Part 4

For many years I have watched the same face, like the faithful horizon stretched across the aperture of a window. It contrives, that face, a thousand things, it expresses and reflects a thousand things, I alone know its touching beauty, since I alone am able to reap all its harvests, since I alone cannot, without a glance, allow the tiniest flower of every day to die.

VII

It is not wholly within your power to be without enemies; it behooves you, indeed, not to lack adversaries. Above all, it behooves you to know your adversaries. From that to conquering them is but a short step. From that to loving them is no step at all.

Do not dread an experience too much; consider your adversary attentively and try to imagine his motives, those that he declares as well as those that he conceals, those that he invents as well as those of which he is ignorant. Think long enough and with enough intensity to understand these reasons, and even to discover new ones of which your adversary has not thought; this will not be difficult for you if you have any knowledge of yourself.

Then make a strong effort to put yourself, in spirit, in the place of him you are combatting. Do not go so far as to detest yourself, but do not refuse this opportunity of judging yourself severely. For a test: perhaps you have entered upon this experience with your teeth and fists clenched; stop when you find that you are smiling and that your hands are relaxed.

One has no idea how much this exercise inclines one to justice, how profitable it is and how destructive of hatred. Too much imagination would perhaps lead you to neglect your own cause; stop in time, therefore, unless you wish to become, as the spectators may decide, either a fool or a hero.

For my part, I have no hesitation in counselling such a practice: it teaches one to conquer, to conquer smilingly. It teaches one to know one’s adversary. And then, too, it is good as everything is good that forestalls and destroys hatred.

There is only one single thing in the world that is, perhaps, really hateful, stupidity. But even that is disputable, and moreover it is always a presumptuous assertion.

Happy is the man who has no enemies. But, I repeat, he who has no adversaries, he who has not accepted those that life offers him, or has not been able to procure any of his own will, is ignorant of a great source of wealth.

There is but small merit in understanding those whom we love; there is a great, a crowningly bitter pleasure, in penetrating a soul that is hostile to us, in making it our own by main force, in colonizing it.

Not to choose our friends, that is to be too self-denying, too modest. Not to choose our adversaries, that is altogether too stupid; it is inexcusable.

A voice whispers in my ear: “We do not choose our vermin, we do not choose our mad dogs....” Alas, no! but that is quite another matter.

VIII

Every time I hear someone use the word “promiscuity,” I recall an experience I once had. An experience,--that is a great deal to say, it was such a slight affair after all.

It was in the days when there still used to be in Paris those omnibuses with upper stories. I was returning home quite late, on one of those fresh, airy nights when one suddenly draws in, through the fetid breath of the streets, a gust that comes from afar and seems unwilling to let itself be defiled, obliterated. I was dreaming all alone, quite to myself, about things of no interest to anyone but myself, but that happily filled the infinite space of the world.

Through the depths of this reverie I became aware of a slight, muffled blow against my right shoulder. This did not rouse me from my own absorption. A second time the blow came, followed by a soft, continuous contact. It gave me a disagreeable sensation.

By my side there was a young boy of sixteen or seventeen, dressed like an apprentice. The uncertain glimmer of the street-lamps lighted up his pale, weary face. His eyes were closed and he seemed overwhelmed with sleep. I noticed that every few moments his head, swaying with the jolts of the vehicle, would strike against my shoulder. He would raise it up with an instinctive movement, only to let it fall back the more heavily the next moment. Once he let it lie there. At the time I was so lost in my dreams that the animal in me alone rose to its defense: I pushed the young lad gently back into his place. It was trouble lost; the next second he abandoned himself anew against my shoulder with a sort of desperate ingenuousness. I pushed him back two or three times, then I gave it up and tried, in spite of this slight burden, to continue my glorious excursion in the interior of my own self.

But I did not succeed. An extraordinary, unforeseen, unknown sensation was sweeping over me. It was a penetrating animal warmth. It came from that head propped against my shoulder, and also from a certain frail, bent arm which I felt slowly digging into my side. The little apprentice was sound asleep.

I bent down my face and felt his breath like that of a child passing in little puffs over my cheek and my chin. From that moment on, I ceased completely to think of my important personal affairs and I had only one anxiety: to see to it that the boy did not awaken.

I do not know how long this sleep lasted: I was warm with a strange, delicate warmth; I had a sense of well-being, I was absorbed, I was penetrating into an unknown universe, as vast, as starry as my own. I could not understand how this contact could have offended me at first, even disgusted me. I had torn off the prickly shell and was tasting, like a nourishing kernel, that human presence and companionship. I was happy and interested.

We reached a place where there were shouts and lights. The little fellow sat up with a start, rubbed his eyes and ran stumbling towards the stairway and disappeared; he had not even seen me.

He did not know what I owed him and that he would never be forgotten.

IX

One must not, at first sight, say that a man is uninteresting and that his face is expressionless. One might as well say that the water of a river is empty when it swarms with vegetable and animal life.

In one’s manner of listening to a man there may be prejudice and suspicion, there must not be indifference or indolence. The soul has, in its arsenal, lenses, microscopes, and powerful sources of light for exploring objects to their depths, through their transparencies, into the innermost recesses of their organs.

At the beginning of the war I lived for two years with a comrade who was invariably silent and indolent; his handsome face remained always so gloomy, his actions remained so devoid of purpose and significance, that I despaired of ever making him my prey; I was simply never touched with a desire to get hold of him.

Then a day came when I heard him greet some happening with a word, pronounced in such a challenging tone that I decided to undertake the expedition. I spent days and days at it, with the pickaxe, mattock, and little lantern of the miner. I have thought of him ever since with stupefaction, as of those subterranean, half-explored chasms where one finds rivers, colonnades, domes, blind animals and terrible shapes of stone.

The nature of the object should not discourage one’s interest. The viper is a dangerous and vindictive creature. The naturalists who have been able to study it have only been able to do so because they have studied with passion, that is to say, with love.

So much to tell you that that sort of zoological curiosity you may bring to the study of your neighbor no more authorizes cruelty than it allows you to dispense with affection.

Extreme attention resembles affection. Contemplation is pure love.

X

It is after my own taste that I mean to enjoy my possessions.

First, I wish to have part possession of my companions. There is no question of my being the only one to possess them, or of my limiting my empire to one or two of them. What I plan is to undertake each conquest separately. This word, we shall see, does not signify seduction, but a knowledge that is full of respect, a profound, lasting interest, an enthusiasm, a passionate contemplation.

Observe them, your comrades: say you have twenty-three of them; you will find through them twenty-three distinct representations of yourself, and that in spite of yourself, through the mere play of everyday life. One of them knows chiefly your tireless patience; another, who works beside you all day, knows that you are painstaking and irritable; he is, however, ignorant of what a third, the friend of your fireside, knows,--that you are a careful and anxious father. There are others for whom you are, above all, a soul torn by religion or a mind familiar with everything that concerns social questions, or a great lover of reading. Others, finally, see in you only a good billiard-player, or a crack shot, or a courteous companion.

You are, of course, all these things. The totality of these various aspects is, indeed, you, provided that we add also many other qualities that no one suspects. But each one of your comrades sees an aspect of you that is different from what his neighbor sees. For this reason, avoid confusion, avoid mixing things. Be lavish of yourself in every sense, but begin by being prudent, careful of your resources and skilful in the art of grouping them.

One day you were having an affectionate conversation with Maurin. You were delighted with one another, delighted to be together, satisfied with your fellowship, your mutual possession. You were not talking of anything very private. But then Blèche came up, Blèche with whom you have such profitable, such intimate talks, and all the charm of Maurin’s company disappeared without your being able to compensate yourself with the usual pleasure you take in the society of Blèche. This was because, in the presence of both, you could not give each one what you are accustomed to give him, nor could you ask from him what he gives only to you.

These combinations, like those of the chemists, demand much care and judgment. Don’t protest! Don’t exclaim that such notions are too subtle, too complex: you do not receive all your friends pell-mell. However much of an epicure you may be, you still give more attention to the selection of your guests than to the composition of the menu. Of what importance is the most delicate fare in comparison with the delight the conversation of carefully chosen human beings gives us?

That is why, when you are sure of two persons for whom you feel an interest that borders on passion, you experience such a delicious anxiety at the moment of presenting them to one another, of bringing them together in your presence.

You are like the maker of fireworks who is about to mix changeable substances with explosive properties in his mortar. You weigh them carefully and combine them in well-defined proportions. You take time preparing each of the spiritual elements of this mixture.

And when the union is accomplished, you seem to be saying to each of them: “I have prepared a magnificent gift for you. Come, now, and know one another.”

Your heart throbs, because each of them is not only going to know the other but is going to learn to know you through the eyes of the other.

Could there be a better reason for living?

XI

However brief may be the intercourse we have with a man, we always come away from it somewhat modified: we find we are a little greater than we were before, or a little less great, better or worse, exalted or diminished.

I have learned this from having, in the course of my life, approached many men, both famous and obscure, who do not dream what I owe them or the harm they have been able to do me.

We instinctively recognize and classify individuals according to this faculty they have, some of drawing us out, others of crushing us. It is a faculty they usually exert without knowing it, even against their will: they are tonic or depressing just as one is short or tall, just as one has black eyes or green. But the comparison breaks down in this respect, that it is always possible to modify the reaction we produce on others.

In this matter we exhibit a special sensibility that may be compared to the tropisms which push plants up toward the light or make them struggle against gravitation. We go toward some and flee from others, regardless of our interests or our prejudices.

The man whose companionship we seek because it stimulates us is not necessarily he who strives to give us a good opinion of ourselves. Often he is taciturn, sometimes surly, occasionally ironical and cutting. Nevertheless, there emanates from his whole person something like approbation, a confession of confidence. Even if he insists, harshly, noisily, upon calling attention to our faults, he does not make us despair of ourselves and our future. And if he never speaks to us about ourselves we yet know, by some imperceptible gesture, by some tone in his voice, by a gleam in his eye, that he is interested in us.

Every time we leave him we like him better, we like ourselves better, we like all humanity better, we look at everything with a smile, we are as full of plans as a tree in April.

The other sort of man, on the contrary, is forever deluding himself. He pursues before our very eyes an end which we see, with grief and bitterness, he regularly fails to attain. Whatever he does, whatever he says, he always shows us that he is a stranger to us, that he is superior and that we do not interest him. Even in his manner of wishing to give us his attention, he exhibits a certain difficulty in seeing us at all. If he tries to seem talkative, important, majestic, his natural gifts turn against him; his cordiality disgusts us, his bearing irritates us, his self-importance makes us want to laugh. We cannot forgive him anything, and especially the fact that we always leave him with the same vague depression, the same disgust of life, and the same distrust of our own undertakings. What we are always escapes him, and although what he is does not escape us, we are discouraged by him all the same.

We must be the first of these two men, he who is, amid all things, in spite of all things, a rich man, he whom the poet of the _Livre d’amour_ justly called “a conqueror.”

XII

You must not violate your gifts, you must simply study their possibilities. It is what we do with trees and animals in which we are able to instil virtues they do not seem to possess at all naturally.

However humble your position in society may be, however great your poverty, in the crude sense men give to this word, you may none the less become rich and successful without so much as leaving the room where you are in conversation with your comrade, your wife or your favorite adversary. Find your study there. You have observed that when two men meet they begin by sacrificing to the old custom of enquiring briefly about one another’s health and affairs, after which, without waiting for the other’s reply, each one begins to speak of himself. This is such an old usage that they do not even know they are doing it. Each one speaks of himself for a few moments, then allows the other to talk about himself for about the same length of time. When this has gone on long enough they separate, and each preserves for his partner a vague feeling of gratitude, not so much because he has listened as because he has made a pretense of listening to matters that were of no concern to him.

This fact suggests a great lesson. The majority of men suffer from a sort of neglect, they suffer from not being possessed by anyone, from offering themselves in vain. Stretch out your hand and seize them. Learn to say the word that will assure you the mastery, the domination.

It is inconceivable that so many spirits, tormented by the need for power, by the passion for authority, should waste and sterilize themselves in order to hoard money, win rank, obtain a title. They gain nothing from it but a pride that withers them; they clasp only the shadow of what they pursue.

Seek a little and you will soon find that they are legion who ask nothing better than to cast themselves into your nets. Do not believe that they are always the mediocre victims. It is not only the wretched who wish to be understood and consoled. There are many sceptics who await with anguish the touch of a hand to deliver them from their scepticism. There are many happy men, too, who cannot bear to be alone with their happiness, for man has even more need of help in joy than in sorrow.

It has often happened, while walking with a comrade, a stranger or an adversary, that I would find him hard, defiant, rebellious at every touch. Thereupon, I would set out openly, under his very eye, to capture him. I would begin to speak to him about himself. I would say to him: “The unique things about you are....” And I would confide to him everything I thought about him, being particularly careful to say nothing more about myself. I would interest myself in him, not fictitiously--that is a barren and a perilous game--but with all my heart, with all my intelligence. I would tell him what I knew, what I already possessed of him, his virtues and his faults. Confused or irritated, he would come to my feet, he would appear as if before a bar to give thanks or to plead, to show his claws or to purr. The things I had said to him might be very severe; I still felt that he was grateful to me for having cared about him, even in order to attack him. No longer was he in any haste to leave me. Often he would come back on the days that followed and make me unexpected visits; though I could see that he was provoked, I knew nevertheless that he had come to pay homage, to attest that he was a faithful subject.

“The unique things about you are”.... That is a chance phrase. There are others, there are a thousand of them. When you are ready, a grip of the hand or some other human sign may take its place. I remember the story of a certain prefect who, having no worse enemy than a traitor in his department, had the happy thought one day of asking him to have a drink and going away without paying for it. This extraordinary proof of confidence attached the man to him forever.

Not that all your victims will be so tremblingly easy. There are proud souls who set a high price on their conquest, fantastic and sick souls whom one has to seize suddenly and overthrow almost before they are aware of it.

You must set the time and choose the hour of the attack.

Do not accost the business man in the roar of the Exchange; attempt the field rather at the hour when, wearied, he is counting over and reckoning his disillusionments. Do not seize the man of action on the battlefield, but in the moment of leisure when he does not know what to do with his solitude.

What marvelous opportunities must the shy Las Casas have glimpsed at Saint Helena, even though he was pursuing other aims!

I once saw a simple soul publicly congratulate a master surgeon whose skill had for long years placed him above all felicitations. And the celebrated man blushed, bowed, gave in.

A successful lawyer said to me one day: “Each one of my clients imagines that I think only of him, that I occupy myself exclusively with him.”

Remember, too, that certain women never capitulate twice: they never forgive themselves for having yielded completely even for a moment. The same thing is true with others who are offended with you because you have “taken” them by force. Do not regret this sacrifice too much: it leaves a beautiful jewel in your casket.

Truly the whole vast race of men belongs to you.

Take and eat, you cannot find more noble food.

See, there is the world you must conquer. It is not that for whose possession proud peoples are driven to declare war; it is indeed quite another world than that which Satan showed Jesus from the summit of the mountain.

IV ON DISCOVERING THE WORLD

I

The world contains not one single object that might not be a source of happiness. Sorrow springs from this, that man outdoes himself in misusing everything. He turns against his own body or his own spirit all sorts of things that seem well made for his joy.

Every being contains an unbelievable store of happiness, and this one virtue reveals the angle from which he ought to be judged.

Your true business man makes a practice of weighing everything in terms of gold: a human being, a field of wheat, a beam, a precious stone. His tables of value are false, but the principle of valuation remains none the less efficacious, fundamental. The mistake of these persons is in testing everything by a single measure, in reducing everything to this gold which enables them to seek their chosen pleasure. If it is drink, or woman, they transmute an orchard into wine or into women, losing terribly by the exchange. They thus produce a sort of analogy to what the physicists call the degradation of energy: little by little, the traffickers degrade their pleasures until they obtain those they prefer. But happiness is higher than this: it cannot be degraded, bought, transmuted. It is a pure relationship between the soul and the world. It will never be the mere object of a transaction. Many are the men who have fastened their hope, their future upon the acquisition of some material good only to experience after years of effort and privation a burning disillusion. That is because happiness is too proud and free a thing to obey the commands of merchants. It follows laws of its own that seem like inspirations, it does not come at the bidding of business men. The castle we have coveted so long may open at the appointed hour; joy will not take up its abode there unless we have deserved it.

It must be repeated again: the principle of evaluation is at the base of our moral life. But each thing should be valued in itself and for itself.

A tuft of violets is worth a great deal for its perfume and its beauty, it can bring joy or consolation to a great many hearts. But it has only the slightest commercial value; estimated in terms of building lumber or freestone it signifies nothing, or virtually nothing.

That so many men should cut and sell wood, shape and barter the stone of which our houses are built, go gathering violets through the May thickets to sell them to townsfolk, is undoubtedly right and necessary. The real question is quite a different one: we must first possess for their own sakes all the blessings that are offered us, and not obstinately transform them, without an important reason, beyond our strict needs, at the risk of forever losing our understanding and our true possession of them.

It is almost a truism that men who are obliged by their profession to handle, store or sell substances famous for their power of giving pleasure, perfumes, fruits, silks, end by losing all appreciation of them and even by contracting a disgust and contempt for them. Cooks have no appetite. Let us not be cooks, then, in the presence of this vast world; let us know how to preserve or restore to each object its original savor and significance.

I say “restore” intentionally, for the world seems to be more and more turning from its true sense, that is to say, its human sense, the only one for us.

A stone is a beautiful thing, beautiful from all points of view; its grain, its color, its brilliancy, its hardness are all so many virtues that exercise and satisfy our senses, excite our reflections. We have a thousand noble uses, speculative or practical, to which we can put such an object. We shall be the kings of the universe if we assert boldly that we find in these uses and in our joy the very destiny of the stone.