"It would be better to clothe oneself in love," Calixte said. "To transfer one's egoism to a woman: to be jealous of one's own joys more than of hers, in fine, to give to another the absurd happiness one would not wish for oneself; to dream that she is happy, that she feels it and knows it is through my agency."
"Do you imagine that this would be possible for us?" Entragues asked.
He made no allusion to his personal sentiments, for even Calixte was not his confidant. In questioning his friend or in answering him, he spoke with full liberty, completely abstract.
"Yes," Calixte answered, "the 'Imitation' gives the clue. It suffices to transfer to a creature the love, proportionately lessened, which the priest feels towards God. It would be a sort of obligation to love which one would impose upon oneself, the first rule of a more general rule of life, freely and Chistianly accepted, once for all."
"I had not thought of this," Entragues said, "of love considered as a spiritual discipline."
"Such is the exact formula," Calixte declared. "If we can yet save ourselves, we and all similar monsters, it is through Christianity and Christian discipline. This will singularly elevate our souls and it may curb our transcendental egoisms!"
"We should require Beatrices," Hubert said.
"They can be created," Calixte responded, "and we can baptize a nobly profiled woman with divine love."
(Hubert received this note on the following day: