Tuesday evening.—Sophroniska, Bernard and Laura have been questioning me about my novel. Why did I let myself go to speak of it? I said nothing but stupidities. Interrupted fortunately by the return of the two children. They were red and out of breath, as if they had been running. As soon as she came in, Bronja fell into her mother’s arms; I thought she was going to burst into sobs.
“Mamma!” she cried, “do scold Boris. He wanted to undress and lie down in the snow without any clothes on.”
Sophroniska looked at Boris, who was standing in the doorway, his head down, his eyes with a look in them of almost hatred; she seemed not to notice the little boy’s strange expression, but with admirable calm:
“Listen, Boris,” she said. “That’s a thing you mustn’t do in the evening. If you like we’ll go there tomorrow morning; first of all you must begin with bare feet. …”
She was gently stroking her daughter’s forehead; but the little girl suddenly fell on the ground and began rolling about in convulsions. It was rather alarming. Sophroniska lifted her and laid her on the sofa. Boris stood motionless, watching the scene with a dazed, bewildered expression.
Sophroniska’s methods of education seem to me excellent in theory, but perhaps she miscalculates the children’s powers of resistance.
“You behave,” said I, when I was alone with her a little later (after the evening meal I had gone to enquire after Bronja, who was too unwell to come downstairs), “as if good were always sure to triumph over evil.”
“It is true,” she said, “I firmly believe that good must triumph. I have confidence.”
“And yet, through excess of confidence you might make a mistake. …”
“Every time I have made a mistake, it has been because my confidence was not great enough. Today, when I allowed the children to go out, I couldn’t help showing them I was a little uneasy. They felt it. All the rest followed from that.”
She had taken my hand.
“You don’t seem to believe in the virtue of convictions. … I mean in their power as an active principle.”
“You are right,” I said laughing. “I am not a mystic.”
“Well, as for me,” she cried in an admirable burst of enthusiasm, “I believe with my whole soul that without mysticism nothing great, nothing fine can be accomplished in this world.”
Discovered the name of Victor Strouvilhou in the visitors’ book. From what the hotelkeeper says, he must have left Saas-Fée two days before our arrival, after staying here nearly a month. I should have been curious to see him again. No doubt Sophroniska talked to him. I must ask her about him.