“And yet, through excess of confidence you might make a mistake....” “Every time I have made a mistake, it has been because my confidence was not great enough. To-day, when I allowed the children to go out, I couldn’t help showing them I was a little uneasy. They felt it. All the rest followed from that.” She had taken my hand. “You don’t seem to believe in the virtue of convictions.... I mean in their power as an active principle.” “You are right,” I said laughing. “I am not a mystic.” “Well, as for me,” she cried in an admirable burst of enthusiasm, “I believe with my whole soul that without mysticism nothing great, nothing fine can be accomplished in this world.” Discovered the name of Victor Strouvilhou in the visitors’ book. From what the hotel-keeper says, he must have left Saas-Fée two days before our arrival, after staying here nearly a month. I should have been curious to see him again. No doubt Sophroniska talked to him. I must ask her about him. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 4: The state records of each individual citizen, in which are noted the legal facts of his existence.] IV BERNARD AND LAURA “I WANTED to ask you, Laura,” said Bernard, “whether you think there exists anything in this world that mayn’t become a subject of doubt.... So much so, that I wonder whether one couldn’t take doubt itself as a starting point; for that, at any rate, will never fail us. I may doubt the reality of everything, but not the reality of my doubt. I should like.... Forgive me if I express myself pedantically--I am not pedantic by nature, but I have just left the _lycée_, and you have no idea what a stamp is impressed on the mind by the philosophical training of our last year; I will get rid of it I promise you.” “Why this parenthesis? You would like...?” “I should like to write a story of a person who starts by listening to everyone, who consults everyone like Panurge, before deciding to do anything; after having discovered that the opinions of all these people are contradictory in every point, he makes up his mind to consult no one but himself, and thereupon becomes a person of great capacity.” “It’s the idea of an old man,” said Laura.