I had spent the year moaning over the vanity of human aims: but I had pursued my own with tenacious zeal. I passed in general Philosophy. Simone Weil headed the list followed by me, and then by a student from the Normale called Jean Pradelle. I also passed my certificate in Greek. Mademoiselle Lambert was exultant, my parents smiled upon me; at the Sorbonne, at home, everyone congratulated me. I was very happy. These successes confirmed the good opinion I had of myself, they assured me a brilliant future, I attached great importance to them and not for anything in the world would I have thrown them away. Nevertheless I didn’t forget that all success cloaks a surrender, and I thought my tears were justified. I kept repeating to myself with furious intensity the phrase which Martin du Gard puts into the mouth of Jacques Thibault: ‘This is what they’ve brought me to!’ I had been reduced to the persona of a brilliant, gifted student, when I was really only the pathetic absence of the Absolute! There was a certain self-deception in my tears; yet I don’t think they were just play-acting. In the hurly-burly accompanying the end of the summer term, I was bitterly conscious of the emptiness in my heart. I went on longing passionately for that something else which I couldn’t put a name to because I refused to give it the only name I knew for it: happiness.