“He asked me if I had read the _Life of Father de Foucauld_ by René Bazin: and as I pretended to laugh, he assured me that the book had been a revelation to him: ‘Perhaps,’ he added, ‘to live dangerously, in the deeper meaning of the words, lies not so much in seeking God, as in finding Him, and having discovered Him, living within His orbit.’ He described to me, ‘the great adventure of the mystics,’ and complained of his temperament that prevented him attempting it; ‘he could not remember having ever been pure.’ Such shamelessness, such absence of reserve, was such an utter change from our rustic caution, the silence which we all maintain about our inner life. The gossip of Saint Clair does not go below the surface: hearts are never laid bare. What do I really know about Bernard? There must be infinitely more in him than that caricature which seems adequate when I have to bring him to mind. Jean talked, and I said nothing: nothing came to my lips but the usual phrases of our family discussions. Just as in these parts, all the vehicles are built to the same gauge, that is to say, broad enough for the wheels to fit exactly into the ruts made by the farm carts, all my thoughts until that day had been built to fit the mental gauge of my father and my parents-in-law. Jean Azévédo was wearing no hat. I can still see his shirt open over his boyish chest, his rather heavy neck. Was I physically attracted at all? Oh, no, indeed! But he was the first man I had met for whom the life of the mind counted above everything. His masters, his Paris friends, whose sayings or whose books he so constantly mentioned, prevented my thinking of him as in any way unique: he was one of a large and distinguished company,--‘those who live,’ as he called them. He quoted names, not imagining for a moment that I might not know them; and I pretended that it was not the first time I had heard them.