and for a moment I forgot my wretched legs, I saw only you, felt myself to be what I wanted to be for your sake. Can’t you understand one’s losing oneself in a day-dream for a moment, when one has dreamed only one dream day and night, year in year out? Believe me, beloved — it was only the crazy illusion that I had cast off my deformity that so went to my head; it was only my impatient yearning not to be an outcast, a cripple, any longer that caused my heart to run away with me so madly. Do understand — I had wanted you so long and so interminably.
