As soon as I went up to my room, and opened the window facing the lake, the beauty of the sheet of water, of these mountains, and of this sky, at the first moment literally dazzled and overwhelmed me. I experienced an inward unrest, and the necessity of expressing in some manner the feelings that suddenly filled my soul to overflowing. I felt a desire to embrace, powerfully to embrace, someone, to tickle him, or to pinch him; in short, to do to him and to myself something extraordinary.

It was seven o’clock in the evening. The rain had been falling all day, but now it had cleared off.