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Les confessions de Saint Augustin

CHAPITRE VIII. SA DOULEUR DIMINUE AVEC LE TEMPS.

13. Le temps n’est pas oisif; et nos sentiments portent la trace de son cours; il fait dans notre âme de merveilleuses oeuvres. Et il venait, il passait jour à jour, et son flot m’apportait d’autres images, d’autres souvenirs, et me rendait peu à peu le goût de mes premières joies ; ma douleur se repliait devant elles : et c’étaient, sinon de nouvelles douleurs, du moins des germes d’afflictions futures que je semais en moi. Car la douleur eût-elle si facilement pénétré dans l’intimité de mon être, si je n’avais répandu mon âme sur le sable, en aimant un mortel comme s’il ne devait pas mourir? Or, je trouvais distraction et soulagement dans les consolations de mes amis qui aimaient avec moi ce que j’aimais au lieu de vous. Longue fiction, long mensonge, voluptés adultères de l’esprit, stimulées par le commerce de la parole. Mais si l’un de mes amis venait à mourir, ce mensonge ne laissait pas de vivre.

Ces liaisons s’emparaient de mon âme par des charmes encore plus puissants; échanges de doux propos, d’enjouement, de bienveillants témoignages; agréables lectures, badinages honnêtes, affectueuses civilités; rares dissentiments, sans aigreur, comme on en a avec soi-même; léger assaisonnement de contradiction, sel qui relève l’unanimité trop constante; instruction réciproque; impatients regrets des amis absents, joyeux accueil à leur bienvenue.

Tous ces doux témoignages que les coeurs amis expriment de l’air, de la langue, des yeux, par mille mouvements pleins de caresses, sont comme autant de foyers où les esprits se fondent et se réduisent à l’unité.

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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter VIII.--That His Grief Ceased by Time, and the Consolation of Friends.

13. Times lose no time, nor do they idly roll through our senses. They work strange operations on the mind. ¹ Behold, they came and went from day to day, and by coming and going they disseminated in my mind other ideas and other remembrances, and by little and little patched me up again with the former kind of delights, unto which that sorrow of mine yielded. But yet there succeeded, not certainly other sorrows, yet the causes of other sorrows. ² For whence had that former sorrow so easily penetrated to the quick, but that I had poured out my soul upon the dust, in loving one who must die as if he were never to die? But what revived and refreshed me especially was the consolations of other friends, ³ with whom I did love what instead of Thee I loved. And this was a monstrous fable and protracted lie, by whose adulterous contact our soul, which lay itching in our ears, was being polluted. But that fable would not die to me so oft as any of my friends died. There were other things in them which did more lay hold of my mind,--to discourse and jest with them; to indulge in an interchange of kindnesses; to read together pleasant books; together to trifle, and together to be earnest; to differ at times without ill-humour, as a man would do with his own self; and even by the infrequency of these differences to give zest to our more frequent consentings; sometimes teaching, sometimes being taught; longing for the absent with impatience, and welcoming the coming with joy. These and similar expressions, emanating from the hearts of those who loved and were beloved in return, by the countenance, the tongue, the eyes, and a thousand pleasing movements, were so much fuel to melt our souls together, and out of many to make but one.