“I was a child, seven or eight years old,
I was in an isolated house, near the closed window,
I looked outside — and at once, nothing could be more sudden, it was as though the sky opened,
opened infinitely toward the infinite,
inviting me with this overwhelming moment of opening to acknowledge the infinite,
but the infinitely empty infinite.
The consequence was estranging.
The sudden and absolute emptiness of the sky, not visible, not dark
— emptiness of God: that was explicit, and therein it far exceeded the mere reference to the divine —
surprised the child with such delight, and such joy,
that for a moment he was full of tears,
and — I add, anxious for the truth —
I believe they were his last tears.”