Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Fragment ID: 20288
As if a childlike finger laid on a cheek
Reminding of the endless need in things
The heedless Mother of the universe,
An infant longing clutched the sombre Vast.1
Your objection to the “finger” and the “clutch” moves me only to change “reminding” to “reminded” in the second line. It is not intended that the two images “finger laid” and “clutch” should correspond exactly to each other; for the “void”2 and the “Mother of the universe” are not the same thing. The “void” is only a mask covering the Mother’s cheek or face. What the “void” feels as a clutch is felt by the Mother only as a reminding finger laid on her cheek. It is one advantage of the expression “as if” that it leaves the field open for such variation. It is intended to suggest without saying it that behind the sombre void is the face of a mother. The two other «as if»’s3 have the same motive and I do not find them 
jarring upon me. The second is at a sufficient distance from the first and it is not obtrusive enough to prejudice the third which more nearly follows... Your suggestion “as though” (for the third) does not appeal to me: it almost makes a suggestion of falsity and in any case it makes no real difference as the two expressions are too much kin to each other to repel the charge of reiteration.
1946
1 An earlier version of p. 2, lines 19-22
2 Sri Aurobindo has somehow come to use “void” instead of the “Vast” that is actually there in the line. It may be mentioned that, in the passage where this line and the other three occur, the Vast is also called the void.
3 As if a soul long dead were moved to live...
As if solicited in an alien world...