Behold it now, like a vast race of invalids. It creeps over a world where now there are more graveyards than villages.
We have had an unparalleled experience of sorrow and renunciation.
And yet the desire for happiness is deeply rooted: the unanimous voice to which our world listens repeats, from amid the sobs: “We shall renounce nothing!”
To him who listens with an attentive ear, it says again, it says particularly: “We shall renounce nothing, not even renunciation!”
But let us leave this immense grief to itself. Let us leave it to satiate and appease itself with its own contemplation—Silence!
VII
THE SHELTER OF LIFE
I
Two immense worlds remain faithful to me when the others discourage or betray me. Two refuges open to my heart when it is weary, faltering or harassed with temptation.
I should like very much to tell you about them, since you are my friend. I can tell you, since you have nothing to envy me, since you bear within yourself two such worlds, two kingdoms that will submit to you undividedly, without contest.
Yesterday I was watching some prisoners working. They were pushing the trunk of a tree lashed to a cart. Sweat was rolling down their faces, for the heat was great, the slope steep and the load heavy. An armed soldier was watching them. Large letters were printed on their clothes to proclaim their servitude. And I thought: they live, they do not look too unhappy, they do not seem crushed by their condition. And if this is so, it is not because they have the placidity of beasts. No! Look at their eyes, listen to their voices. It is precisely because they are men and they carry everywhere with them two refuges, whither the gaoler cannot follow them, two precious possessions that no punitive discipline can snatch from them: their future and their memories.