The hermit speaks. – The art of dealing with people depends essentially on the skill (requiring much practice) to accept and eat a meal prepared in a kitchen you don’t trust. If you come to the table ravenous, all is easy (‘the worst company makes itself felt’ – as Mephistopheles says);36 but one is never that hungry when one needs to be! Oh, how hard it is to digest one’s fellow men! First principle: as in the face of misfortune, to engage your courage, to spring boldly to action, to admire yourself in the process, to sink your teeth into your reluctance, to swallow your disgust. Second principle: to ‘improve’ your fellow man, e.g. by praising him so as to make him start sweating out his pleasure in himself, or by taking hold of a corner of his good or ‘interesting’ qualities and pulling at it until all the virtue comes out and you can hide your fellow man in its folds. Third principle: self-hypnosis. To fixate on your object of association as if on a glass button until you stop feeling pleasure and displeasure in this activity and fall asleep without noticing it, become rigid, and attain equanimity: a home remedy amply tested in marriage and friendship, praised as indispensable but not yet scientifically analysed. Its popular name is – patience.