We harbour a secret hatred of paradise. Our yearnings are like those of the poor wretch who hopes for the countryside in heaven. It’s not abstract ecstasies or marvels of the absolute that can enchant a feeling soul; it’s homesteads and hillsides, green islands in blue seas, wooded paths and restful hours spent on ancestral farms, even if we’ve never had these things. If there’s no land in heaven, then better there were no heaven. Better that everything be nothing and that the plotless novel come to an end.
