Does he not know how deeply, deeply, deeply I love him?
'He does not know it, nor ever will. That is my firm resolve--that is my
duty. Courage!
'Help me, oh my God!
'_September 29th._--Why did he speak? Why did he break the enchanted
silence in which I let my soul be steeped, almost without regret or
fear? Why tear away the veil of uncertainty and put me face to face with
his unveiled love? Now I have no further excuse for temporising, for
deluding myself. The danger is there--certain, undeniable, manifest--it
attracts me to its dizzy edge like a precipice. One moment of weakness,
of languor, and I am lost.
'I ask myself--am I sincere in my pain and regret at this unexpected
revelation? How is it that I think perpetually of those words? And why,
when I repeat them to myself, does a wave of ineffable rapture sweep
over my soul? Why do I thrill to the heart's core at the imagined
prospect of hearing more--more such words?
'Night. The agitation of my soul takes the forms of questions,
riddles--I ask myself endless questions to which I never have an answer.
I have not had the courage to look myself through and through--to form a
really bold and honest resolution. I am pusillanimous, I am a coward. I
shrink from pain, I want to suffer as little as possible, I prefer to
temporise, to hang back, to resort to subterfuges, to wilfully blind
myself instead of courageously facing the risks of a decisive battle.
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