[...] with what blind obstinacy I had deceived myself! It was I alone who had built up the image of our friendship over the last three years; I still clung to it today because of the past, and now the past was nothing but a lie. Everything was falling to pieces. I felt I wanted to burn all my boats behind me; to love someone else, or set off for the ends of the earth.

And then I chided myself. It was my own dream that was at fault, not Jacques. What had I to reproach him with? He had never set himself up as a hero or a saint and he had even told me himself that he was no good. The quotation in the Jouve had been a warning; he had tried to talk to me about Magda, but I had not made it easy for him to be frank. Besides, I had long suspected, and even known the truth. What was it within me that could be so shocked by it? My old Roman Catholic prejudices? I felt my equanimity had been restored. It was I who had been wrong in wanting life to conform to a preconceived ideal; it was for me to show myself equal to everything life might bring. I had always preferred reality to the mirage; I brought my meditation to a pious close by priding myself on having stumbled on a solid problem, and on having successfully solved it.