. . . . . . . . . .
Many years have passed since that terrible adventure. Thank Heaven!
I make silhouettes no longer, nor portraits of burgomasters. Through
hard work and perseverance, I have conquered my place in the world,
and I earn my living honorably by painting works of art--the sole
end, in my opinion, to which a true artist should aspire. But the
memory of that nocturnal sketch has always remained in my mind.
Sometimes, in the midst of work, the thought of it recurs. Then I
lay down my palette and dream for hours.
How could a crime committed by a man that I did not know--at a place
that I had never seen--have been reproduced by my pencil, in all its
smallest details?
Was it chance? No! And moreover, what is chance but the effect of a
cause of which we are ignorant?
Was Schiller right when he said: "The immortal soul does not
participate in the weaknesses of matter; during the sleep of the
body, it spreads its radiant wings and travels, God knows where!
What it then does, no one can say, but inspiration sometimes betrays
the secret of its nocturnal wanderings."
Who knows? Nature is more audacious in her realities than man in his
most fantastic imaginings.