why you regard everything in such a large and indifferent way; that is
why you love me, all of me, and will surrender no part of me to the
state, to posterity, or to manly pleasures. I am all yours; we are
closest to each other and we understand each other. You accompany me
through all the stages of manhood, from the utmost wantonness to the
most refined spirituality. In you alone I first saw true pride and
true feminine humility.

The most extreme suffering, if it is only surrounded, without
separating us, would seem to me nothing but a charming antithesis to
the sublime frivolity of our marriage. Why should we not take the
harshest whim of chance for an excellent jest and a most frolicsome
caprice, since we, like our love, are immortal? I can no longer say
_my_ love and _your_ love; they are both alike in their perfect
mutuality. Marriage is the everlasting unity and alliance of our
spirits, not only for what we call this world and that world, but for
the one, true, indivisible, nameless, endless world of our entire
being, so long as we live. Therefore, if it seemed the proper time, I
would drain with you a cup of poison, just as gladly and just as
easily as that last glass of champagne we drank together, when I said:
"And so let us drink out the rest of our lives." With these words I
hurriedly quaffed the wine, before its noble spirit ceased to sparkle.
And so I say again, let us live and love. I know you would not wish to
survive me; you would rather follow your dying husband into his
coffin. Gladly and lovingly would you descend into the burning abyss,
even as the women of India do, impelled by a mad law, the cruel,
constraining purpose of which desecrates and destroys the most
delicate sanctities of the will.

On the other side, perhaps, longing will be more completely realized.