A short novel of quiet, painful love in a pious French Protestant world. Jérôme is devoted to his cousin Alissa, and she seems to return his feeling. Yet Alissa is drawn more and more to a demanding ideal of spiritual sacrifice, taken from the idea that the way to salvation is narrow. Told in a restrained, delicate style, the story asks whether extreme religious self-denial is a form of love or a way of escaping it. It is one of Gide's most moving and widely read works.