who knows, perhaps i still wish to! but i know for certain, that if she married me it would be her ruin; i know this and therefore i leave her alone. i ought to go to see her today; now i shall probably not go. she is proud, she would never forgive me the nature of the love i bear her, and we should both be ruined. this may be unnatural, i don’t know; but everything seems unnatural. you say she loves me, as if this were love! as if she could love me, after what i have been through! no, no, it is not love."