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207 STRAIT IS THE GATE

alone in the drawing-room and lay down on the sofa, where Papa thought I looked like my mother, at that very moment I was thinking of her. I slept very badly last night; I was disturbed, oppressed, miserable, haunted by the recollection of the past, which came over me like a wave of remorse. Lord, teach me the horror of all that has any appearance of evil.


Poor Jerome! If he only knew that sometimes he would have but a single sign to make, and that sometimes I wait for him to make it . . When I was a child, even then it was because of him that I wanted to be beautiful. It seems to me now that I have never striven after perfection, except for him. And that this perfection can only be attained without him, is of all Thy teachings, my God! of the one that is most disconcerting to my soul. How happy must that soul be for whom virtue is one with love! Sometimes I doubt whether there is any other virtue than love ... to love as much as possible and continually more and more ... But at other times, alas! virtue appears to me to be nothing but resistance to love. What! shall I dare to call that virtue which is the

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