The more he trembled, the purer the lamp shone, and the clearer the words became. It was as if the words were a law he had known all his life, a pitiless law which when forgotten creates its own punishment. And the punishment was that of complete abandonment, till the condition of the words was reached. Then it would be no longer necessary to know what the words were, because the person waiting at the gate would have become the words, would have incarnated them.
He was becoming the words as he trembled in his emptiness. A moment before he felt certain that the horseman’s axe was going to split his skull in two, a moment before the dreadful empty space completely invaded his mind, and before the vague forms pounced on him in their numinous threat, he felt himself falling. But this time, he fell to the ground. He jumped back up as soon as he touched the cold marble of the road.
When he looked about him, he was astonished to find that the gate had vanished. In its place was a voice. It was the voice of a child, a little boy. And the boy, with a strange coldness, said:
‘I am your new guide. I am sent to lead you to the square.’
The boy too was invisible. Still possessed by the spirit of trembling, in a state of complete humility and gratitude, he followed his new guide through the mysterious gate of the city.