From the Notebooks:
Oh the breeze from the baker’s oven makes me reel and invent a room with Monica, windows and her sweater over a chair, her rich family and her modesty. I never wanted anything but Monica, to be in a room with her in Europe and to be head of the government-in-exile.
…Excavate the fig tree, elect the municipal council, be kind to the ones in your kitchen, fill up the years without Monica…
She is stretched out on the hill. She came back to me from the middle of the water. She is sailing to Piraeus with a young banker. It is an aspect of her generosity to be in two places at once. Who else is coming to the island? There are only two of you. You and your date in the realms of suffering. How dare you climb on Monica to speak theology? That is why you cannot have the room with her in Rue des Ecoles…
…I buried Monica in this hill, right before my eyes. Some youths violated the site yesterday. They came over the wall when I was inside the house. They got away with a bunch of poppies, actually two poppies, some daisies and a tangle of wild spinach. But they left their ugly footprints here and there. Traces of the unclean boots which have soiled my finest passages…