never quarreling with ourselves, how much less so when there are two?
This is a problem which God alone can solve.

I begin to think that I shall return to the convent. If I remain in
society, I shall do things which will look like follies, for I cannot
possibly reconcile myself to what I see. I am perpetually wounded
either in my sense of delicacy, my inner principles, or my secret
thoughts.

Ah! my mother is the happiest of women, adored as she is by Canalis,
her great little man. My love, do you know I am seized sometimes with
a horrible craving to know what goes on between my mother and that
young man? Griffith tells me she has gone through all these moods; she
has longed to fly at women, whose happiness was written in their face;
she has blackened their character, torn them to pieces. According to
her, virtue consists in burying all these savage instincts in one's
innermost heart. But what then of the heart? It becomes the sink of
all that is worst in us.

It is very humiliating that no adorer has yet turned up for me. I am a
marriageable girl, but I have brothers, a family, relations, who are
sensitive on the point of honor. Ah! if that is what keeps men back,
they are poltroons.

The part of Chimene in the _Cid_ and that of the Cid delight me. What
a marvelous play! Well, good-bye.



VIII