I could stifle my own consciousness.

"I can still remember how, in those days, a shudder like the chill of
death ran through my frame, as, one after another, I heard all the main
points of the creed which my benumbed brain had for months vainly
striven to comprehend, echo loudly through the church, and at each one
a voice within me shrieked 'no! no!' and yet the 'yes' fell from my
lips, and I suddenly felt as though I were dead, since I had so
publicly and solemnly belied my own nature. It seemed as if I had
forsworn my existence, renounced what was nearest for something alien,
and taken what must ever be foreign to my character as my dearest
possession. Oh! the shame, the confusion, in which I returned and was
forced to allow myself to be congratulated on my disgrace and
degradation. For months I have been unable to regain my courage, or
enter into cordial relations with myself, so utterly was I crushed.

"In those days, no palliating circumstances occurred to me, neither the
timidity natural to my sixteen years, nor the horror that would have
filled the solemn space if I had told the truth, nay I did not even
think of the true motive of my decision, the grief I should have caused
my dear father by a step so unprecedented. I heard only my own voice
professing a religion of which my heart knew nothing, nay which to
myself I had even clearly refuted, openly refused, and yet now
acknowledged as the substance of my deepest thoughts and feelings. It
weighed upon my conscience like a perjury; then I burned the books.

"Why have I now commenced a new one? What have I to discuss with
myself? Ah! the silence which I have become accustomed to keep, because
I fear the sound of my own thoughts, has at last reached such a point
that nature and the world and my own heart are also dumb to me. There
is no one to whom I could utter my secret feelings. My father would be
frightened if he should see such deep gulfs and lonely heights in my
soul. Aunt Valentin speaks a different language, and others who come to
the house take me for a strange and not very lovable girl, who has few
attractions.

"It's all the same. On the whole, silence makes us far happier; but we
ought not to forget to talk to ourselves. I will practice the art
again. Hitherto I have always lived at peace with myself, except for
that one great discord.

"And that--I have now clearly perceived it--is the fault of the bad
habit of expecting young people, just as they