John Tennock's Blog

Just finished reading Michel Tournier's "Friday" from random browsing a stack that came from prior random browsing at LifeLine BookFest. Can't get much more random than that.

The following portion about time is the one that stuck in my mind:

... suddenly he realized why it was that he had awakened so late. He had forgotten to fill his water-clock the night before, and it had run dry. Indeed, it was the falling of the last drop into the copper bowl that drew his attention to the unaccustomed silence. Turning to look at it, he saw that the drop that should have followed was clinging uncertainly to the bottom of the glass jar; it stretched till it was pear-shaped, hesitated, and then, as though discouraged, resumed its spherical shape; and finally it returned whence it had come, not merely refusing to fall but seeming to reverse the passage of time.

Robinson stretched luxuriously on his couch. This was the first occasion for months when the inexorable dripping had not dictated his every movement as rigorously as if it had been a conductor’s baton. Time had had a stop, and he was on holiday! He sat on the edge of the couch, and Tenn came and laid his muzzle on his knee. So it seemed that Robinson’s omnipotence over this island, born of his solitude, extended even to the mastery of time. He reflected with delight that he had only to plug the hole in the water-clock and he could suspend the passing of the hours whenever he chose.

He got up and stood in the doorway, and such was his state of happy astonishment that he found that he was trembling and had to lean his shoulder against the doorpost. Later, reflecting on that wave of ecstasy and seeking to put a name to it, he called it a ‘moment of innocence’. He had thought at first that the stopping of the clock had done no more than interfere with the routine of his day and make it appear less urgent; but now he perceived that the pause was less his affair than that of the island as a whole. It was as though in ceasing to reach out to each other according to their habit - and to their exhaustion - things had returned each to the essence of itself, were flowering in their own right and existing simply for their own sakes, seeking no other warrant than their own fulfilment. A great tenderness filled  the heavens as though God, in a sudden outpouring of love, were resolved to bless all His creation. There was a radiance in the air; and in a moment of inexpressible happiness Robinson seemed to discern another island behind the one where he had so long dwelt in solitude, a place more living, warmer and more fraternal, that had been concealed from him by the prosaicness of his daily preoccupations.

This was a wonderful discovery. It seemed after all that it was possible to escape from the relentless discipline of the work-schedule and the ceremonial, without of necessity returning to the mire. Change was possible without decay! He could break the equilibrium so laboriously acquired and raise himself yet higher, instead of falling back. Unquestionably he had advanced another step in the transformation that was at work in the most hidden depths of himself. But all this was no more than a flash of revelation. In a moment of ecstasy the grub had seen that one day it would fly. Intoxicating, but a momentary vision, nothing more.

Thereafter he frequently stopped the clock, to pursue experiments which one day, perhaps, would cause the new Robinson to emerge from the chrysalis wherein he still slumbered. But the time was not yet. The other island did not show itself again in the rosy mist of dawn, as it had done on that memorable morning. Patiently he resumed his customary garments and went on with the game where he had left off, forgetting in the routine of small tasks and ceremonies that for a moment he had dreamed of other things.

What you might call a numinous moment!