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STRAIT IS THE GATE 130

further to this inexplicable sadness. When you wrote to me from Italy, I was able to see every thing through you; now I feel as if I were depriving you of whatever I look at without you . And then at Fongueusemare or at Le Havre I had made myself a kind of rough - weather virtue, for use on rainy days; here, this virtue seems out of place, and I feel uneasily that there is no occasion for it. The laughter of the people and the country jars upon me; perhaps what I call being sad is simply not being so noisy as they. No doubt there was some pride in my joy formerly, for at present, in the midst of this alien gaiety, what I feel is not unlike humiliation. “I have scarcely been able to pray since I have been here: I have the childish feeling that God is no longer in the same place. Good - bye; I must stop now. I am ashamed of this blasphemy, and of my weakness, and of my sadness, and of confessing them, and of writing you all this which I should tear up tomorrow if it were not posted tonight. The next letter spoke only of the birth of her niece, whose god - mother she was to be, of Juliette's joy and of my uncle's, but of her own feelings there was no further question.

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