There are some material fortunes which humble and reasonable men do not
desire because they divine, in spite of the pleasures that result from
them, what a crushing load they are.
By contrast, among the spiritual riches that we are able to possess,
grief seems surrounded by a simple aureole. It is tyrannical,
redoubtable, mutilating; its favorites are its victims. It does not
descend upon its chosen ones with the softness of a dove, it pounces
like a bird of prey, and those whom it carries off into the sky bear
upon their sides the marks of its clenched claws.
But it is the sign of life; of all our possessions it is the last to
leave us, it is the one that escorts us to the brink of the abyss.
It gives us the measure of man. He who has not suffered always seems to
us a little like a child or a pauper.
The bitterness of men who have been often visited by sorrow is so truly
a treasure that, if they could, they would not rid themselves of it for
anything in the world: it resembles authority.
Through his tears, through his martyrdom, he who is charged with a
great sorrow feels that he is the abode of some terrible thing that is
also sacred and majestic. Great griefs command our respect. Before
them knees tremble and heads bow as in the presence of thrones and
tabernacles.
He who has suffered greatly makes us feel timid and humble before
him. He knows things that we can only guess. We gaze upon him with
passionate admiration as upon a traveller who has journeyed over oceans
and explored far countries. It is at the time of his first wounds that
the young man discovers his soul and plumbs his inner nobility.
Our grief is so precious a blessing that for its sake we dread
inquisitive contacts. We preserve it jealously from the touch of those
who might, through clumsiness or stupidity, debase this terrible and
precious treasure. We long only that people should leave us alone with
this bitter possession! Let them beware of frustrating us when they
imagine that they are working for our relief!
When sorrow leaves us too soon, we feel a sort of shame and think less
well of ourselves: it shone out of its shadowy casket, out of the
deepest depths of the chest where we heap up our true treasures, and
now, behold, it has vanished! We find ourselves almost miserable and
utterly dispossessed.
The man who beats a retreat before a great ordeal fills us with
distrust and pity. Something in us rejoices that he has not suffered.
But something regrets that he has not given his measure, that he has
not been the hero, the potent, exceptional man we hoped he would be.
And that is not a mere perversion of our need for the spectacular: we
are not less exacting with ourselves.
When sorrow comes to us, and we manage to escape it, the first sense of
deliverance we feel is marred by an obscure, obstinate regret, as if we
had lost an opportunity to enrich ourselves.
Tell me, what man among us did not, at the outset of the present
great catastrophe, interrogate his own fate with a double anguish:
the anguish to know what sufferings were in store for him, the fear
also that he might not suffer enough, that he might not receive, and
quickly, an adequate share of the ordeal.