. How make myself heard? I do not
know.... Since truth is triumphant, the announcement of my presence may
be triumphant also. It may write 'I love him' all over me before we
shake hands or even give each other the first look.

"She knows. She knows everything. I feel bathed in a vast thankfulness.
Just imagine: when people talk of you, she is the only one in the world
who knows down to the very roots of her being the full content of their
words. It is as if I were speaking to God.

"Well, I begin. Laughing, crying I impart what cannot be imparted. I
hurry. The words flowing from my lips warm me with their generous wine,
and I hear love pouring forth.

"I see myself, almost on my knees, scarcely perceiving her. Is it to her
that I address myself? I speak merely in order to remove a barrier
obstructing the light and to say the truth.

"In the breathless words that I pour out at her feet it is not a
question perhaps of either her or myself. Why should it be? I never
considered that I was doing her a wrong. If she reads my face, she will
see things as they are. Have I turned anything away from her, have I
diminished her portion, have I deprived her of anything? I have simply
given you everything.

"Don't say she might repulse me and would be right if she did, because
that, after all, would be the human way to act. Human to you means
everything that deceives itself and denies the essential grace,
everything that falls and dies in the mud of the road. Are you quite
sure that a woman when she loves does not feel that sort of humanity
die?

* * * * *

"You look at me dubiously. Of course you cannot know. You men tolerate
an understanding between two women when it exists for the sake of
cherishing the dust-covered memory of a man. A tomb reassures you. You
will never allow life as a pretext. According to you we have no right to
a sisterhood until it is too late.

* * * * *

"In my unfailing and fatal sincerity I say your wife might understand.
Truth striking the ear is bound to impress. And that I should be alive
as I am alive at this moment, with the eloquence and magic that spring
from real presences, is also bound to impress. Look at me. Need I say a
single word? Isn't a great love with eyes uplifted convincing?

"When you tell me sometimes that I am beautiful, it is like a gift. She
would see me bearing this gift, and if she perceived her forty years