I resolved to make the fullest use of the power within me and describe as with a magic wand the circles within which all life around me should dance for my delight.

However useful it was to me in my present situation, there was something terrifying in the realisation that I was known to nobody, that no one could have the slightest idea who I was, or what a singular quirk of fate had brought me here, or what secrets I was concealing. I felt like a departed spirit walking on earth in which all the affection he had once enjoyed had long since perished.

The whole day, the whole night –nothing but the thought of her.

Was she then to be lost to me? Nay, for as she left this vale of sorrows, she had kindled the eternal love that now glowed within me. I now know that her death was the consummation of that love which, as she had told me, rules above the stars and has nothing in common with the things of earth. Such thoughts as these lifted me above my earthly self, and these days in the convent were truly the most blissful of my whole life.

The whole day, the whole night – nothing but the thought of her.