In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I
left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body.

Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger
to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine.
I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me
before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I
shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the
bare deal table, the dusty books, the trunk covered with a travelling
rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor.

Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over
me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured
to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth
interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air
with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their
touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his passion, and yet he
went on discussing this wretched dome--about which I cared as little as
for the inkstains on his table.

I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room.

"But I get the sunshine," he said, blushing.

I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most
superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges
from the purple clouds at evening.

Big child that you are, how I love you!