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these details are unimportant. Nonetheless, a horse that shies seemingly without reason must have been frightened by something; perhaps a too-jittery horseman conveys his anxiety and the animal, believing a real danger exists, shies away to avoid it. But it also happens that the animal’s panic may be caused by a donkey, a rabbit, a passerby, a stone, a shimmering puddle, or any other unfamiliar object, a milestone, an old shoe, a dead bird, an umbrella, toward which one should immediately lead it so it may sniff and get to know it while seeing to it that the horse doesn’t get worked up again if examining the object were to justify and then increase its fright, in which case the last thing the horseman should do would be to vault off the horse – there is less chance of injury if he remains in the saddle; instead he should try to wedge one of the reins between his arm and the withers of his mount while sharply pulling on the other rein several times; the horse, manhandled in this way, will finally calm down with a few soothing words – but no sugar, which would be rewarding bad behavior – just a gentle tap on the neck and it will get back on the straight and narrow. I’ve made up my mind; tomorrow at the latest I’ll open the gate, or the day after tomorrow, the heavy gate.
    What am I afraid of? Of confronting what? Exactly what is so frightening about this task that has been assigned to me? It would be tempting once again I suppose to compare my situation to that of those authors who sit down at their desk all a-tremble and then swallow their erasers. So permit me to state here that my fears are completely unrelated to that tomfoolery and in fact, if you’d like my opinion, it’s not the writer who’s afraid of the blank page, it’s the lousy painter he has repressed who thinks he is being called upon, good lord! he has made no progress, he will never dare show himself. Let’s drop it. As long as the pages are white, I will be there to blacken them. As for penetrating the cave and assuming my duties, that’s another story. I knew it would not be easy from day one, when Professor Glatt handed me the clef . Had he given me a simple clé , I would perhaps have got down to work already, in the middle of my business at the heart of my tale, married no doubt, probably a family man, but the weight of this clef , dotted with rust, that allows one to enter the cave made me tremble as soon as the professor put it in my hand, then its hardness of a thing that cannot be twisted, bent, or broken by human strength alone and that seems to expect the same rigor, the same inflexibility from us – this bayonet was hanging from my feebly extended arm unaccustomed to authoritative and decisive gestures, broken wrist; it seemed harder and harder to me, colder and colder, longer and longer, ever surer of itself as I grew weaker and collapsed; it asserted itself against me, it became more and more clef , heavier and heavier, it fell on my foot. It’s only a clef , I hung it on a nail at home in the living room, next to the map of the cave, which is fixed to the wall with four thumbtacks, three yellow and one red; the red one bothers me, it’s all you can see there in the upper right, it will have to be replaced.

 
    T HIS NAVY blue uniform is multivalent, thus perfectly adapted to my dual role as guardian and guide. I will not need to change uniforms in order to switch from one to the other; I am believable as guardian dressed like this, a sort of gendarme or stationmaster, and no less believable as guide, a kind of ship or airline captain, sole master after God (who will not be eternal). Moreover, I shall not switch from one to the other, from my role as guardian to my role as guide and back again, I shall perform the duties of guardian and guide simultaneously. I shall never guide but with one eye, I shall remain guardian as I lead visitors through the cave. Still, I shall be an active guide only for a few hours a day. Thus we