One day you were having an affectionate conversation with Maurin. You were delighted with one another, delighted to be together, satisfied with your fellowship, your mutual possession. You were not talking of anything very private. But then Blèche came up, Blèche with whom you have such profitable, such intimate talks, and all the charm of Maurin’s company disappeared without your being able to compensate yourself with the usual pleasure you take in the society of Blèche. This was because, in the presence of both, you could not give each one what you are accustomed to give him, nor could you ask from him what he gives only to you. These combinations, like those of the chemists, demand much care and judgment. Don’t protest! Don’t exclaim that such notions are too subtle, too complex: you do not receive all your friends pell-mell. However much of an epicure you may be, you still give more attention to the selection of your guests than to the composition of the menu. Of what importance is the most delicate fare in comparison with the delight the conversation of carefully chosen human beings gives us? That is why, when you are sure of two persons for whom you feel an interest that borders on passion, you experience such a delicious anxiety at the moment of presenting them to one another, of bringing them together in your presence. You are like the maker of fireworks who is about to mix changeable substances with explosive properties in his mortar. You weigh them carefully and combine them in well-defined proportions. You take time preparing each of the spiritual elements of this mixture. And when the union is accomplished, you seem to be saying to each of them: “I have prepared a magnificent gift for you. Come, now, and know one another.” Your heart throbs, because each of them is not only going to know the other but is going to learn to know you through the eyes of the other. Could there be a better reason for living? XI However brief may be the intercourse we have with a man, we always come away from it somewhat modified: we find we are a little greater than we were before, or a little less great, better or worse, exalted or diminished. I have learned this from having, in the course of my life, approached many men, both famous and obscure, who do not dream what I owe them or the harm they have been able to do me. We instinctively recognize and classify individuals according to this faculty they have, some of drawing us out, others of crushing us. It is a faculty they usually exert without knowing it, even against their will: they are tonic or depressing just as one is short or tall, just as one has black eyes or green. But the comparison breaks down in this respect, that it is always possible to modify the reaction we produce on others.