"I shall never forget that night of December," writes Jouffroy,
"in which the veil that concealed from me my own incredulity was
torn. I hear again my steps in that narrow naked chamber where
long after the hour of sleep had come I had the habit of walking
up and down. I see again that moon, half-veiled by clouds,
which now and again illuminated the frigid window-panes. The
hours of the night flowed on and I did not note their passage.
Anxiously I followed my thoughts, as from layer to layer they
descended towards the foundation of my consciousness, and,
scattering one by one all the illusions which until then had
screened its windings from my view, made them every moment more
clearly visible.
"Vainly I clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailor
clings to the fragments of his vessel; vainly, frightened at the
unknown void in which I was about to float, I turned with them
towards my childhood, my family, my country, all that was dear
and sacred to me: the inflexible current of my thought was too
strong--parents, family, memory, beliefs, it forced me to let go
of everything.
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