I fear you do not realise the immense gravity of the offence it
would be, first to him and then to me. Now I am going to open my heart
to you. I should reproach myself if I did not do so, dear friend,
reproach myself on your account, on his, and on my own. As to him, he is
kind and gentle to all with whom he comes in contact, especially to the
humble, and you might even be jealous of the old woman who comes from
Subiaco to do the rough work in the house. With Maria and myself he
shows his kindness and gentleness silently rather than in words. With us
he is quiet, simple, and affable; he does not appear to wish to avoid
us, but it has never happened that he has remained alone with either
of us. In his eyes I am a soul, and souls are to him exactly what the
tiniest plants in my father's great garden were to him; he would have
liked to protect them from frost with the warmth of his own heart, and
make then grow and flower by communicating his own vitality to them. But
I am a soul like any other soul, the only difference perhaps being,
that he deems me further removed from the truth, and consequently more
exposed to frost.
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