In Homer’s time, it’s said that the gods often took on the form of a beggar in order to test human beings. We have no greater idea.
— Yes, the old priest said to me, but in the end these are fables; in that time, people hardly believed in them, and nor do you.
—It’s quickly said, I replied, to believe that people don’t believe. An old man, one-eyed and poor came to knock at my door and besides alms I gave him some fraternal words. It’s not my custom to speak to gods of wood and stone. So I assumed some thought in him. Some thought, that is, thinking. I don’t believe that thinking is a small thing.
—A mark of the divine, said the priest, but almost erased in this beggar, apparently.
—Unbeliever, I said, I’ve caught you out. By Jove, if this beggar had taught me astronomy I would not have had to believe that he was thinking, I would have known. Here I believe and that even against the evidence.
—It is through doctrine, said the priest, that we should believe. The revelation of the bible bears the hallmark of a shining reason; that’s why I believe this beggar is my brother and yours.
—I admit, I said to him, that I don’t know when Homer wrote. Similarly, I don’t know if the revelation of my fellow man was given to others at that moment of history. I take this beggar as he is; as a man, which is not a little. However ignorant he may be, he perhaps knows what matters. Perhaps he’s given to someone poorer than he is; perhaps he’s recognised his brother in someone more wretched than himself; perhaps he’s kept some promise or a secret, against threats or temptation. Perhaps he’s simply thought that it would be good to do so. I can’t place a limitation on him, or then it’s not worth saying that he’s a human being. In the end I’ve judged him to be my equal. My equal. Admit that my equal is well above me. My equal is my judge.
—Man, man, always man, said the priest. That’s where you are limited.
—But, I said, I don’t see the limitation. And don’t you teach that man became God on one occasion! And so on every occasion.
—These are fantasies, he said. There’s the church bell for Christmas. A birth will be celebrated once more. The redeemer is born; the peoples witness it; one must believe; that’s believing.
—If it didn’t offend the rule of charity, I replied, I’d say that I am more of a believer than you. A child is like a beggar. What do I know of this tiny worm? Yet, without any evidence at all I believe everything of it. I can assume the greatest genius imaginable. Why anything less? By what right less? I’m watching out for the god. What is teaching if not that? I’m learning from the mother here, because she has no doubts. In those cries, she’s watching out for a thought. So I come back to my idea, which is worth more than hope, because it is faith. Just a human being, and by this shaft of thought alone, he or she will play their part in the human world. Suppose the newborn are not human beings. Everything totters. The kings tremble. A king is nothing without his guards. A king knows the price of loyalty. What am I saying? Among all human beings he is the one who knows its price. The magi came to the cradle; I see them there still, honouring this child and praying for him to be a man.
—This is, he said, a unique and solemn night. Why do you reject the signs?
—The stars, I said, show us great signs. I know, from the stars now rising, that the days will lengthen and the daisy will flower. The flesh supports the spirit; this hope supports the other. So it’s a festival today, a festival for the best of our thoughts. That bell announces salvation. What can I do better than that?
—Not to believe in them so much, he said.
Alain, 20/01/1928
La version originale figure à cette date dans le tome 2 de la Pléiade.
Traduction par Michel Petheram, seul détenteur des droits sur le texte anglais. / English translation copyright © Michel Petheram