"Young man, there is someone who cannot be seen by candle-light!"
"Who is that?"
"The invisible, young man! Have you taken sulphonal, bromkali, morphium, chloral?"
"I have tried all."
"And the invisible does not quit the field. Very well! You want to sleep at night, and wish me to tell you how. Listen, young man, I am neither a physician nor a prophet, I am an old sinner, who does penance. Demand therefore neither preaching nor prophecy from an old gallows-bird, who wants all his leisure time to preach to himself. I have also suffered from sleeplessness and paralysis of the arms; I have wrestled eye to eye with the invisible, and finally recovered sleep and health. Do you know how? Guess!"
The young man guesses my meaning, and casts his eyes down. "You guess it! Go in peace, and sleep well!"
Yes! I must be silent and let my meaning be guessed, for if I began to play the preaching monk, they would turn their backs on me at once.
A friend asks me, "Whither are we going?"
"I cannot say, but as regards myself personally, it seems that the way of the Cross leads me back to the faith of my fathers."