III
If you will, we can begin with the resolution never to undeceive anyone who thinks he possesses anything.
There are some who make it their care and pride to deprive their neighbors of those illusions that Ibsen calls “the vital illusions.” The characteristic of these illusions is that they cannot be replaced. To tear them away leaves a man mutilated, without any possible reparation.
Young people, assuredly, have a very exuberant sap and all sorts of encumbering shoots. Skillful and careful shears may well cut off, here and there, these over-greedy branches—and the tree will bear heavier and more fragrant fruit.
But can you without guilt take away his wealth from that old man whose illusion is his only pleasure? Beware of cutting off all its leaves from that old trunk that will never bring forth again and has nothing but its foliage with which to subsist and feel the sun.
Distrust those men who have what is like a false passion for truth. They are swollen with presumptuous vanity. They do not know that real truth exists only where there is faith, even faith without an object. Of what importance is the object? It is in faith itself that our grandeur lies.
In my childhood, I often used to stop in to see a certain humble, white-haired shopkeeper. She vegetated in a dark little shop and was always sitting behind her window, where the dust lay thick over the toys and trinkets. Her business was very poor, but she loved to say at night: “The passers-by were very good today. They looked in the window a great deal.”
I noticed, in fact, that nearly all who went by turned toward the dark shop a long, dreamy look, full of unusual interest, that sometimes caused them to stop short.
One day, as I was myself passing before the poor little display, I suddenly understood what it was the passers-by looked at so kindly: it was their own faces reflected in the dark window-pane.
I was still very young, but I realized vaguely that it would never do to disclose this disastrous discovery to my old friend.