reference
which reciprocally graces two beings like ourselves is made of all that
they have and all that they had.

I stand up in front of Marie--already almost a convert--and I tremble
and totter, so much is my heart my master:--

"Truth is more beautiful than dreams, you see."

It is simply the truth which has come to our aid. It is truth which
has given us life. Affection is the greatest of human feelings because
it is made of respect, of lucidity, and light. To understand the truth
and make one's self equal to it is everything; and to love is the same
thing as to know and to understand. Affection, which I call also
compassion, because I see no difference between them, dominates
everything by reason of its clear sight. It is a sentiment as immense
as if it were mad, and yet it is wise, and of human things it is the
only perfect one. There is no great sentiment which is not completely
held on the arms of compassion.

To understand life, and love it to its depths in a living being, that
is the being's task, and that his masterpiece; and each of us can
hardly occupy his time so greatly as with one other; we have only one
true neighbor down here.

To live is to be happy to live. The usefulness of life--ah! its
expansion has not the mystic shapes we vainly dreamed of when we were
paralyzed by youth. Rather has it a shape of anxiety, of shuddering,
of pain and glory. Our heart is not made for the abstract formula of
happiness, since the truth of things is not made for it either. It
beats for emotion and not for peace. Such is the gravity of the truth.

"You've done well to say all that! Yes, it is always easy to lie for a
moment. You might have lied, but it would have been worse when we woke
up from the lies. It's a reward to talk. Perhaps it's the only reward
there is."

She said that profoundly, right to the bottom of my heart. Now she is
helping me, and together we make the great searchings of those who are
too much in the right. Marie's assent is so complete that it is
unexpected and tragic.

"I was like a statue, because of the forgetting and the grief. You
have given me life, you have changed me into a woman."

"I was turning towards the church," she goes on; "you hardly believe in
God so much when you've no need of Him. When you're without anything,
you can easily believe in Him. But now, I don't want any longer."

Thus speaks Marie. Only the idolatrous and the weak have need of
ill