Odette had often been on the verge of sentiments corresponding to this music, primitive, barbarous, perhaps divine, but when music comes to be mingled with our sentiments it reveals them to themselves and amplifies them without measure. Odette saw what she had never dared to see; for the first time she was transported outside of herself, or at least she felt the conviction that she was. It produced in her such an overturning of her points of view as almost to make her dizzy. She suddenly discovered how completely she had considered everything with reference to herself, even in her seemingly most generous moments. At this instant she thought of herself in relation to the incalculable number of persons who were not she. It was not that the moans of humanity were now reaching her for the first time, but it was the first time that the sobs of others came to her ears with a tone of majestic sadness which forced her to grovel upon the earth, saying: "I no longer count; I am only the servant of grief." It was a painful sentiment if there is one, and yet, by a curious contradiction, a sentiment in the same degree joyful. A boundless commiseration caused her heart to throb and tears to come to her eyes, and yet this painful sympathy, far from being cruel or depressing, wrought in her soul an unsuspected outflowering, like an outburst of inconceivable elation in which was mingled bitterness and pity. There is no compensation for the personal suffering that we may experience. On the contrary, in a close and complete union with the sufferings of others is hidden a joy of mutual pain; an active desire to give aid impels to the beginning of a helpful act, provokes to so fervent a prayer for heavenly mercy that the heart no longer knows whether it lies prone in utter distress or has attained to a radiant phase of existence incomparably higher than its paltry estate as an isolated being. The word "love" presents itself to a soul thus irradiated without any sustaining form which might limit its character; it is without extent as without form; as to the source that feeds it, springing up no one knows where, one is convinced that there is no fear that it will ever be exhausted. Odette often wept, but to-day it was with other tears. She took up one of Jean's photographs and found but one word to say to it: "Forgive me!" She understood neither what she felt nor what she was doing, but she was conscious of failing Jean. Not of failing Jean in favor of another, but for the sake of a multitude of others among whom no one man could be discerned. When she was able to formulate a thought, she said to herself: "I was pitying." She might have said: "Charity has taken possession of me." XXXII