Translated from the original version in French by Alice Gleizes.

The crown of a tree offers a vantage point from which a person may contemplate their accomplishments and tell themselves that they may at present leap forth without regret. Each branch of the redwood represents one of the thousand stories lived by a man, from the roots to the highest leaves.

Along the length of the trunk unfolds a continual intellectual enrichment intertwined with strange and delicate emotional vibrations together forging the path of passing days and years, blending and drifting such the wave plotter that meticulously illustrates the whims of the earth upon the seismograph or the most pessimistic manner of the evermore irregular movements of the ventricule upon a cardiograph.

From up on high, I feel it. I feel the pain of the abyss. I feel the force of the earth, in its movements, my heart clenches, crushed by the overwhelming power. The abyss, symbol of the extreme distance between my physical being and all other things. Notwithstanding, my thoughts remain so close to them.

I feel his breath upon my neck, his caresses running down my nape and following the line of my spine, weaving between my legs, then across my skin. Each of his sighs nuances the symphony of foliage twirling between a light mezzo piano and a powerful fortissimo, making my accelerating pulse dance, then slow.

I am distracted by the purity of the spectacle. My heart beats slowly now, slowly too I breathe. Time slows. I abandon my body in the tenderness of his skin, I give myself entirely to him. His breathing is harsher, violent, I hurt. The powerful rise of adrenalin smothers me. All my senses awaken.

I feel the hardness of the mountains that he crossed, I let my fingers run over the cold hard stones he brushed past, the coolness of the rivers through which he crawled, becoming one with the transparent waters of the surface. I can smell the perfume of flowers from otherwhere, the fragrance of fir trees, the taste of berries he carried forth.

At last my eyes open, I enter the ecstasy. I see all, he allowed me to enter his intimacy and allowed me to see what no one else could. The end of the orgasm brings me back to my spirits, the fall is over, my body pierces the icy waters, I fall sleep.