Page:Gide - Strait is the Gate.pdf/225
for as long as God shall continue to think it necessary.
I like this room. The walls need no other decoration than their perfect cleanliness. I was quite astonished to feel almost joyful. The reason is that I expect nothing more from life—that I must be content now with God, and His love is sweet only if it fills to completion whatever space there is within us. . . .
The only book I have brought with me is the Bible; but to-day there sounded in me louder than any words I find there, this wild and passionate sob of Pascal's:
“Whatever is not God cannot satisfy my longing."
Oh! too human joy, that my imprudent heart desired . . . Was it to wring this cry from me Lord, that Thou hast thus bereft me?
12th October.
Thy Kingdom come! May it come in me; so that Thou alone mayest reign over me and reign over the whole of me. I will no longer grudge Thee my heart.
Though I am as tired as if I were very old, my soul keeps a strange childishness. I am still the