Thank you, Lord, thank you! I feel reborn. I feel purified by your forgiveness. I cried and prayed so hard that my wretchedness aroused your compassion. Now I’m calm and resigned. I don’t want to think any more, I don’t want to be alone. Thinking is our downfall, our temptation. I shan’t write to you again, Marianna, because writing to you means remembering, and I don’t want to remember you, or my father, or anybody! Forgive me, my loved ones … The heart is a great danger: if we could rip out our hearts, we’d be nearer to God!
O, the Lord will give me strength …
If I were to die right now, I think the angels would smile on me … but, no, Marianna, even this desire is a sin: we must remain here in this world for as long as God wills. My soul, which is craven and weak, has so little desire to remain here that it sees with a wrongful sense of joy how rapidly my illness progresses from day to day.
My poor Marianna, you should see me now! I’ve become a skeleton. You should see my hands, face and eyes! My poor chest is entirely consumed with a burning fever. You should hear me cough. If only you could be with me when the pain of my illness exceeds my courage.
It’s better that you don’t see me again, Marianna, that no one should ever see me again! I have what I might call the shame of the sick. In his providential blindness, my papa always finds countless reasons for deluding himself and not noticing the state that I’m in.
O God, I belong to you, just as I am, with my failings and weaknesses, with my faults and my guilt, and with my immense love for you. Have pity on me, God, have pity on me! Let me not think! That’s my only prayer, that I might live and die in acceptance of no other thought but of You.