Perhaps I have been loved in secret by some humble heart that I have neglected or broken; perhaps I have myself been the ideal of another, the pole-star of a suffering heart,--the dream of a night and the thought of a day.--If I had looked at my feet, perhaps I should have seen there some fair Magdalene with her box of ointment and her dishevelled hair. I walked along with my arms raised to heaven, longing to pluck the stars that fled from me, and scorning to pick the little daisy that opened its golden heart in the dewy grass. I have made a great mistake: I have asked love for something other than love, something that it could not give. I forgot that love was naked, I failed to grasp the meaning of that magnificent symbol.--I asked him for brocade dresses, feathers, diamonds, sublime intellect, learning, poesy, beauty, youth, supreme power--everything that is not love;--love can offer naught but love, and he who seeks to extort anything else from him is unworthy to be loved. I have been in too much of a hurry, of course: my hour has not yet come; God who lent me my life will not take it back without letting me live. What's the use of giving a poet a lyre without strings, or man a life without love? God cannot be guilty of such inconsistency; and I have no doubt that when the allotted moment comes, He will place in my path the woman I am to love and by whom I am to be loved.--But why has love come to me before a mistress? Why am I thirsty when I have no fountain at which to quench my thirst? or why can I not fly, like the birds of the desert, to the spot where water is to be found? The world to me is a Sahara without wells or date-trees. I have not in my whole life a single shady nook to give me shelter from the sun: I suffer all the ardors of passion without its ineffable ecstasy and delight; I know its torments and have not its pleasures. I am jealous of something that does not exist; I am ill at ease for the shadow of a shade; I heave sighs that mean nothing; I have sleepless nights embellished by no adored vision; I shed tears that flow to the ground without being wiped away; I give the wind kisses that are not returned to me; I wear out my eyes trying to distinguish a vague, deceitful shape in the distance; I await what cannot come, and I count the hours with feverish anxiety as if I had an appointment.