When I suffer much, when things that are painful and disagreeable befall me, instead of assuming an air of sadness, I respond by a smile. At first I was not always successful, but now it is a habit which I am very happy to have acquired. HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. XII A novice was complaining of being more tired than her Sisters, for besides the common work, she had done another task, of which they knew nothing. Thérèse answered: “I want to see you always like a valiant soldier who does not complain of his pains; who thinks very seriously of the wounds of his brothers and regards his own as mere scratches. Why do you feel this fatigue to such a degree? It is because no one knows about it.... [Illustration: THE SERVANT OF GOD SR. THÉRÈSE OF THE CHILD JESUS AND OF THE HOLY FACE _Carmelite of the Monastery of Lisieux 1873-1897_] “Blessed Margaret Mary having had two whitlows used to say she had only really suffered from the first one, because it had not been possible for her to hide the second from her Sisters, and thus it became the object of their compassion. “This feeling is natural to us; yet to wish that all should know when we suffer is a very commonplace manner of acting.” COUNSELS AND REMINISCENCES During the first months of her illness it was on her hard palliasse that Sister Thérèse passed the time of rest, and her nights were very bad: when asked whether she did not need some assistance during those hours of pain, she replied: “Oh, no on the contrary, I think myself very fortunate to be in a cell distant enough for my Sisters not to hear me. I rejoice to suffer alone; but from the moment I am pitied and surrounded with delicate attentions I can no longer feel this joy.” HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. XII The Sister infirmarian remarking, “It is said that you have never suffered very much.” Thérèse smiled and pointing to a glass containing a draught of medicine, bright red in colour, replied, “See this little glass, one would imagine it full of some choice liqueur, but in reality I take nothing that is more bitter. Well! it is an image of my life; to the eyes of others it has ever appeared clothed in the most radiant hues; to them it seemed as though I drank a delicious liqueur, while in truth it was bitterness. I say bitterness, and yet my life has not been bitter, for I have known how to make of all bitterness my sweetness and my joy.” “You are in great pain at this moment, are you not?” “Yes ... but I have so much desired to suffer.” HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. XII “How it grieves us to see you suffer, and to think you may perhaps have still more to endure,” the novices were saying to her. “Oh! do not be troubled about me, I have arrived at the stage of being no longer able to suffer, because all suffering is sweet to me.”