Book excerpt: The moonlight filters the room. It is soothing. We would like the day, like the night star, to be discreet, subdued, conspicuous, but more stable, less exposed to the eclipse of a somber cloud...We would like people to have peaceful habits...We would like the world to offer less disconcerted aspects...However, reality doesn't often come close to this harmony of light and shadow; it rather bathes in a universe of troubling contrasts.