This letter is an explanation. I do not wish it to become an apology. I am not foolish enough to hope that I shall be approved of; I do not even ask to be accepted: that is too great a demand. I wish only to be understood. I realize that is the same thing, and that it is to wish a great deal. But you have given me so much in small matters that I feel almost entitled to expect your comprehension in large ones.

I do not want you to imagine me more solitary than I was. I sometimes had companions, companions, that is, as young as I. It was generally at the time of the big holidays, when many people came to visit. Children came also, whom I often did not know. Or else it was on birthdays, when we went to visit distant relatives who seemed actually to exist only one day a year, since that was the only day we thought about them. Almost all the children were shy like me; as a result, we did not much enjoy each other. There were the impudent ones, so wild that one hoped they would go away, and others, no less wild, who tormented me without my protesting, because they were beautiful or had beautiful voices. I told you I was a child who was very sensitive to beauty. I foresaw already that beauty and the pleasure it brings us are worth every sacrifice and even worth every humiliation. I was by nature humble. I suppose I let myself be tyrannized by delights. It did not bother me that I was less handsome than my friends; I was happy to see them, and could not imagine it otherwise. It made me happy to love them; it never occurred to me to hope that they might love me. Love (forgive me, my dear) is a sentiment I have not felt since then; it requires too many virtues for me to be capable of it. I was amazed that my childhood could have had faith in a passion so vain, almost always mendacious, and not at all necessary, not even for sensual pleasure. But love, among children, is a part of candor. They imagine they love because they do not perceive that they desire. Such friendships were not frequent; the occasions hardly lent themselves; and for that reason they remained very innocent. My friends went away again, or else it was we who returned to our own house; once more, the solitary life would close about me. It occurred to me to write them letters, but I was so incapable of avoiding grammatical errors that I did not send them. In any case, I had nothing to say. Jealousy is a reprehensible sentiment, but one must pardon children for giving into it when so many rational adults are its victims. I suffered from it a great deal, all the more so as I did not admit it. I understood, of course, that friendship should never make one jealous; I already began to suspect I was sinful. But what I am telling you about is surely natural for boys: all children have known similar passions, and one would be wrong, wouldn’t one, to suspect a grave danger there?