fallen

It's unlucky to walk widdershins around a church, but the arrows indicating the direction of the visit are emphatic. I drop a euro into the box and take a pamphlet that tells me the name of the bishop who founded the abbey and how the building was destroyed: by fire, by Vikings, by Jacobins, and by fire again. There's a marble statue of St Francis Xavier holding a child and, propped against the wall, what look like Polish icons, red and black and gilded. In one of the little chapels behind the altar, a woman is kneeling, her face averted, her hair half-covered by a scarf. Two Americans are sitting in the last row of rush-seated chairs, talking quietly and gesturing at the low, heavy arches. Towards the back of the church is, unexpectedly, an inscription that says René Descartes is buried here.

I finish the circuit and stop in front of the final row of candles. In back of them is a painting of an angel soaring, wings extended. It's harder to make out the other figure, but I step forward until I'm pressed against the iron rail. His head points downward, his legs are splayed, his mouth is open. One hand is curled into a fist, the other flails at the air. Surrounded by painted darkness, he crowds the bottom corner of the picture. His face contorts with fear and rage and, clearly, he can see what's invisible to me -- the abyss that gapes beneath him as he falls.