than I am in any way.—As to this last, I wish I could say the same of him.
And yet I would not exactly have him changed—rather transformed and become another person. It seems that to be as lack-brained as an animal is not sufficient: one must besides have some primitive instincts, one must have some vigour. … What I need now, perforce and irresistibly, is matchless strength—the strength of a hurricane, of a cyclone, of some great natural force let loose.
He loves to talk with me on intellectual matters. "No one can understand his soul so well as I."
Silent and with eyes cast down, I listen for some time to his commonplaces, uttered indeed in elaborately chosen words, and in a manner not commonplace. And I ponder. I gaze on him—on that mouth so perfectly shaped, so intensely sweet, just a little faded, it seems; and on those eyes which, beneath the tawny lashes that shade them, are so bright with the fever and the melancholy of lassitude, so full of the irresistible charm which surrounds all that is coming to an end, though you would have it remain as beautiful as only youth's dream can be. And it is then—when
