Chapter 1-25

You took from me, O my God, suddenly, all the sensibility I had for the creature, and you took it from me in an instant, as when one puts off a dress; so that from this time I have never had it for anyone whatever. Although you had shown me this grace (for which I could not sufficiently mark my gratitude), I was yet thereby neither more reassured, nor more happy, nor less confused. You were so far from me, O my God, and you appeared so angry, that there remained to me only the grief of having lost you, through my fault. The loss of my reputation, by means of the party of that person, increased each day, and became more sensible to my mind and to my heart, although it was not permitted me to justify myself, or complain. As I became still more powerless for all sorts of external works, and I could neither go to see the poor, nor remain at church, nor use prayer; and the more cold towards God, the more sensible I was to my ills—all this destroyed me more in my own eyes, and in the eyes of others. There were, however, suitors of high position, who sought me in marriage, persons who, according to ordinary rules, ought not to think of me. They presented themselves even at the height of my exterior and interior desolation, and it appeared to me it was a means of saving myself from the vexation I was exposed to. But it seemed to me then, in spite of all my troubles, that had a king presented himself, I would have gladly refused him, to make you know, O my God, that, with all my paltriness, I wished to be yours alone, and that if you did not want me, I should at least have the consolation of having been faithful to you in everything which depended on me. For as to the state I bore, it in no way depended on me, and if I could have got rid of it, I would have done so, at least during some time; since afterwards I endured it sometimes through resignation, at other times from despair of ever emerging from it—despair caused by the impotence in which I found myself. I never spoke of being asked in marriage, nor of the persons who asked me, although I well knew my mother-in-law used to say that there were no proposals, and that if I did not marry it was because I did not get the chance. It was enough for me, O my God, that you knew what I sacrificed for you, without telling it; especially one, whose high birth, joined to all external qualities, might have tempted my vanity, and my inclination. Yet, O my God, the more cruel you were to me, the more eager was I to make sacrifices to you. If in the sacrifices, and the terrible crosses, in which I was plunged, both from without and within, I could have hoped, O my Lord, to be pleasing to you, the hell I then endured would have been changed into paradise; but, alas! I was far from presuming, or hoping it. It seemed to me that a sea of affliction would be followed only by an eternal torment, O my God. I had even to submit to have lost you for ever—you, who alone could end my woes, which all creatures could only render more gnawing. I dared not desire to enjoy you, O my God, but I desired only not to offend you.

I was five or six weeks at the point of death. I often thought I should die from weakness, caused by a continual diarrhea, which had reduced me to such a state that I could not endure any nourishment. A spoonful of broth threw me into a faint; my voice was so weak that, however near my mouth the ear was placed, they could not distinguish my words. My dispositions were, that, in the extreme wretchedness to which I was reduced, I found nothing that could assure my salvation; on the contrary, my loss appeared inevitable. Yet I could not be unwilling to die, as I had a strong impression the longer I lived, the more I should sin, and that I could no longer avoid sin; that I would live only to commit it. Hell appeared to me more agreeable, and in my grief I cried out, “Hell, and not sin!” My other disposition was that, far from seeing any good in me, I saw only evil. All the good you had caused me to do in my life, O my God, was shown to me as evil. All appeared to me full of defects; my charities, my alms, my prayers, my penances, all rose up against me, and appeared to me objects of condemnation. I found on your side, O my God, on my own, on that of all creatures, a general condemnation. My conscience was a witness I could not appease, and what would appear most strange, is, that the sins of my youth did not then cause me any pain. It was not they bore witness against me; it was a universal witness in all the good I had done, and in all the sentiments of evil; yet although the condemnation was so complete, I did not see anything in particular which I could mention, or of which I could accuse myself. As a consequence, I did not find any remedy for my ills in confession, and though I reiterated it according to my strength, I could tell nothing except of having been unfaithful to you, O my God. What I saw was inexplicable to me, and though I should have been able to explain it, my confessor would have understood nothing. He would have regarded as very great good and eminent virtue what your pure eyes rejected as unfaithfulness. It was indeed then, O most amiable Judge, while yet most rigorous—it was indeed then I understood what you say, that you will judge our righteousness. It was not my unrighteousnesses you judged, since they did not even appear in this judgment; it was all righteousnesses, but righteousnesses abominable in your eyes, as it appeared to me. Ah! how pure you are! how chaste you are! Who will understand it? It was indeed then I turned my eyes on all sides to see whence help should come to me; but my help could only come from him who has made the heaven and the earth. When I saw there was no salvation for me in myself, I entered into a secret complaisance at not seeing in myself any good, on which to rest and assure my salvation. The nearer my ruin appeared, the more I found in God himself—all irritated as he appeared to me—something to increase my confidence. It seemed to me that I had in Jesus Christ all that was wanting to me in myself. I was, O divine Jesus, that lost sheep of the House of Israel that you were come to save. You were truly the Saviour of her who could find no salvation out of you. O men, strong and holy, find salvation as much as you please in what you have done, that is holy and glorious for God; as for me, I make my boast only in my weaknesses, since they have earned for me such a Saviour.

I rejoiced that this body of sin was soon to be decayed and destroyed. The return of my health brought no change in my trouble or my abjectness; but as I did not find anything specially marked, I begged the worthy priest who lived in our house to notice my defects and inform me of them. He did it with much charity, but this served only to increase my grief; for besides seeing myself utterly powerless to get rid of them, what he said was so insupportable to me that I did violence to myself not to let it be seen, and I held my head in the severity of my pain. At other times, as if I had been mad, I pressed it against the wall, and I told him not to say anything more; for I was distracted, and fell, as it were, into despair, owing to my impotence. He said he would no longer tell them to me; but it was not this I wished. He was not in a state to understand my trouble. I so despised and even hated myself that all the torments I suffered from the loss of God, of creatures and of myself, seemed to me sweet. I saw others honour God in their way; I saw them like angels and myself like a devil. The Communion, which I had once so much desired, became for me a new subject of apprehension and of grief; when through obedience I was obliged to approach it, it all made me shudder. I would not have wished, O my Saviour, to abuse your body, and I was not allowed to abstain, though I believed I was really abusing it; I no longer had anything but disgust for a food which had been my dearest delight. This state lasted with me five years with the same severity, accompanied by continual crosses, as I have mentioned, and very frequent illness. There were besides that two years when my ills were not so extreme, though great. All these ills, joined to the loss of my reputation, which I believed greater than it was—all this, I say, was sometimes so trying, with the inability to eat, that I knew not how I could live. In four days I did not eat enough for a single moderate meal. I was obliged to take to bed from pure weakness; my body could no longer bear so rude a burden. I would have liked to have been allowed to tell my sins to all the world. If I had believed, known, or heard, that it was a state, I should have been too happy; but I saw my pain as sin. Spiritual books, when I forced myself to read them, increased my trouble, for I did not see in myself those degrees which they mention. I did not even understand them, and when they spoke of the troubles of certain states, I was far from applying them to myself; I said, “These persons feel the pains that God operates, and as for me, I commit sin, and feel only my wicked state.” What consoled me for some moments without consoling me, was, that you were not thereby less great, my God. I would have liked to separate the sin from the confusion of sin, and, provided I had not offended you, all would have been easy for me.

Here is a little sketch of my last wretchedness, which I am very pleased to make known to you, because I have therein committed many infidelities at the commencement, having yielded to the selfhood, to vain complaisance, long conversations really useless, although self-love and nature made them look in a way necessary; but at the end, I would not have endured a word too human, nor the least thing. You purified in me, my God, and my Divine Love, the real evil through an apparent evil. Could I not indeed sing with the Church, “Oh, happy guilt, which has earned for me such a Redeemer!”