We have come to chapter 9 of part 2 of On Nietzsche. In it he addresses the summit's link between a mystical state and impoverished existence. Bataille says:

"Solitary ascetics pursue an end whose means is ecstasy ---and ascetics work for their salvation like merchants buying and selling wth profit in mind or like workers sweating for their wages....As for ascetics: by falling into common human misery, they become obsessed by a possibility of undertaking the lengthy work of deliverance."

I'd always though of ascetics as being in opposition to merchants. None of this is making much sense to me. I just cannot make sense of the book.
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