Rose was still asleep when I entered the drowsy bedroom to bid her good-bye. A small, heart-shaped opening in the middle of the shutters allowed the first ray of daylight to penetrate. Sleeping happily and trustfully, with streaming hair and hands out-flung, she lay strewn like the petals of a flower. I laid my lips on hers and softly went away.

As I climb the slope that leads out of Neufchâtel, I turn and look down once more on the little town that slumbers everlastingly in its rich peace. Just there, by the church, I picture the house with its grey shutters, its white front and its starched caps behind the flower-pots. Beyond, the green horizons and the blue hill-sides stand clearly marked in the dawning sun; and I gaze and gaze as far as my eyes can see, through my lashes sparkling with tears.

For all her lethargy, her slumber as of a beautiful plant, the soul of my Rose is wholesome, wholesome as those meadows, those fields, all that good Norman earth which gave her to me miserable only to take her back happy and free. Certainly, Rose has not been able to achieve the strength that makes use of liberty: in that life, still so young, the will is a dead branch through which the sap no longer flows. At any rate, what she does possess she will not lose; she is one of those who instinctively hold in their breath so as not to tarnish the pane through which a glimpse of infinity stands revealed to them. Her soul could not take in unlimited happiness, it had to feel a touch of sorrow in order to taste a little joy. There are many like her, people who perceive that the light is good when they come out of the darkness, but who are not able to recognise the light in the radiant beauty of the noon-day fields.

The sun rises as I slowly make my way up-hill; the wood along the road is still wet with the dawn. It offers me its autumnal fragrance; I breathe it in, I gaze at its golden tints, I think of Rose, of her past and her future. But, beyond my dreams, an unformed idea seems to spread like a clear sky, without outline, without colour, without beginning or end; and I have a secret feeling that I shall try again.

2

I shall go towards other strangers. I shall seek at random among hearts and souls! Fearlessly, in spite of censure and derision, I shall lavish my confidence in order to win that of others. I shall not linger over the vain pleasure of discovering the traces of my power. We can pour out our influence boldly: it is a wine that excites no two souls in a like manner; and we are always ignorant what the nature of the intoxication will be, whether fruitful or barren, blithe or cheerless.

I shall go towards other strangers; I understand now that my sole ambition is to bring life within their reach. What matter what their thoughts, their loves, their wishes, if at least they have acquired the taste and the means of thinking, loving and wishing?

Shall I ever succeed in evolving from this passion of mine a method, a system that will make my action less blind and uncertain? I think not.

In a life that never offers us anything logical or foreseen, our moral nature must needs resemble a drapery that is folded backwards and forwards over events, souls or circumstances. Let us ask no more than that it be beautiful and soft, strong and light, submissive to the least breath and ready to be transformed at its command. Nothing but an essential principle of humanity and loving-kindness can serve as a foundation for our actions, without ever confining them.

3

On the one hand, we have effort, nearly always vain; on the other, knowledge, which is the second look that makes us discern the ordinary, the commonplace, where at first we beheld beauty and charm. Nevertheless, let us worship effort and knowledge above all things.

Let us act as simply as the little wave that lifts itself and breaks against the rock. Others come after it; and it is their light kisses which, all unseen, end by biting into the granite.