o understand what was so carefully left unsaid! But the day
when I was reft of your sweet company, I became a true Carmelite, such
as they appeared to us, a modern Danaid, who, instead of trying to fill
a bottomless barrel, draws every day, from Heaven knows what deep, an
empty pitcher, thinking to find it full.

My aunt knew nothing of this inner life. How could she, who has made a
paradise for herself within the two acres of her convent, understand my
revolt against life? A religious life, if embraced by girls of our age,
demands either an extreme simplicity of soul, such as we, sweetheart, do
not possess, or else an ardor for self-sacrifice like that which makes
my aunt so noble a character. But she sacrificed herself for a brother
to whom she was devoted; to do the same for an unknown person or an idea
is surely more than can be asked of mortals.

For the last fortnight I have been gulping down so many reckless words,
burying so many reflections in my bosom, and accumulating such a store
of things to tell, fit for your ear alone, that I should certainly
have been suffocated but for the resource of letter-writing as a sorry
substitute for our beloved talks. How hungry one's heart gets! I am
beginning my journal this morning, and I picture to myself that yours
is already started, and that, in a few days, I shall be at home in your
beautiful Gemenos valley, which I know only through your descriptions,
just as you will live that Paris life, revealed to you hitherto only in
our dreams.

Well, then, sweet child, know that on a certain morning--a red-letter
day in my life--there arrived from Paris a lady companion and Philippe,
the last remaining of my grandmother's valets, charged to carry me off.
When my aunt summoned me to her room and told me the news, I could not
speak for joy, and only gazed at her stupidly.

"My child," she said, in her guttural voice, "I can see that you leave
me without regret, but this farewell is not the last; we shall meet
again. God has placed on your forehead the sign of the elect. You have
the pride which leads to heaven or to hell, but your nature is too noble
to choose the downward path. I know you better than you know yourself;
with you, passion, I can see, will be very different from what it is
with most women."

She drew me gently to her and kissed my forehead. The kiss made my flesh
creep, for it burned with that consuming fire which eats away her life,
which has turned to black t