he had kissed me and I him, and I heard him say 'thou' to me, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world that I also said 'thou' to him. I don't remember anything more than that he held me in his arms, and I heard him say, in a voice which still trembles in my ears and makes my heart beat with joy, 'My own darling little girl, my beautiful little girl.'
Yes, one thing I remember, that I said to him, 'But I am not the least bit beautiful,' and he answered: 'You are more beautiful than anybody else: you are the whitest, the daintiest, and the sweetest in the world. You are just what the old poets call a—virgin-flower.'
When I came home, I had to look in my mirror, and, lo and behold, I really thought that I looked quite sweet. I am sure that is what one calls suggestion. He fancies me beautiful and I become beautiful.
I AM afraid of my diary. Several times I have taken it out and put it back again without writing a word in it, for in front of that I have to look truth in the face, to account for myself and to make it quite clear, what is happening to me. I dare not look at the present or into the future.
I know that I am on a slope and that the way irrevocably goes downwards. I fear all the terror, all the misery lurking in the depths, and yet I am drawn irresistibly towards them. For each step I pull myself back, I seem to slip two forwards. I hear already the roar from down below, I feel the cold splash of the
