Poor Folk

But the instant that YOU came into my life, you lightened the dark places in it, you lightened both my heart and my soul

Yet man is sometimes a very strange being. By all the Saints, he will talk of doing things, yet leave them undone, and remain looking the kind of fool from whom may the Lord preserve us! . . .

Even to look back at the past is horrible, for it contains sorrow that breaks my very heart at the thought of it. Yes, a whole century in tears could I spend because of the wicked people who have wrecked my life!

Ah, what is going to become of me? What will be my fate? To have to be so uncertain as to the future, to have to be unable to foretell what is going to happen, distresses me deeply

All the morning I felt light-hearted and cheerful. Yet now my thoughts are once more dark and sad— once more my heart is ready to sink.

Once more I implore you not to waste so much money upon me. I know how much you love me, but I also know that you are not rich. . . .

Yet I ought not to grumble at my salary,—I am quite satisfied with it; it is sufficient. It has sufficed me now for some years, and, in addition, I receive certain gratuities.

But, somehow, I do not like having to go without tea, for everyone else here is respectable, and the fact makes me ashamed. After all, one drinks tea largely to please one's fellow men, Barbara, and to give oneself tone and an air of gentility

"we mortals who dwell in pain and sorrow might with reason envy the birds of heaven which know not either!

In short, all nature was awaking to life again. Everything was in consonance with my mood; everything seemed fair and spring-like.