#linotte

And I crave the balm of beautiful and soft things.

”I have resolved to apply myself to everything I do to make up for lost time.”

My gaze is fixed on the starry sky and I try to forget the great sadness, the regrets, the desires that preoccupy my mind endlessly. Suddenly, instead of stars, I seem to see flaming bombs, and the sky looks on fire. I feel as though the gentle breeze carries moaning and lamentation. Everything trembles, I shiver. It seems as if I am in the midst of a battle. My heart beats very fast. Before my troubled eyes stands a poor woman surrounded by skeletal children who are dying of hunger. That disappears and I see before me bloody corpses. I hear an agonized voice crying: Help. Thousands of imploring eyes look at me. I am powerless to console these miseries, I feel myself falling into an abyss. Always, always a vision of the war. Another shiver brings me to myself and Reality surrounds me. I see that I am far from the battle, sitting calmly in Kew Gardens, in the country. Then I fall to my knees and my heart thanks God and asks His pardon for not realizing the favor He has done me. That is all. I go down, sit on the porch, breathe.

I feel so many things growing—my individuality, my confidence; I feel lines of my character growing stronger. I’m really sprouting, springing up, with mixed feelings of tenderness and bitterness, faith and disillusion, hardness and softness. I have never felt so clearly that my self is—obscurely and stubbornly—self-made.

It is my heart that weeps, since I must wear a smile in order not to make others unhappy. In a word, mine is a secret sorrow and only in the evening in lamplight can I give in to my sad thoughts, until Maman's tender voice advises me to go to bed. Once in bed, with the lights out, I can cry again and think, although I find that moment all too short.