Here in the Monastery in Armenia I have a little boy to read to me–sometimes Photias, sometimes John Damascenus the Syrian, sometimes the Fathers of the Church.
This I buy with the much money saved when I was in the train of the Emperor Michael now wailing in Hell.
I am very old and repentant, and soon I shall swing censers in Heaven, and my eyes shall be replaced with rubies from God’s own throne; the scent of crushed roses and ambergris shall soothe my nostrils and I shall sit close to the gate that I may look from the gold bars on to the flames of Hell and see the Emperors there, Michaels, Constantines, and Leos and presently the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, being thrust into the deepest pit of all.
It is Christmas eve, and I hear them singing in the choir … such patient men, these monks, but then very few of them have seen Constantinople. I am richer than they, though blind, for I have memories.
I do not miss my sight, for what is there to see here? They have no gold nor silver nor mosaic in their church nor painted curtains or curious robes.
I shall be glad to gain Heaven that I may see the shoes of God, crystal, gilt and pointed and His girdle of great blue stones and the attire of the angels, fine cambric worked with silks from Persia, purple of a live blood colour and green like a split jade.
So I talk and the little boy writes while they sing in the chapel; they humour me because I am so very old and I despise them all.
To-night I have a loosened tongue; I could tell secrets now.…
Write, write, write the last scene I saw before I was blind–how the Sclaronion gained the throne and how the Amorian died.