Page 866 - les-miserables

CHAPTER I

THE CONVENT AS AN

ABSTRACT IDEA

This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the In-
finite.
Man is the second.
Such being the case, and a convent having happened to
be on our road, it has been our duty to enter it. Why? Be-
cause the convent, which is common to the Orient as well
as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to modern times,
to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as
to Christianity, is one of the optical apparatuses applied by
man to the Infinite.
This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on
certain ideas; nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining
our reserves, our restrictions, and even our indignations, we
must say that every time we encounter man in the Infinite,
either well or ill understood, we feel ourselves overpowered
with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the mosque,
in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we
execrate, and a sublime side, which we adore. What a con-

866 Les Miserables