_Nov. 7th._--Nothing that I wrote yesterday is true. Only this remains--that reality interests me inasmuch as it is plastic, and that I care more--infinitely more--for what may be than for what has been. I lean with a fearful attraction over the depths of each creature’s possibilities and weep for all that lies atrophied under the heavy lid of custom and morality. * * * * * Here Bernard was obliged to pause. His eyes were blurred. He was gasping as if the eagerness with which he read had made him forget to breathe. He opened the window and filled his lungs before taking another plunge. His friendship for Olivier was no doubt very great; he had no better friend and there was no one in the world he loved so much, now that he could no longer love his parents; and indeed he clung to this affection in a manner that was almost excessive; but Olivier and he did not understand friendship quite in the same way. Bernard, as he progressed in his reading, felt with more and more astonishment and admiration, though with a little pain too, what diversity this friend he thought he knew so well, was capable of showing. Olivier had never told him anything of what the journal recounted. He hardly knew of the existence of Armand and Sarah. How different Olivier was with them to what he was with him!... In that room of Sarah’s, on that bed, would Bernard have recognized his friend? There mingled with the immense curiosity which drove him on to read so precipitately, a queer feeling of discomfort--disgust or pique. He had felt a little of this pique a moment before, when he had seen Olivier on Edouard’s arm--pique at being out of it. This kind of pique may lead very far and may make one commit all sorts of follies--like every kind of pique for that matter. Well, we must go on. All this that I have been saying is only to put a little air between the pages of this journal. Now that Bernard has got his breath back again, we will return to it. He dives once more into its pages. XIII EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: FIRST VISIT TO LA PÉROUSE _On tire peu de service des vieillards._ VAUVENARGUES. _Nov. 8th._--Old Monsieur and Madame de la Pérouse have changed houses again. Their new apartment, which I had never seen so far, is an _entresol_ in the part of the Faubourg St. Honoré which makes a little recess before it cuts across the Boulevard Haussmann. I rang the bell. La Pérouse opened the door. He was in his shirt sleeves and was wearing a sort of yellowish whitish night-cap on his head, which I finally made out to be an old stocking (Madame de La Pérouse’s no doubt) tied in a knot, so that the foot dangled on his cheek like a tassel. He was holding a bent poker in his hand. I had evidently caught him at some domestic job, and as he seemed rather confused: “Would you like me to come back later?” I asked.