And afterwards, with a depth of understanding worthy of Nietzsche:—
“All that I say is not original, for I have no originality. I live only outside myself. To walk or to stand still, to have or not to have, it is all the same to me. My sorrows, my joys, my troubles do not exist....”
And again:—
“I want to live faster, faster, fast.... I am afraid it is true that this longing to live with the speed of steam foretells a short life....”
“Would you believe it? To my mind everything is good and beautiful, even tears, even pain. I like to cry, I like to be in despair, I like to be sad. I like life, in spite of all. I want to live. I long for happiness, and yet I am happy when I am sad. My body cries and shrieks; but something in me, which is above me, enjoys it all.”
Then this simile, drawn with wonderful delicacy:—
“At every little sorrow my heart shrinks into itself, not for my own sake, but out of pity—I do not know whether anybody will understand what I mean—every sorrow is like a drop of ink that falls into a glass of water; it cannot be obliterated, it unites itself with its predecessors and makes the clear water gray and dirty. You may add as much water as you like, but nothing will make it clear again. My heart shrinks into itself, because every sorrow leaves a stain on my life, and on my soul, and I watch the stains increasing in number on the white dress which I ought to have kept clean.”
At the age of fourteen she wrote these prophetic words:—
“Oh! how impatient I am. My time will come; I believe it, yet something tells me that it will never come, that I shall spend the whole of my life waiting, always waiting. Waiting ... waiting!”
When she was sixteen, at the time of the incident with the cardinal’s nephew:—