“Stay with Edouard; you’ll help him; and let him help you. He is very good.” The luncheon bell rang. Bernard rose. Laura took his hand: “Just one thing--that little coin you showed us yesterday ... in remembrance of you, when I go away”--she pulled herself together and this time was able to finish her sentence--“would you give it me?” “Here it is,” said Bernard, “take it.” V EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: CONVERSATION WITH SOPHRONISKA _C’est ce qui arrive de presque toutes les maladies de l’esprit humain qu’on se flatte d’avoir guéries. On les répercute seulement, comme on dit en médecine, et on leur en substitue d’autres._ SAINTE-BEUVE (_Lundis_, I, p. 19) I AM beginning to catch sight of what I might call the “deep-lying subject” of my book. It is--it will be--no doubt, the rivalry between the real world and the representation of it which we make to ourselves. The manner in which the world of appearances imposes itself upon us, and the manner in which we try to impose on the outside world our own interpretation--this is the drama of our lives. The resistance of facts invites us to transport our ideal construction into the realm of dreams, of hope, of belief in a future life, which is fed by all the disappointments and disillusions of our present one. Realists start from facts--fit their ideas to suit the facts. Bernard is a realist. I am afraid we shall never understand each other. How could I agree when Sophroniska told me I had nothing of the mystic in me? I am quite ready to recognize, as she does, that without mysticism man can achieve nothing great. But is it not precisely my mysticism which Laura incriminates when I speak of my book?... Well, let them settle the argument as they please. Sophroniska has been speaking to me again about Boris, from whom she thinks she has succeeded in obtaining a full confession. The poor child has not got the smallest covert, the smallest tuft left in him, where he can take shelter from the doctor’s scrutiny. He has been driven into the open. Sophroniska takes to bits the innermost wheels of his mental organism and spreads them out in the broad daylight, like a watchmaker cleaning the works of a clock. If after that he does not keep good time, it’s a hopeless job. This is what Sophroniska told me: