now_
what I am like. I have let fall, at last, like a bothersome mask, the
modest air that makes people say: "She's all the prettier because she
doesn't know she's pretty."

Do you think, pray, that there is a single woman in the world who, if
she is good looking, doesn't know it?

I know, I know with a vengeance, that I am beautiful; I know it better
than anything else about myself. There are not only looking-glasses,
there are all the men. Whether old man, beggar, or chance passerby, you
drink in, in one long intoxicating draught: "I am beautiful." And the
women, if you know the terror in their eyes, the appeal, the envy, and
their mute defense.... You seem unaware, smiling, distant, but you are
on the eager watch for the pain you inflict.

To please.... In the presence of other people to please is wicked
vanity, strutting, flaunting vanity; but here, on the bony ground, it is
simply a bit of me. It is a power which has been given me, I shall not
give it back; it is merely a harmony, a response to the beauty I feel, a
craving to convince, a very strong craving; my life is lovelier than I.

My life is here. But what makes up my life? Not entirely my rosy good
health, nor this firm equilibrium which exercises control in the centre
of my being. My health and poise are, chiefly, the things that remove me
from my life. My life is a need to use my muscles, it is vigorous
movement, it is the notion I have that I can crush the world between my
arms; yes, the longing to run, to take part in everything, to shout
aloud, to dance; this animal ardor and glow in movement, this
uncontrollable blood, this body swelling with liberty, with sap, with
bursts of laughter, this unexpected gift of myself to myself, this
curiosity and contentment, this zest and turmoil....

I have heard others speak of youth, I have seen the word of quicksilver
glitter on the pages of books; I am still ignorant of its meaning; I am
not quite twenty.

I hug to me all that is mine; it is not much. At first there was nothing
above my head but a liquid ocean of silence, I saw nothing but a forest
without perspective, but my watchful solitude became supernatural; and
now as I see the solemnity of the trees, their strong solid reaching up
towards heaven, as I see _myself_, I feel very deeply that I am alive
for the first time.

I do not wish to think of the future. Let the future wait for me; it is
as if a new era were beginning....

And may memory never