PREFACE

of stars at the next improvement of the telescope.

After each explosion of light and love, Angela asks for forgiveness. Her sense of God makes her adoration seem like a blasphemy in the eyes of her own soul.

The sky is a figure, superb although limited, immense although finite. Like the female sinner of the desert Likely a reference to Saint Mary of Egypt, a popular figure in medieval hagiography who lived as a hermit in the desert, often conflated in artistic tradition with the "sinful woman" (Mary Magdalene) who wiped Christ's feet with her hair., it spreads out a golden head of hair.

One might say that light, not finding itself pure enough to exist before the face of God, would wish to wipe the feet of the throne with its hair, and carry the repentance of suns higher than any gaze can reach.

Translation is always a difficult work. The translation of an intimate thing is a very difficult work. When it concerns a funeral oration or a formal speech, one can, to a certain extent, replace Latin periods: long, complex sentence structures used in classical rhetoric to create a balanced, rhythmic effect with English periods. But when it comes to penetrating the depths of the soul, when it comes to struggling with the intimacy of inner forces, when it is not merely words but cries that must be rendered—cries, silences, and sobs—the task becomes formidable: accuracy is the law of translation. But there are two kinds of accuracy: accuracy according to the letter, which renders words one after...