Already, disguised as a madman, Tristan had ordered boatmen to land him on the coast of Cornwall. And when he arrived at the castle of King Mark, no one recognized him, no one knew whence he had come. But he made too many strange remarks, both familiar and distant; he knew too well the secrets of the commonplace not to have been from another, yet nearby, world. He did not come from the solid land, with its solid cities; but indeed from the ceaseless unrest of the sea, from those unknown highways which conceal so much strange knowledge, from that fantastic plain, the underside of the world. Iseut, first of all, realized that this madman was a son of the sea, and that insolent sailors had cast him here, a sign of misfortune: “Accursed be the sailors that brought this madman! Why did they not throw him into the sea!”

All sins are attempts to fill voids.