All my surprise had disappeared, and, although I was perfectly conscious that the adventure was singular, I was in such a state of mind that I did not feel its singularity. I went up to him. He took my arm, and the action seemed quite natural. Were we not old friends? Had I not known him since I was three or four years old? Yes, and although he was certainly much older than I, he had played with me in my cot. All this settled itself clearly in my head. I repeat, from that moment until sunrise the next morning, that is to say, all the time I spent with him, I had not one moment of astonishment. What happened, what I heard, what I said, the unusual phenomena, everything seemed to me to be perfectly in place. So I went up to him, and, when his arm was passed under mine, which I folded very respectfully and with a lover's joy, a long and precious conversation began between us. HE 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 I was greatly surprised, I was frightened, but I walked as if to happiness, as if towards a moment of love. But why did the light go out, at the moment when I came near you? HE Because your curiosity had become desire. No longer could anything stop you. The iron was on its way towards the magnet. Are you happy? I It seems to me that my life is being fulfilled; it seems to me that my past days were only a preparation for the present hour. HE Then you are happy? You are going to be much more so. There are things of which mankind have always appeared to be ignorant. When you have heard them from my lips you will, in that moment, have received the courage to repeat them, and that will win you an eternal glory, a glory that will last as long as the earth itself, perhaps as long as the civilisation of which you are a part. I Is there not another eternity, a true eternity?