It is this that they call my mother! They are full of such good intentions. Admit, my friend, that they are good people.
I
Very good people. You do not think your mother well portrayed?
HE
I have had so many mothers that this image doubtless resembles one of the women who have believed that they gave birth to me; it is their innocence that makes me smile, their virginal conception of maternity, the white robe, the blue scarf. And yet, this church, one of the ugliest in the whole world, is one of the least puerile. The priests who serve it have preserved some intellectual illusion. They have a scrupulous and argumentative piety. The miracles anciently described seem to them proved by their very antiquity. They know that I walked on the waters, one tempestuous evening, but, if they had seen the windows of their church on fire with lights, would they have believed their eyes? You saw, you believed, and you came, my friend. That light shone for you alone.
I
Oh, my friend!
HE
To speak to mankind I need a man as intermediary, and I chose you, I gave you a sign. You were not obliged to respond. My power is not such as to compel men's wills. I can seduce; but I cannot command.
I