The purifying force of the avowal depends upon the quality of the soul
that makes it and of the soul that receives it. Once that the balance is
established, avowals raise the level of happiness and love. So soon as
they are confessed, old lies or new, the most serious weaknesses change
into unexpected ornaments and, like beautiful statues in a park, become
the smiling witnesses and placid demonstrations of the clearness of the
day.
We all desire to attain that blissful sincerity; but we are long fearful
lest those who love us should love us less if we revealed to them that
which we scarcely dare reveal to ourselves. It seems to us as though
certain avowals would disfigure for ever the image which they have
formed of us. If it were true that the avowals would disfigure it, that
would be a proof that we are not loved on the same scale as that on
which we love. If he who receives the avowal cannot rise to the height
of loving us the more for that avowal, there is a misunderstanding in
our love. It is not he who makes the avowal that should blush, but he
who does not yet understand that we have overcome a wrong by the very
act of confessing it. It is not we but a stranger who now stands in the
place where we committed a fault. The fault itself we have eliminated
from our being. It no longer sullies any save him who hesitates to admit
that it sullies us no longer. It has nothing more in common with our
real life. We are no longer anything but the accidental witness of it
and no more responsible for it than a good soil is responsible for an
ill weed or a mirror for an ugly reflection that passes across it.