The Frailty of Realization
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David Avery

Excerpt from The Age of Genius, from The Book by Bruno Schulz

“…There are things that can never occur with any precision. They are too big and too magnificent to be contained in mere facts. They are merely trying to occur, they are checking whether the ground of reality can carry them. And they quickly withdraw, fearing to lose their integrity in the frailty of realization. And if they break into their capital, lose a thing or two in these attempts at incarnation, then soon, jealously, they retrieve their possessions, call them in, reintegrate: as a result, white spots appear in our biography—scented stigmata, the faded silvery imprints of the bare feet of angels, scattered footmarks on our nights and days—while the fullness of life waxes, incessantly supplements itself, and towers over us in wonder after wonder.

“And yet, in a certain sense, the fullness is contained wholly and integrally in each of its crippled and fragmentary incarnations. This is the phenomenon of imagination and vicarious being. An event may be small and insignificant in its origin, and yet, when drawn close to one’s eye, it may open in its center an infinite and radiant perspective because a higher order of being is trying to express itself in it and irradiates it violently.”