There was once a father and a son. A son is like a mirror in which the father beholds himself, and for the son the father too is like a mirror in which he beholds himself in the time to come. […] And the father believed that he was to blame for the son's melancholy, and the son believed that he was the occasion of the father's sorrow - but they never exchanged a word on the subject.

Then the father died, and the son saw much, experienced much, and was tried in manifold temptations; but infinitely inventive as love is, longing and the sense of loss taught him, not indeed to wrest from the silence of eternity a communication, but to imitate the father's voice so perfectly that he was content with the likeness. So he did not look at himself in the mirror […] for the mirror was no longer there; but in loneliness he comforted himself by hearing the father's voice […] For the father was the only one who had understood him, and yet he did not know in fact whether he had understood him.