VI
Who can dispute with us the world of memory? No one! And who would dare, without fear, to do so? It is because we are more ardently attached to this possession than to any other.
At times, a clumsy or malevolent hand succeeds in smirching one of our dear memories. Then we experience an indignation and a despair as lasting and profound as if these sentiments recognized their cause in the loss or the fall of a loved being.
Happily this criminal work implies a rarely evil spirit, a sort of perverse genius of which humanity is none too prodigal. And then our memory is a territory too vast, too mountainous, too impregnable as a whole for the rage of hostile destruction to be able to defile or mar large portions of it. The best of our memories thus remain in safety and for us alone. Besides, we keep careful watch around this fortune.
Our great memories are actual moral personages, so necessary to our happiness that we bear them under a sacred arch, sheltered from all injury, from all contact. It is into this solitude that we go ceaselessly to question them, invoke them, call them to witness.
A past in common does not always give memories in common, so true it is that the heart defends itself, in its innermost retreat, as the physical self defends its flesh against the intrusions of the stranger.
It sometimes happens that men find pleasure in recalling in our presence the episodes of an existence that was passed, by themselves or by them and us, in companionship. It is then that we measure the road our soul has travelled on its solitary path: these things of which they speak to us, these deeds which, it seems, we have performed, these landscapes which they remember having crossed in our company, we no longer recognize; we do not even wish to recognize them. We smile in an embarrassed, awkward, unhappy way. Our whole attitude says: “Is it really true that we have drunk from the same cup? For all that, it was not the same wine we drank, and my intoxication is not yours.”
We cannot give to one who is dear to us a greater proof of love than to admit him to the intimacy of our memories. We have need of all our tenderness to help us to introduce another soul into the subterranean basilica, to lead that soul as close as possible to the refuge where, in spite of all, there is only room for one.
Perfect communion in memory is an extraordinary favor, and an admonition. If it is given to you to enjoy it, open your arms and receive one elect soul.