...This is unhealthy, though...what am I doing? as it is I am weak, and here I am exciting myself, squandering the last of this strength, oh! What anguish! And it is obvious to me that I have not yet removed the final film from this fear.

You became lost in thought...In my dreams the world was ennobled, spiritualized; my mother, whom in the waking state I feared so much, appeared there in a shimmering refraction, just as if she were imbued with and enveloped by that vibration of light which in sultry weather inspires the very outlines of objects with light; her voice, her step, the expressions of her eyes and even of her clothes--acquired an exciting significance.