r which a name must be found, for the world now
recognizes nothing as nameless. She had told me herself that she loved
me with that pure all-human love, out of which springs all other love.
Her shuddering, her uneasiness, when I confessed my full love to her,
were still incomprehensible to me, but it could no longer shatter my
faith in our love. Why should we desire to understand all that takes
place in other human natures, when there is so much that is
incomprehensible in our own? After all, it is the inconceivable which
generally captivates us, whether in nature, in man, or in our own
breasts. Men whom we understand, whose motives we see before us like an
anatomical preparation, leave us cold, like the characters in most of our
novels. Nothing spoils our delight in life and men more than this ethic
rationalism which insists upon clearing up everything, and illuminating
every mystery of our inner being. There is in every person a something
that is inseparable--we call it fate, the suggestive power or
character--and he knows neither himself nor mankind, who believes that he
can analyze the deeds and actions of men without taking into account this
ever-recurring principle. Thus I consoled myself on all those points
which had troubled me in the evening; and at last no streak of cloud
obscured the heaven of the future.

In this frame of mind I stepped out of the close house into the open air,
when a messenger brought a letter for me. It was from the Countess, as I
saw by the beautiful, delicate handwriting. I breathlessly opened it--I
looked for the most blissful tidings man can expect. But all my hopes
were immediately shattered. The letter contained only a request not to
visit her to-day, as she expected a visit at the castle from the Court
Residence. No friendly word--no news of her health--only at the close, a
postscript: "The Hofrath will be here to-morrow and the next day."

Here were two days torn out at once from the book of life. If they could
only be completely obliterated--but no, they hang over me like the leaden
roof of a prison. They must be lived. I could not give them away as a
charity to king or beggar, who would gladly have sat two days longer upon
his throne, or on his stone at the church door. I remained in this
abstraction for a long time; but then I thought of my morning prayer, and
how I said to myself there was no greater unbelief than despondency--how
the smallest and greatest in li