It seems a senseless and yet disquieting thing: very often when I cry, or look at the sea or even watch the sunset upon an enchanted field--I can still see by that odious freak of irony which is at the bottom of our ideals, our dreams and our sufferings--I can still see upon the nose of an old guard we had, father Lejars, a big tumor, grumous and funny with its four hair filaments which proved an excellent attraction for flies.... Whereas the moment which decided my life, which cost me my peace, my honor, and reduced me to the position of a scabby dog; this moment which I passionately wish to reconstruct, to bring back again to memory with the aid of physical reminders and mental associations--this moment I cannot recall. 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.