at I evoke, the face I
love dearly. His life is an insuperable force, vivid, inviolable and
free, which my heart out of sheer love of him failed to recognize. I was
right a few minutes ago to want to blot myself out, because I ought not
to count. Beyond my limited, restricted presence, he has the whole of
infinity to breathe in.

Then where are the nights which are to enlighten me? Of him I know
nothing but my love, nothing except that by his very existence he
contradicts what I know of him. Who will tell me how far I must go and
to what I must attain? I have slept in his arms, I have lived side by
side with all his cares, and I have given myself up to him with a joy
like unto which there is nothing. All I have given is myself. And yet
more is necessary.

* * * * *

And a great conviction rises up straight and strong and shines as if a
light had sprung from the midst of the meadows.

I am only a woman, I can think only spasmodically. I love as one weeps,
but there comes a day of which this is the night, on which your forehead
touches the profound truth. You feel the loving-kindness of your heart
aroused, and you oddly understand that the perfect union of man and
woman has never been part of the natural scheme of things, and in order
to be happy together it is not enough to love one another.

* * * * *

Come. We may return. Press me close to you, if you will, closer still.
Don't let us talk.

I know why I am content: your arms, my all-powerful life, our firm
footsteps. I do not know why the slight shadow seems to have vanished:
to live, go forward, pierce the narrow track of the road with your clear
eyes for stars, follow a night one does not see....

And then, O God, in braving the heavens, to understand with love that
which transcends love.

X

I hesitate to go out on the street. I feel that people's eyes are drawn
to my figure. There's no use fooling myself. The little girls actually
point to me with furtive, vinegary glances, for they are more
ingenuously hypocritical than women. Their insistent gaze embarrasses
me.

Two long months to wait before the first cry of my child! If only I
carried nothing beside my child. I feel also an imprisoned love
developing which beats at the bars of its cage and chafes so that I
don't know how to distract it.

The layette is quite ready; swaddling-bands warm to the touch, chemises
like a doll's, caps wh