This man, who knows hardly anything of my past life, seems during our last interview to have had the purpose of wounding me on all my sore points, and it seemed as though he guessed my most secret thoughts and intentions, which are yet only known to myself. As I remarked something of this sort to him, a light seemed to break upon him, "Is that not the Devil?" he broke out. "I thought there was something wrong, for the whole evening you could not open your mouth without wounding me to the quick, but I saw by your quiet face and friendly expression that you had nothing evil in your mind." We tried to defy the malefic influence. But for three days in succession my friend traversed the long road to me in vain. I was not there, nor did he find me where I usually dine. Thus loneliness closes round me again like a thick darkness. It is nearly Christmas-time, and the being without home and family oppresses me. The whole of life becomes distasteful, and I begin again, in consequence, to look after what is from above. I buy the _Imitation of Christ_ and read it. It is not the first time that this wonderful book has fallen into my hands, but this time it finds the ground prepared. Its purport is to die, while yet alive, to the world,--the contemptible, wearisome, filthy world. The unknown author has the remarkable faculty of not preaching or reproaching, but he speaks in a friendly way, convincingly, logically, and invitingly. He regards our sorrows not as punishments but tests, and thereby arouses in us the ambition to endure. Now I have Jesus again, not Christ this time, and He steals softly in to me, as though He came in velvet sandals. And the Christmas-displays in the Rue Bonaparte help towards the belief: there is the Christ-child in the manger, the Jesus-child with royal mantle and crown, the Child-redeemer on the Virgin's arm, the Child playing, lying, and on the cross. Yes, the Child! Him I can understand. The God who has so long heard the lamentations of men over the misery of mortal life that He finally resolved to descend, to let Himself be born and to live, in order to prove how hard it is to drag oneself about with a human life. _Him_ I comprehend.