“Place thy foot upon thy slave,
Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams;
Among the shadows, dark and grave,
Thy extended body softly gleams.”
And—so on. This time I really got beyond the first stanza. At her
request I gave her the poem in the evening, keeping no copy. And now as
I am writing this down in my diary I can only remember the first
stanza.
I am filled with a very curious sensation. I don’t believe that I am in
love with Wanda; I am sure that at our first meeting, I felt nothing of
the lightning-like flashes of passion. But I feel how her
extraordinary, really divine beauty is gradually winding magic snares
about me. It isn’t any spiritual sympathy which is growing in me; it is
a physical subjection, coming on slowly, but for that reason more
absolutely.