II
There are some material fortunes which humble and reasonable men do not desire because they divine, in spite of the pleasures that result from them, what a crushing load they are.
By contrast, among the spiritual riches that we are able to possess, grief seems surrounded by a simple aureole. It is tyrannical, redoubtable, mutilating; its favorites are its victims. It does not descend upon its chosen ones with the softness of a dove, it pounces like a bird of prey, and those whom it carries off into the sky bear upon their sides the marks of its clenched claws.
But it is the sign of life; of all our possessions it is the last to leave us, it is the one that escorts us to the brink of the abyss.
It gives us the measure of man. He who has not suffered always seems to us a little like a child or a pauper.
The bitterness of men who have been often visited by sorrow is so truly a treasure that, if they could, they would not rid themselves of it for anything in the world: it resembles authority.
Through his tears, through his martyrdom, he who is charged with a great sorrow feels that he is the abode of some terrible thing that is also sacred and majestic. Great griefs command our respect. Before them knees tremble and heads bow as in the presence of thrones and tabernacles.
He who has suffered greatly makes us feel timid and humble before him. He knows things that we can only guess. We gaze upon him with passionate admiration as upon a traveller who has journeyed over oceans and explored far countries. It is at the time of his first wounds that the young man discovers his soul and plumbs his inner nobility.
Our grief is so precious a blessing that for its sake we dread inquisitive contacts. We preserve it jealously from the touch of those who might, through clumsiness or stupidity, debase this terrible and precious treasure. We long only that people should leave us alone with this bitter possession! Let them beware of frustrating us when they imagine that they are working for our relief!
When sorrow leaves us too soon, we feel a sort of shame and think less well of ourselves: it shone out of its shadowy casket, out of the deepest depths of the chest where we heap up our true treasures, and now, behold, it has vanished! We find ourselves almost miserable and utterly dispossessed.
The man who beats a retreat before a great ordeal fills us with distrust and pity. Something in us rejoices that he has not suffered. But something regrets that he has not given his measure, that he has not been the hero, the potent, exceptional man we hoped he would be. And that is not a mere perversion of our need for the spectacular: we are not less exacting with ourselves.
When sorrow comes to us, and we manage to escape it, the first sense of deliverance we feel is marred by an obscure, obstinate regret, as if we had lost an opportunity to enrich ourselves.
Tell me, what man among us did not, at the outset of the present great catastrophe, interrogate his own fate with a double anguish: the anguish to know what sufferings were in store for him, the fear also that he might not suffer enough, that he might not receive, and quickly, an adequate share of the ordeal.