Like everybody who is not in love, he imagined that one chooses the person one loves after endless deliberation and on the strength of diverse qualities and advantages.

... Odette seemed a fascinating and desirable woman, the attraction which her body held for him had aroused a painful longing to secure the absolute mastery of even the tiniest particles of her heart.

I could no longer desire physically without feeling a need for her, without suffering from her absence.

We consider it innocent to desire, and heinous that the other person should do so.

There is nothing like desire for obstructing any resemblance between what one says and what one has on one's mind.