[...] In church I'd thought I couldn't live without him, but time was passing. I continued to live. That impression of indispensability was changing. Indispensable now seemed to me not his physical presence -- I imagined him far away in Milan, happy, engaged in countless fine and useful things, recognized by everyone for his merits -- but reorganizing myself around a goal: becoming a person who could earn his respect. I now felt him as an authority equally indeterminate -- would he approve if I acted in such and such a way, or would he be opposed -- and indisputable.