I do not know how long he
will stay. It may be for only a few days or for the whole summer. It
does not matter. Use each day well for him. Each day may be his last
with us.' I went out from the Reverend Pere full of enthusiasm, feeling
that a great, a splendid interest had come into my life, an interest
such as it had never held before.
"Day by day I was with this man. Of course there were many hours when
we were apart, the hours when I was at prayer in the chapel or occupied
with study. But each day we passed much time together, generally in the
garden. Scarcely any visitors came, and none to stay, except, from time
to time, a passing priest, and once two young men from Tunis, one of
whom had an inclination to become a novice. And this man, as I have
said, began to show himself to me with a tremendous frankness.
"Domini, he was suffering under what I suppose would be called an
obsession, an immense domination such as one human being sometimes
obtains over another. At that time I had never realised that there were
such dominations. Now I know that there are, and, Domini, that they can
be both terrible and splendid.
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