And for today,98 too, with a great deal of patience on both sides, we have finished! Twenty-three interruptions yesterday, fourteen today. If Jesus’ infinite patience failed to flow forth and be transfused from Him into me, I assure you that I would go mad. But He is so patient! He pauses and resumes, calm and smiling. I can no longer get impatient over the bothersome interruptions forcing me to put down my notebook and pen, perhaps for a few minutes, to conceal the mystery which is being fulfilled so sweetly and so secretly and hide it from useless curiosity. And it is a great miracle to have made me into a patient person.... I certainly am, for I know He is there to dictate, and He does not lose the thread. For when, as happened this morning, I am the one to write a letter or something else, I at once lose the thread and patience, even if I merely hear someone speaking near me. And Marta knows how often I wail, “Silence! Close the door!” when I am writing on my own....99
98 She is referring to the episode she has just written down.
99 We pass over about eleven handwritten pages containing the “To Arbela” episode from The Second Year of the Public Life.