Un jour, ayant rencontré dans un livre de Bergotte, à propos d’une vieille servante, une plaisanterie que le magnifique et solennel langage de l’écrivain rendait encore plus ironique mais qui était la même que j’avais souvent faite à ma grand’mère en parlant de Françoise, une autre fois où je vis qu’il ne jugeait pas indigne de figurer dans un de ces miroirs de la vérité qu’étaient ses ouvrages, une remarque analogue à celle que j’avais eu l’occasion de faire sur notre ami M. Legrandin (remarques sur Françoise et M. Legrandin qui étaient certes de celles que j’eusse le plus délibérément sacrifiées à Bergotte, persuadé qu’il les trouverait sans intérêt), il me sembla soudain que mon humble vie et les royaumes du vrai n’étaient pas aussi séparés que j’avais cru, qu’ils coïncidaient même sur certains points, et de confiance et de joie je pleurai sur les pages de l’écrivain comme dans les bras d’un père retrouvé. →
And so, when I had found, one day, in a book by Bergotte, some joke about an old family servant, to which his solemn and magnificent style added a great deal of irony, but which was in principle what I had often said to my grandmother about Françoise, and when, another time, I had discovered that he thought not unworthy of reflection in one of those mirrors of absolute Truth which were his writings, a remark similar to one which I had had occasion to make on our friend M. Legrandin (and, moreover, my remarks on Françoise and M. Legrandin were among those which I would most resolutely have sacrificed for Bergotte's sake, in the belief that he would find them quite without interest); then it was suddenly revealed to me that my own humble existence and the Realms of Truth were less widely separated than I had supposed, that at certain points they were actually in contact; and in my new-found confidence and joy I wept upon his printed page, as in the arms of a long-lost father.