l-Life. For
the first time the thought crossed my mind that Aniela and I may pass
away as bodies, but our love will survive and even be our immortality.
"Who knows," I thought, "whether this be not the only existing form
of immortality?"--because I felt distinctly that there is something
everlasting in my feeling, quite distinct from the ever changing
phenomena of life. A man must love very deeply to be capable of such
feelings and visions; he must be very unhappy, and perhaps close on
the brink of insanity. I am not yet on that brink, but I am close upon
mysticism, and never so happy as when I thus lose myself and scatter
my own self, so that I have some difficulty in finding it again. I
fully understand why this is the case. My dualism, my inward criticism
shattered all the foundations of my life, together with the happiness
these foundations would have given me. In those lands where, instead
of syllogisms, visions and dim consciousness reign paramount,
criticism finds no room; and this solution gives me rest and relief.

Thus I rested when I drew near Gastein. I saw myself and Aniela wedded
spiritually and at peace. I had the proud consciousness that I had
found a way out of the enchanted circle and into happiness. I was
certain Aniela would give me her hand, and thus together we would
begin a new life.

Suddenly I started as if waking from a dream, and saw that my hand was
covered with blood. It appeared that the same vehicle I was travelling
in had been used to transport some of the injured victims of the
railway disaster. There was a deal of blood at one side of the seat,
which the driver had not noticed or had forgotten to wipe off. My
mysticism does not go so far as to create belief in the intervention
of mysterious powers through omens, signs, or predictions. Yet, though
not superstitious myself, I am able to enter the train of thought of a
superstitious man, and consequently observe the singular coincidence
of this fact. It seemed to me strange that in the carriage where I
dreamed about the beginning of a new life some other life had perhaps
breathed its last; also that with bloodstained hands I had been
thinking of peace and happiness.

Coincidences like these more or less influence nervous persons, not by
filling them with presentiments, but rather by throwing a dark shadow
upon all their thoughts. Undoubtedly mine would have travelled in that
direction had I not been close upon Wildbad. Slowly crawling u