pie a este conjunto de narraciones de alto voltaje amoroso y lírico que recrean mitos clásicos para abordar la misteriosa naturaleza del amor. Honesta consigo misma y con el lector, Yourcenar no tiene miedo de sumergirse en la crisis vital provocada por la indiferencia de Fraigneau. De ella extrae valiosas enseñanzas, como la insipidez de la felicidad burguesa frente al éxtasis del enamorado o la aceptación del sufrimiento para poder experimentar sin miedo uno de los sentimientos más universales.
«Nueve poemas en prosa, o cuentos poéticos, de un gran nivel literario -recreaciones distorcionadas, breves y brillantes de mitos que van desde Fedra a Aquiles- probablemente provocados por pasiones reales. Ya un cuento clásico.»
The New York Times Book Review
173 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
We sin because God is not: it's because nothing perfect is set before our eyes that we settle for human beings. As soon as John would understand that God is only a man, all reason not to prefer my breasts to Him would vanish.I got decked out as though for a ball; I got perfumed as though for bed. At my entrance in the banquet hall, all jaws dropped: the Apostles rose in an uproar so that they would not be contaminated by the grazing of my skirt: in the eyes of these upstanding citizens I was impure, as though I was continuously menstruating. Only God did not rise from his leather bench; instinctively I recognized these feet worn down to the bone by having walked on all roads of our Hell, this hair infected by a vermin of stars, those huge eyes pure as the last pieces of the sky he had left. He was ugly as suffering: he was dirty as sin. Choking back my spit, I fell on my knees, incapable of adding sarcasm to the terrible weight of God's anguish.In between the nine sections, there are a few aphorisms printed in Italic to help set the mood for what has preceded and what will follow.
Non cadrò. Ho raggiunto il centro. Ascolto il pulsare di chissà quale orologio divino attraverso l'esile parete carnale della vita piena di sangue, di trasalimenti e respiri.Sono accanto al nocciolo misterioso delle cose come di notte, talvolta, si è accanto a un cuore.
"Es acróbata, como en otros tiempos fue poeta, pues la índole especial de sus pulmones le obliga a escoger un oficio que pueda ejercerse entre la tierra y el cielo."
"Criatura imantada, con demasiadas alas para estar en la tierra y demasiado carnal para estar en el cielo."
"(...) parece un atleta que se negara a ser ángel para no restarle mérito a sus saltos prodigiosos."
"La fijeza de su mirada parecía fortalecer los músculos de mis piernas, los huesos de mis tobillos, como si me hubieran crecido en los talones las alas de su pensamiento."