Flipping between Gide's Immoralist (almost finished) and a book of his essays: Autumn Leaves . Excerpt from an essay entitled "My Mother": "Is what you said to me as we left our cousin's true?" she began with a great effort. "You really think so? I was ... well, as good as the others?" And as I began to exclaim, she continued mournfully: "If your father had told me so even once ... I never dared ask him, and I needed so terribly to know, when we went out together, if he was ..." She was silent for a moment. I looked at her trying to hold back the tears. She finished in a lower tone of voice, hardly audible: "... if he was pleased with me." I think that those were her exact words which suddenly let me understand how many worries, unasked questions and expectations could, under the appearance of happiness, still dwell in...