“And Douviers’ drama is to have married someone who will always be his superior, do what he may,” rejoined Bernard. “Do what he may ...” echoed Edouard, “--and do what Laura may. The admirable thing is that Laura, out of regret for her fault, out of repentance, wanted to humble herself before him; but he immediately prostrated himself lower still; so that all that each of them did merely served to make _him_ smaller and _her_ greater.” “I pity him very much,” said Bernard. “But why won’t you allow that he too may become greater by prostrating himself?” “Because he lacks the lyrical spirit,” said Edouard irrefutably. “What _do_ you mean?” “He never forgets himself in what he feels, so that he never feels anything great. Don’t push me too hard. I have my own ideas; but they don’t lend themselves to the yard measure, and I don’t care to measure them. Paul-Ambroise is in the habit of saying that he refuses to take count of anything that can’t be put down in figures; I think he is playing on the words ‘take count’; for if that were the case, we should be obliged to leave God out of ‘the account.’ That of course is where he is tending and what he desires.... Well, for instance, I think I call _lyrical_ the state of the man who consents to be vanquished by God.” “Isn’t that exactly what the word _enthusiasm_ means?” “And perhaps the word _inspiration_. Yes, that is just what I mean: Douviers is a being who is incapable of inspiration. I admit that Paul-Ambroise is right when he considers inspiration as one of the most harmful things in art; and I am willing to believe that one can only be an artist on condition of mastering the lyrical state; but in order to master it, one must first of all experience it.” “Don’t you think that this state of divine visitation can be physiologically explained by....” “Much good that will do!” interrupted Edouard. “Such considerations as that, even if they are true, only embarrass fools. No doubt there is no mystical movement that has not its corresponding material manifestation. What then? Mind, in order to bear its witness, cannot do without matter. Hence the mystery of the incarnation.” “On the other hand, matter does admirably without mind.” “Oh, ho! we don’t know about that!” said Edouard, laughing. Bernard was very much amused to hear him talk in this way. As a rule Edouard was more reserved. The mood he was in to-day came from Olivier’s presence. Bernard understood it. “He is talking to me as he would like already to be talking to him,” thought he. “It is Olivier who ought to be his secretary. As soon as Olivier is well again, I shall retire. My place is not here.” He thought this without bitterness, entirely taken up as he now was by Sarah, with whom he had spent the preceding night and whom he was to see that night too. “We’ve left Douviers a long way behind,” he said, laughing in his turn. “Will you tell him about Vincent?” “Goodness no! What for?”