THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES We shall transform ourselves into sweet visions to calm weeping eyes; we shall gather radiant lilies in unknown meadows, and we shall scatter their dew upon the earth. We shall touch the eyelid of the sleeping child, and rejoice the heart of its mother with the spectacle of the beauty of her well-belovéd son! Il THE BINARY TuE binary is more particularly the number of woman, mate of man and mother of society. Man is love in intelligence; woman is intelligence in love. Woman is the smile of the Creator content with Himself, and it is after making her that He rested, says the divine parable. Woman stands before man because she is mother, and all is forgiven her in advance, because she brings forth in sorrow. Woman initiated herself first into immortality through death; then man saw her to be so beautiful, and understood her to be so generous, that he refused to survive her, and loved her more than his life, more than his eternal happiness. Happy outlaw, since she has been given to him as companion in his exile! But the children of Cain have revolted against the mother of Abel; they have enslaved their mother. The beauty of woman has become a prey for the brutality of such men as cannot love. Thus woman closed her heart as if it were a secret sanctuary, and said to men unworthy of her: “I am virgin, c2 19