She had followed Amélie out and now threw her arms about her, made her sit down, pressed Amélie’s head against her shoulder.
“How do I know what it is?” Amélie sobbed. “I don’t know, I don’t know.... I am wretched because of that feeling in my head. It is more than I can bear sometimes. After all, I am not mad, am I? Really, I don’t feel mad, or as if I were going mad! But I feel sometimes as if everything had gone wrong in my head, as if I couldn’t think. Everything runs through my brain. It’s a terrible feeling!”
“Why don’t you see a doctor?” asked Cecile.
“No, no, he might tell me I was mad; and I’m not. He might try to send me to an asylum. No, I won’t see a doctor. I have every reason to be happy otherwise, have I not? I have a kind husband and dear children; I have never had any great sorrow. And yet I sometimes feel profoundly miserable, desperately miserable! It is always as if I wanted to reach some place and could not succeed. It is always as if I were hemmed in....”
She sobbed violently; a storm of tears rained down her face. Cecile’s eyes, too, were moist; she liked her sister, she felt sorry for her. Amélie was only ten years older than she; and already she had something of an old woman about her, something withered and shrunken, with her hair growing grey at the temples, under her veil.
“Cecile, tell me, Cecile,” she said, suddenly, through her sobs, “do you believe in God?”
“Why, of course I do, Amy!”
“I used to go to church sometimes, but it was no use.... And I’ve stopped going.... Oh, I am so unhappy! It is very ungrateful of me. I have so much to be grateful for.... Do you know, sometimes I feel as if I should like to go to God at once, all at once, just like that!”
“Come, Amy, don’t excite yourself so.”
“Ah, I wish I were like you, so calm! Do you feel happy?”