no longer surprised at him; the poor devil had quit, what else could he have done? ... How her blue velvet eyes will sparkle when I soon take the same path! But I love you, I love you for that too, not only for your virtues, but also for your malice. If anything, I suffer all too much by your being so indulgent with me; why do you tolerate that I have more than one eye? You should take one of them, well, both, why not? You shouldn’t put up with my being allowed to walk the street in peace and having a roof over my head. You have torn Martha away from me, but I love you in spite of it, and you know I love you in spite of it; it makes you snicker at me, and I also love you because you snicker at me. Can you ask for more? Isn’t that enough? Your long white hands, your voice, your blond hair, your breath and your soul—I love them all as I’ve never loved anything before; honest to God, I cannot help it, it’s beyond my control! You may mock me to your heart’s content and laugh at me, I don’t mind; what does it matter, Dagny, since I love you? I don’t see that it makes any difference; as far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever strikes your fancy, you’ll still be just as beautiful and lovable in my eyes, I willingly admit it. Somehow or other I’ve disappointed you; you regard me as wicked and mean and believe me capable of anything. If I could add to my low stature by some deception or other, I would even do that. Well, what about it? If you say so, it’s true for me as well, and a good thing; I assure you that my love begins to sing within me when you say it. Even if you look disdainfully at me or turn your back on me without answering my question, or you try to overtake me in the street to humiliate me, even so my heart thrills with love for you. Try to understand, I’m deluding neither you nor myself: it doesn’t really matter to me if you laugh again, it doesn’t change my feelings. That’s the way it is. And if I should find a diamond some day it would be called Dagny, because your name is enough to make me warm with joy. I would even go so far as to wish to hear your name perpetually, hear it spoken by all men and beasts, by every mountain and every star, as to wish I were deaf to everything else and only heard your name as an endless note in my ear night and day all my life long. I would want to institute a new oath in your name, an oath that all the peoples on earth would swear by, in your honor. And if that would be a sin and God warned me against it, I would answer him: charge it to my account, enter it on the books, I’ll pay for it with my soul in the fullness of time, when the clock strikes....
How strange it all is! I’ve been stopped everywhere, and yet I’m the same, in strength, in spirit. The same possibilities are open to me as before, I could accomplish the same tasks. Why, then, have I been stopped, and why have all possibilities become impossible to me all of a sudden? Is it my own fault? I do not see how. All my senses are intact, I have no harmful habits, I’m not addicted to a single vice, nor do I rush blindly into danger. I think as before, feel as before, I’m in control of my movements as before, and, yes, I appreciate people as before. I’ll go to Martha, I know that she’s my salvation, a kind soul, my guardian angel. She’s timid, very apprehensive; but in the end she will want what I want and we’ll be in agreement. Good! I’m dreaming of a life of happy tranquillity; we shall withdraw into solitude, live in a cottage with a spring nearby, roam about the woods in short togs and buckled shoes2—just as her kind, sentimental heart demands. Why not? Mohammed goes to the mountain! And Martha is with me, filling my days with purity and my nights with rest, and the Lord on high is over us. But then the world sticks its nose into it, the world takes umbrage, the world decides it’s madness. The world says that such and such a reasonable man or woman wouldn’t have done it, consequently it’s mad. And I, a single solitary individual, stand up, stamp my feet and say it is reasonable! What does the world know? Nothing! You