crains que vous ne pensiez que j'exagère et cependant je pleure à chaudes larmes en vous écrivant. [7] I have just received your letter of 24 November, and I reply at once (as I have formed the habit of doing). I wrote you lately that your letter made me cry, and I blamed my illness for that weakness. I was wrong. For some time past all your letters have had the same effect on me. I always was Leo Cry-baby. Formerly I was ashamed of this weakness, but the tears I shed when thinking of you, and of your love for us, are so sweet that I let them flow without any false shame. Your letter is too full of sadness not to produce the same effect on me. It is you who have always given me counsel, and though unfortunately I have not always followed it, I should wish all my life to act only in accord with your advice. For the moment, permit me to tell you the effect your letter has had on me, and the thoughts that have come to me while reading it. If I speak too freely, I know you will forgive it, on account of the love I have for you. By saying that it is your turn to leave us, to rejoin those who are no more and whom you have loved so much, by saying that you ask God to set a limit to your life which seems to you so insupportable and isolated--pardon me, dear Aunt, but it seems to me that in so saying you offend God and me and all of us who love you so much. You ask God for death, that is to say, for the greatest misfortune that can happen to me. (This is not a phrase, for God is my witness that the two greatest misfortunes that could come to me would be your death and that of Nicholas--the two persons whom I love more than myself.) What would be left to me if God granted your prayer? To please whom should I then wish to become better, to have good qualities and a good reputation in the world? When I make plans of happiness for myself, the idea that you will share and enjoy my happiness is always present. When I do anything good, I am satisfied with myself because I know you will be satisfied with me. When I act badly, what I most fear is to cause you grief. Your love is everything to me, and you ask God to separate us! I cannot tell you what I feel for you; words do not suffice to express it. I fear lest you should think I exaggerate, and yet I shed hot tears while writing to you. In the same letter he tells of one of those remarkable 'answers to prayer,' instances of thought-transference, or (if the reader pleases) simply coincidences, which have played so great a part in the history of all religious bodies. [8]Aujourd'hui il m'est arrivé une de ces choses qui m'auraient fait croire en Dieu, si je n'y croyais déjà fermement depuis quelque temps.