On the other hand I would think of myself as it were from within, as someone who was in the process of being created, and my ambition was to progress to the infinite of perfection; I saw the chosen one from outside, like a complete person; in order that he might always be at my own lofty level, I would provide him from the start with perfections that for me were still unrealized hopes; from the very start he would be the model of all I wished to become; he would, therefore, be superior to me. Yet I was careful not to set too great a distance between us. I could not have accepted a man whose thoughts and work were an enigma to me; love would be a justification, not a limitation. The picture I conjured up in my mind was of a steep climb in which my partner, a little more agile and stronger than myself, would help me up from one stage to the next. I was grasping rather than generous; if I had had to drag someone along behind me, I should have been consumed with impatience. In that case, celibacy was preferable to marriage. A life in common would have to favour and not stand in the way of my fundamental aim, which was to conquer the world. The man destined to be mine would be neither inferior nor different, nor outrageously superior; someone who would guarantee my existence without taking away my powers of self-determination.