"No, it isn't a question of a special vocation. That would be simple, for then one would have to follow it. . . . The demand, the exigence (as you say) of my life is less easy to formulate: for it is less precise and much more vast. It is a question of the right laid upon every living soul: the right to change." Roger cried: "To change! To change love?" "Even while always remaining faithful, as I have said, to a single love, the soul has the right to change. . . . Yes, I know, Roger, that the word 'change' frightens you. . . . It disturbs me, too. . . . When the passing hour is beautiful, I should like never to stir. One sighs that it cannot be held forever! . . . And yet, Roger, one ought not to do it; and, first of all, one cannot. One does not remain stationary. One lives, one goes forward, one is pushed,--one must, must advance! This does no injury to love; one takes that along. But love should not wish to hold us back, shut up with it in the immobile sweetness of a single thought. A beautiful love may last for a whole lifetime, but it cannot entirely fill it. Think, my dear Roger, that while still loving you I might find myself some day, perhaps (I find myself already), cramped within your circle of action and thought. I would never dream of arguing with you the excellence of your choice. But would it be just for it to be imposed on me? And don't you find it equitable to grant me the right of opening the window, if I haven't enough air,--and even the door, a little--(oh! I won't go far)--and for me to have my own little province of activity, my intellectual interests, my friendships, not to remain confined to one point of the globe, to the same horizon, but to try and enlarge it, to seek a change of air, to emigrate. . . . (I say: if it is necessary. . . . I don't know yet. But in any case I need to feel that I am free to do it, that I am free to wish, free to breathe, free . . . free to be free . . . even if I never make use of my liberty.) . . . Forgive me, Roger, perhaps you find this need absurd and childish. It is not, I assure you; it is the most profound need of my being, the breath that gives me life. If it were taken away from me, I should die. . . . I can do everything, for love. . . . But constraint kills me. And the idea of constraint makes me a rebel. No, the union of two beings ought not to become a mutual enchainment. It should be a twofold blooming. I should like each, instead of being jealous of the other's free development, to be happy in assisting it. Would you be, Roger? Would you know how to love me enough to love me free, free of you? . . ." (She was thinking: "I should be yours only the more! . . .")