myself up in my rooms and stuck a placard with the words 'Gone away' on the door. It is no lie, for my whole soul has followed Marie.
Now and then during the first few days, I heard a creaking and clattering on my staircase; the sound stopped outside my door, and then I heard it creaking and clattering down again.
Now there is nobody who looks me up. People think I have left town and no one inquires for me. In my silent lonely rooms, where the memory of Marie is everywhere, I have spent the time in telling the story of Marie as it is written in this book. It is not a novel artistically composed. It is only a bundle of loose leaves from a love-story for which only one art is necessary, that of being in love. It is a book about the way in which I learned that simple and yet so difficult art.
LVIIIMarie, my holy one! See! a sinner is kneeling at your feet and he asks nothing. He who could never ask enough wants nothing now but only to lie at your feet and look up into your lovely face. He, the autocrat, is now the suppliant, he the disbeliever swears by your holy name!…
Marie, you, whose love gives me all, you, from whom flow all good gifts, only to rest at your feet and to worship your every look seems riches enough!…
Marie, so tenderly human, so heavenly pure, you, whose soul rises like a white dove from the passion-
