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“Why can’t a night like that be longer? If Alectryon could put a foot wrong,101 why can’t the sun be compassionate enough to do the same? Still, now it is over and I want never to see her again. Once a girl has given away everything, she is weak, she has lost everything; for in the man innocence is a negative factor, while for the woman it is her whole worth. Now all resistance is impossible, and only when it is there is it beautiful to love; once it is gone, love is only weakness and habit. I do not wish to be reminded of my relation to her; she has lost her fragrance, and the time has gone when, for pain over her untrue lover, a girl is transformed into a heliotrope.102 I will not take leave of her; nothing disgusts me more than a woman’s tears and a woman’s prayers, which change everything yet are really of no consequence. I have loved her, but from now on she can no longer engage my soul. If I were a god I would do for her what Neptune did for a nymph: change her into a man. Nevertheless, it would really be worthwhile knowing whether one couldn’t poetize oneself out of a girl, whether one couldn’t make her so proud that she imagined it was she who had wearied of the relationship. It could become a quite interesting epilogue, which in its own right might be of psychological interest, and besides that, enrich one with many erotic observations.” — Søren Kierkegaard