“COME FROM LEBANON, my spouse, come from Lebanon, come . . . The mandrakes give their smell. At our doors we have every breed of dove . . .

“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him I am sick of love . . .”

And so it was, to the melody of that ancient drama of Judah, that a noun and an adjective searched for each other inside the head of Canon Matias. Do not interrupt me, hasty reader; I know you won’t believe anything I’m about to say. I will, however, say it, despite your little faith, because the day of public conversion will come.

On that day—sometime around 2222, I imagine—the paradox will take off its wings and put on the thick coat of common truth. At that point, this page will merit not just favor, but apotheosis. It will be translated into every tongue. Academies and institutes will make a little book out of it, to be used throughout the centuries, with bronze pages, gilt edges, letters of inlaid opal, and a cover of unpolished silver. Governments will decree that it be taught in schools and colleges. Philosophers will burn all previous doctrines, even the most definitive, and will embrace this, the one true psychology, and everything will be complete. Until then, I will pass for a fool, as you will see.

Matias, honorary canon and a preacher by trade, was composing a sermon when this psychic idyll began. He is forty years of age and lives in the Gamboa District surrounded by books. Someone came to ask him to give a sermon at a forthcoming festival; at the time, he was enjoying reading a weighty spiritual tome that had arrived on the last steamer and so he refused their request; but they were so insistent that he gave in.

“Your Reverence will rattle it off in no time at all,” said the principal organizer of the festival.

Matias smiled meekly and discreetly, as should all clerics and diplomats. Bowing low, the organizers took their leave and went to announce the festival in the newspapers, with the declaration that Canon Matias, “one of the ornaments of the Brazilian clergy,” would preach the Gospel. The phrase “ornaments of the clergy” quite put the canon off his breakfast when he read the morning papers, and it was only because he had given his word that he sat down to write the sermon.