My heaven will be spent on earth
up until the end of the world.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897)


i
You know, Mother, I have always wanted to be a saint. Ever since
Celeste held up a basket of dress scraps, crying “Here my little sis-
ter, choose!” And I chose—all. There are always children spinning
themselves into statues, having to choose in the terrible stillness
what am I before being able to move the enactment: had you not
brought me up so well, I would never have cried when choosing to be
his plaything.

ii
A hoop of no value, an even smaller ball—something he might lose,
nothing with a string. I beg to be stolen!

iii
Whenever the boys spoke to me, I hid my fingers in my muff and there
I would make small imitations of Christ. These little acts of love
formed a flower bud out of my face. Although I was barely fourteen,
I felt it best to leave the world at once.

iv
What an interesting study the world becomes when one is ready to
leave it: a skirt, a set of kitchen utensils, little parcels. The yellow
shop on rue Demi-Lune where there’s an éclair in the window wait-
ing for me! And the libraries where I would have broken my head.

v
Now all my Sisters are sealed round the bed like a row of onions: vo-
cation of the Carmelite, sister, spouse, mother, warrior; the priest
and the doctor. I would that all of their torments were reserved for me.
But I am too small to climb the stairs! I want to seek out a means of
going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short,
and totally new. I want to ride in an elevator.

vi
Believe me, don’t wait until tomorrow to begin becoming a saint. I
oblige you to take your wooden tops and go play for at least an hour
in the attic. I must stay here in my bed. I’m waiting for the Thief, you
know.

vii
I wonder what he will do at my death to surprise me. Will he sip me
up like a dewdrop? So, I’m already thinking that, if I am not surprised
enough. I will pretend to be surprised just to please him.

viii
I’m suffering very much, it’s true, but I am suffering well, that’s the
point. Take silence for example—what failures in clarity it prevents.
I speak especially about silence because it’s on this point that I fail
the most.

ix
Are peaches in season? Are they selling plums in the street? Violets
from a cart? Only in the kingdom of heaven will it no longer be nec-
essary to have some souvenir.

x
No line has ever given me more pleasure to write than this one in
which I have the good fortune to tell you he is very nearly through
unpetaling me!

xi
They think I have difficulty in breathing! I am pretending to take lit-
tle sips to let him know that I am drinking in his words.

xii
Scarcely had I laid my head on the pillow when I felt a bubbling
stream on my lips. My blood was like a plaything. When God aban-
doned it, he fell asleep and dreamt he was still playing with it.