“Tat tvam asi—this you are”: those words that open the doors of the cosmos and of the mind, the assumption of all vedantic assumptions, are not, after all, so eccentric in regard to ordinary life.¹⁸ Certainly no more eccentric than Descartes’s ego cogito. But the civilized West, the eighteenth century that held the stage, seems to be separated by a sheet of lead from all that might turn attention to ātman-brahman. Hermetism continues to proliferate, but is now resigned to its role in secret sects, preparing the way for spiritualism. And, if anything, it loves getting involved in dark political intrigues that end up as a distraction from contemplation. Clarté teaches first of all not to see certain things. The important point—as Descartes insisted—is to draw the boundaries, to vanquish the limitless psyche, let the mind run loose in its own glittering golden cage. But there are also geological events that accompany history. In this case the emergence of a new wild continent within Europe: Germany. Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer is a posthumous tribute to that emergence, which had taken place under the banner of the Romantik. “India ended up becoming Germany,” observed Victor Hugo in front of the shadow plays that marbled the “wall of the centuries.”^{19, 20} Every civilization needs to nurture its own Orient within itself. When the first notes of the romantic piano sounded, Europe found its own Orient in this penetrating sound—an Orient that it had long tried to lose.

Talleyrand’s role above all was that of master of ceremonies—but this was an age where ceremonies had lost their meaning, an age that claimed it could do without them, while it stumbled at every step. At that point Talleyrand offered his arm, impassively—and helped find a way out of the embarrassment. But what ought to have caused alarm was his distant gaze when proffering help. For decades, apart from the searing interlude of the Terror, Talleyrand had constantly sought to ensure that History—grievous, bloody, and awkward in its successive guises—would be passable in society. He had made the government of parvenus passable in society, the demimonde in power for the first time, with the Directory. And almost forty years later, at the age of eighty, in London, he ensured that the government of the bourgeoisie, in power for the first time under their declared names—lawyers and merchants, no longer citizens—was passable in society. From his point of view, History seemed marked by a progressive decline. But it was still necessary to help it glide smoothly along its tracks. Talleyrand felt a justified horror at the sudden flounderings of History, at its paroxysms. And so he sought to put a few drops of oil into the workings, waiting for others to throw in sand. Talleyrand foresaw it, he knew it, he had already seen it: and it would happen repeatedly. But he continued all the same: glissez, glissez, in the end something will remain. A gesture, at least.

M***: The Napoleonic Court is established in the equatorial forest, theocracy is found among merchants at the bazaar, Lenin has put on a parachute uniform, smokes Davidoff cigars, the Holy Experiments are circling the rice fields with corpses. It is increasingly apparent that the future political scene is the Africa of Raymond Roussel. And now we will also be obliged to rediscover many things that zeal had sought to eradicate: ideas were once thought important—now they are lined up before us like dented Coca-Cola cans. We used to think that the prime requisite was a general knowledge (“The Evil of the World is Ignorance” was the last banner, gnostic as always, of conquering commonplaces)—and we realize that all education is magnetized by something silent and implied, whereas explicit education alone sounds shrill and hideous, like Racine recited in a penitentiary for the director’s birthday. Expressa nocent. What is said can damage.