You gave me a whole evening. Don’t deny it, for you know I collect all the minutes that you can spare from your superfluity. I glean them together, as Ruth gleaned wheat on Boaz’s fertile acres. I hadn’t dared to hope; not dared, you must believe me. I left the house alone with thoughts about you, but without the slightest shadow of a hope of seeing you. Then when I asked you imploringly, “Come to the meeting,” you shook your head and answered, “I can’t manage it.”
But while I made my way through the lighted, busy streets, my heart became suddenly so heavy that I felt I couldn’t go on. Yet I dragged myself there.
Many people greeted me, and said they were glad to see me.... I stood in the centre of a little group. Then all at once I felt your presence. I heard you coming ... your step ... it seemed as if you walked straight up to my very heart’s door.
Smiling, you held out your hand to me ... that alone was enough to gild my evening, but you stayed with me, stayed with me. We sat together, we two. The whole evening we sat together. While others discussed what they had come together to discuss, I sat apart and let myself be enthralled by a happiness which was almost more than I could bear.
Several times you leaned close to me to whisper something, and we both laughed and chatted about the others.
You are very fond of me as a friend with whom you can talk or be silent at your pleasure. If I were to cease to exist one day, you would—if only for a few minutes—feel the loss. Therefore I know that my life has not been lived in vain.
So, gradually, I have gained ground, step by step, and I don’t worry you. That is true, is it not? I don’t worry you? Rather than be a burden to you I would give up the joy that lies for me in seeing you now and then, and being sometimes where you are. It is that I long for nothing else, but to be allowed to love you.
Sometimes when my thoughts soar to the cloudy pinnacles of bliss I have asked myself, what if the impossible were to happen, if you were to love me!
The clouds float on high, but when they are heavy with the moisture of earth, they weep till they are light again, and their tears water into fruitfulness the woods and meadows, while they themselves sail on yonder through the chill ether.