LUCILE. Did I spoil your vocation?
CAMILLE. My Vesta, my little one! You are very much to blame! You have made me too happy!
LUCILE. Coward! He pities himself.
CAMILLE. You see, I have lost all strength, all my faith.
LUCILE. How?
CAMILLE. I used to believe in the immortality of the soul. When I saw the misery of the world, I said to myself that life would be too absurd if virtue were not rewarded elsewhere. But now I am happy, so sublimely happy that I truly believe I have received my reward on earth. So you see, I have lost my proof of immortality.
HÉRAULT. Never try to find it again.
CAMILLE. How simple it is to be happy! There are so few who know how to be!
HÉRAULT. The simpler a thing is, the oftener it eludes us. It is said that men wish to be happy. A great mistake! They wish to be unhappy; they insist on it. Pharaohs and Sesostris, kings with hawks' heads and tigers' claws; butchers of the Inquisition, conquerors of Bastilles; wars that sow murder and rapine—that is what they want. The obscurity of the mysteries is necessary to belief; the absurdity of suffering, to love. But reason, tolerance, love, happiness—bah! Give them that, and you insult them!
CAMILLE. You are bitter. You must do good to men in spite of themselves.