Chapter LXXIII: Jan. 21 st

Leave me alone. Don't torment me with wild letters. I do not love you. I will not marry you. I cared for you sincerely as a friend, but what a gulf there is between that and the abandonment of worship last year in Jena. Only just that, just that breathless passion, would make me marry, and I would never feel it for a man I am forced to pity. Is not worship a looking up? a rapture of faith? I cannot look up to you. I have no faith in you. Leave me alone.