The beauty of humans

摘要

The village of Trosly-Breuil, north of Paris, lay so close to the forest of Compiegne that it seemed about to be engulfed by it. The village mental institution, which Jean Vanier visited in the early 1960s, was gloomier still, a place of horror. With little work to do, the young men sat around for most of the day. They were not allowed to leave the building. Some were violent, and screaming; they were pacified with injections. He was struck by an overwhelming atmosphere of sadness. But amid that sadness shone the beauty of the human beings incarcerated there.