Neither old age, nor danger: fear isn’t French.

I feel so forsaken I orient my instinct for perfection on any sacred image. O self-sacrifice; o magnanimous charity! All for me, of course! De profundis Domine—what a fool I am!

When I was very young, I admired hardened criminals locked behind prison doors; I visited inns and taverns they frequented; with their eyes, I saw the blue sky and the blossoming work of the fields; I tracked their scent through cities. They were more powerful than saints, more prudent than explorers—and they, they alone, were witnesses to glory and reason!

On the roads, through winter nights, without a home, without habits, without bread, a voice strangled my frozen heart: “Weakness or strength: Those are your options, so strength it is. You know neither where you’re going, nor why you’re going, entering anywhere, answering anyone. You’re no more likely to be killed than a corpse.” By morning, I had developed such a lost, dead expression that those I met may not have even seen me.

In cities, mud suddenly seemed red and black, like a mirror when a lamp is moved through an adjoining room, like treasure found in a forest. Good luck, I cried, and I saw a sky flooded with smoke and flame; and to my left, to my right, all the world’s riches burned like a billion thunderbolts.

But orgies and womanly companionship were denied me. Not one friend. I saw myself in front of an angry mob, facing a firing squad, weeping incomprehensible sorrows and forgiving them, like Joan of Arc: “Priests, professors, masters: you falter bringing me to justice. I was never one of you; I was never Christian; my race sang upon the rack; I don’t understand your laws; I have no moral compass, I’m a beast: you falter …”

Yes, my eyes are shut to your light. I’m an animal, a nigger. But I can be saved. You’re all fake niggers, you brutal, greedy maniacs. Merchant? No: nigger. Magistrate? Nigger. General? Nigger. Emperor—you itchy old scab—nigger. You drank Satan’s duty-free booze. —Fever and cancer thrill you. Cripples and codgers are so decent they ask to be boiled. —The wisest move would be to leave this continent, creeping with madness, a madness that seeks hostages for lost souls. I set out in search of the true kingdom of the children of Ham.

Do I really know nature? Do I know myself?—No more words. I bury the dead in my belly. Shouts, drums, dance, dance, dance, dance! I can’t imagine a moment when whites will arrive and I’ll tumble into the void.

Hunger, thirst, shouts, dance, dance, dance, dance!

Whites arrive. A cannon! I submit to baptism, dress, work.

My heart is struck by grace. And I never saw it coming!

I’ve done nothing wrong. My days bring no burden, I’ll be spared repentance. I won’t have to suffer the torments of a soul dead to decency, whose harsh light rises as if from funeral tapers. The fate of the favorite son: an early grave, blanketed with limpid tears. Of course debauchery is as stupid as vice. Cast rot aside.