It has happened, when playing hombre, that our knees have touched by chance, and then I have felt a thrill run through me impossible to describe.
Get me away from this place. Write to my father and ask him to let me return to you. If it be necessary, tell him everything. Help me! Be you my refuge!
May 30th.
God has given me strength to resist, and I have resisted.
It is now many days since I have been in the house of Pepita, many days since I have seen her.
It is scarcely necessary that I should feign sickness, for I am in reality sick. I have lost my color, and dark circles begin to show themselves under my eyes; and my father asks me, full of affectionate anxiety, what the cause of my suffering is, and manifests the deepest concern in my regard.
The kingdom of heaven is said to yield to violence, and I am resolved to conquer it. With violence I call at its gates that they may open to me.
With wormwood am I fed by the Lord, in order to prove me; and in vain do I supplicate him to let this cup of bitterness pass away from me. But, as I have passed and still pass many nights in vigil, delivered up to prayer, a loving inspiration from the Supreme Consoler has come to sweeten the bitterness of my cup.
I have beheld with the eyes of the soul the new country; and the new song of the heavenly Jerusalem has resounded within the depths of my heart.
If in the end I should conquer, glorious will be the victory; but I shall owe it to the Queen of Angels, under whose protection I place myself. She is my refuge and my defense; the tower and the house of David, on whose walls hang innumerable shields and the armor of many valiant champions; the cedar of Lebanon, that puts to flight the serpent.