Thus it is that in the course of my life there happened
a tremendous, a singular event, since all the subsequent occurrences flow from it, and yet the recollection of it escapes me entirely! . . . I remember neither
the occasion, nor the place, nor the circumstances, nor
the immediate cause of that event. . . . What do I
know then about myself? . . . What do people in general know about themselves, when they are hopelessly
unable to trace the sources of their actions? Nothing,
nothing, nothing! And must one explain the enigmas
which our mental phenomena and the manifestation
of our so-called will represent, by the promptings of
this blind mysterious force, the fatality of human nature? . . . That is not speaking to the point, however.
I said that I had met Lirat one evening by accident, in a place I don't remember and that instantly I took a fancy to him. . . . He was the most original of men. . . . With his forbidding appearance, his machine-like and magisterial stiffness and his air of a petty official, he at first made the impression of a typical functionary, of some orleanist puppet such as are manufactured in the politicians' clubs and drawing rooms for the punch and judy show of parliaments and academies. From a distance, he positively looked like one who is in the habit of distributing decorations, excize offices and prizes for valor! This impression, however, quickly disappeared; for this it was sufficient to listen, if only for five minutes, to his conversation, lucid, colorful, bristling with original ideas, and above all to feel the power of his glance, his extraordinary glance, exhilarated and cold at the same time, a glance to which all things seemed familiar, which went through you like a gimlet against your will.
I liked him very much, only in my liking for him there was lacking the element of tenderness, of kindliness; I liked him with a sort of fear and uneasiness,
