I have just had another letter from Sylvestre. My poor friend is very
miserable; his mother is dead--a saint if ever there was one. I was very
deeply touched by the news, although I knew this lovable woman very
slightly--too slightly, indeed, not having been a son, or related in any
way to her, but merely a passing stranger who found his way within the
horizon of her heart, that narrow limit within which she spread abroad
the treasures of her tenderness and wisdom. How terribly her son must
feel her loss!

He described in his letter her last moments, and the calmness with which
she met death, and added:

"One thing, which perhaps you will not understand, is the remorse
which is mingled with my sorrow. I lived with her forty years, and
have some right to be called 'a good son.' But, when I compare the
proofs of affection I gave her with those she gave me, the
sacrifices I made for her with those she made for me; when I think
of the egoism which found its way into our common life, on which I
founded my claims to merit, of the wealth of tenderness and sympathy
with which she repaid a few walks on my arm, a few kind words, and
of her really great forbearance in dwelling beneath the same roof
with me--I feel that I was ungrateful, and not worthy of the
happiness I enjoyed.

"I am tortured by the thought that it is impossible for me to repair
all my neglect, to pay a debt the greatness of which I now recognize
for the first time. She is gone. All is over. My prayers alone
can reach her, can tell her that I loved her, that I worshipped her,
that I might have been capable of doing all that I have left undone
for her.