seen the periwinkles or the violets, but only the irritating and fine
gray rain in the gray sky.

* * * * *

Often I have visualized Heaven for myself. That of my childhood was
the hut an old man had built at the top of a climbing road. This hut
was called _Paradise_. My father brought me there at the hour when the
dark mist of the hills became gilded like a church. I expected, at the
end of each walk, to find God seated in the sun which seemed to sleep
at the summit of the stony pathway. Was I mistaken?

It is less easy for me to imagine the Catholic Paradise: the harps of
azure, the rosy snow of legions in the pure rainbows. I still cling
to my first vision, but since I have known love I have added to the
divine kingdom a warm, sloping lawn in front of the old man's hut. On
it a young girl gathers herbs.

* * * * *

I have simultaneously the soul of a faun and the soul of an
adolescent. And the emotion which I feel on looking upon a woman is
quite contrary to that which I feel on gazing at a young girl. If one
could make one's self understood by the aid of fruits and flowers,
I would offer to the first burning peaches, the rosy blossoms of the
belladonna, heavy roses; to the second, cherries, raspberries, the
blossoms of the wild quince, eglantine, and honeysuckle. I find it
difficult to have any feeling which is not accompanied by the image of
a flower or a fruit. When I think of Martha, I dream of gentians.
With Lucy I associate the white anemones of Japan, and with Marie the