tile climb up
and hide himself in our bosom.

The nectar of earthly joys, however innocent they be, is sweet indeed to
the taste; but afterward it is converted into gall, and into the venom
of the serpent.

It is true--I can no longer deny it to you--I ought not to have allowed
my eyes to rest with so much complacency on this dangerous woman.

I do not deem myself lost; but I feel my soul troubled.

Even as the thirsty hart desires and seeks the water-brooks, so does my
soul still seek God. To God does it turn that he may give it rest; it
longs to drink at the torrent of his delights the gushing forth of which
rejoices paradise, and whose clear waves make whiter than snow but deep
calleth unto deep, and my feet have stuck fast in the mire that is
hidden in their abysses.

Yet have I still breath and voice to cry out with the psalmist: "Arise,
my joy! if thou dost take my part, who shall prevail against me?"

I say unto my sinful soul, full of the chimerical imaginations and
sinful desires engendered by unlawful thoughts: "O miserable daughter
of Babylon! happy shall he be who shall give thee thy reward! Happy
shall he be that dasheth thy little ones against the rock!"

Works of penance, fasting, prayer, and penitence, are the weapons
wherewith I shall arm myself to combat, and, with the Divine help, to
vanquish.

It was not a dream; it was not madness; it was the truth: she lets her
eyes rest upon me at times with the ardent glance of which I have told
you. There is in her glance an unexplainable magnetic attraction. It
draws me on, it seduces me, and I can not withdraw my gaze from her. On
such occasions my eyes must burn, like hers, with a fatal flame, as did
those of Amnon when he turned them upon Tamar; as did those of the
prince of Shechem when they were fixed upon Dinah.

When our glances encounter each other thus, I forget even God. Her image
rises up within my soul, the conqueror of everything. Her beauty
outshines all other beauty; the joys of heaven seem to me less desirable
than her affection. An eternity of suffering would be little in exchange
for one moment of the infinite bliss with which one of those glances
that pass like lightning inundates my soul.

When I return home, when I am alone in my room, in the silence of the
night, I realize all the horror of my position, and I form good
resolutions, only to break them again.

I resolve to feign sickness, to make use of any pretext so as not to