Some sorrow, not my own but deeper and more obscure, was rising from the damp earth:
the panic which a peaceful grazing animal feels when, all at once, without seeing
anything, it rears its head and scents in the air about it that it is trapped and cannot
escape.
I wanted to utter a cry, knowing that it would relieve my feelings, but I was
ashamed to.
The clouds were coming lower and lower. I looked through the window; my heart
was gently palpitating.
What a voluptuous enjoyment of sorrow those hours of soft rain can produce in
you! All the bitter memories hidden in the depths of your mind come to the surface:
separations from friends, women's smiles which have faded, hopes which have lost their
wings like moths and of which only a gr
Confucius says: "Many seek happiness higher than man; others beneath him. But
happiness is the same height as man." That is true. So there must be happiness to suit
every man's stature. Such is, my dear pupil and master, my happiness of the day. I
anxiously measure it and measure it again, to see what my stature of the moment is. For,
you know this very well, man's stature is not always the same.
How the soul of man is transformed according to the climate, the silence, the
solitude, or the company in which it lives
Seen from my solitary state, men appear to me not like ants but, on the contrary,
like enormous monsters--dinosaurs, pterodactyls living in an atmosphere saturated with
carbonic acid and thick decaying vegetation from which creation is formed. An
incomprehensible, absurd jungle. The notions of "nation" and "race" of which you are
fond, the notions of a "super-nation" and "humanity" which seduced me, here acquire the
same value under the all-powerful breath of destruction. We feel that we have risen to the
surface to utter a few syllables and sometimes not even syllables, mere inarticulate
sounds: an Ah!, a yes!--after which we are destroyed. And even the most elevated ideas,
if they are dissected, are seen to be no more than puppets stuffed with bran, and hidden in
the bran an iron spring is found.
You know me well enough to realize that these cruel meditations, far from
making me flee, are, on the contrary, indispensable tinder for my inner flaine. Because, as
my master, Buddha, says: "I have seen." And as I have seen and, in the twinkling of an
eye, have got on good terms with the jovial and whimsical, invisible producer, I can
henceforward play my own part on earth to the end, that is to say coherently and without
discouragement. For, having seen, I have also collaborated in the work in which I am
acting on God's stage.
You certainly must consider the life you lead a happy one. And since you
consider it such, such it is. You have also cut your happiness according to your stature;
and your stature now--God be praised--is greater than mine. The good master desires no
greater recompense than this: to form a pupil who surpasses him.
As for me, I often forget, I disparage myself, I lose my way, my faith is a mosaic
of unbelief. Sometimes I feel I should like to make a bargain: to live one brief minute and
give the rest of my life in exchange.
But you keep a firm hold on the helm and you never forget, even in the sweetest
moments of this life, towards which destination you have set your course.
why am I writing this to you? To let you see that I have forgotten none of the
moments we have lived together. And also to have an opportunity of expressing what,
because of our good (or bad) habit of curbing our feelings, I can never reveal to you when
we are together.
Now that you are no longer before me and cannot see my face, and now that I run
no risk of appearing soft or ridiculous, I can tell you I love you very deeply.