I had ceased now to
feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this
all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of
tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not,
indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it
signify? How could I seize upon and define it?
I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first,
a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop;
the potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest,
the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me,
but does not itself understand, and can only repeat indefinitely with a
gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot
interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call upon the tea for it
again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my
final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for
it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever
the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders;
when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go
seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing.
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