"Then it is true? They told me——"
"Only one single thing is true," said Odette, "and that is that they told you."
"There is only one single thing true," replied La Villaumer, "and that is that you feel as imperative a need to do good, as most poor mortals of good being done to them. If I had not seen—I should say to you, as others will say to you: 'My friend, take care, keep yourself in hand!' But I have just seen the face of this man who is deprived of light, and who perhaps feels the lack of you more than of the beauty of the light, and I tremble— It seems to me that I see you, my poor dear friend, reaching the last stage of an evolution which I have watched as if it had been my own. Many will look upon this acme of your self-sacrifice as an immolation. But I recall to mind the words that I have so often spoken to myself: 'You no longer Count!' The individual is dead— Provisionally, but for a time which we cannot estimate, the individual is dead— In fact, you yourself have perceived that you no longer have any rights, not even the right to mourn your unending grief. The moment has come to mourn more largely, more grandly, with the only grief that can save a soul like yours. The only hope of a resurrection lies in giving oneself to the common need, and losing oneself in it with love."