Dante's love for Beatrice. She wanted to lead me. Has she
calculated everything beforehand more carefully and profoundly than I?
No; I do not know anybody less capable of any calculation, therefore
I cannot admit the idea; yet I cannot get rid of the consciousness,
bordering upon the mystical, that some one has calculated it for her.

It is all very strange, and the strangest thing of all is that I
forged the fetters which bind me; I myself contrived to bring about
a relation so foreign to my nature, my views, and my most ardent
desires. If somebody had foretold to me, before I knew Aniela, that
I should hit upon such devices, it would have made me laugh at the
prophet and at myself. I, and Platonic relations! Even now I feel
sometimes inclined to laugh and jeer at myself. But I cannot; it is
sheer misery that has brought me to that pass.

23 August.

We leave here to-morrow. The sky is clearing up and there is a
westerly breeze that promises fine weather. The mist has gathered into
long, whitish billows, that hang on the mountain sides, and like
huge leviathans are slowly rolling down. I went with Aniela on the
Kaiserweg. This morning the question arose in my mind what would
happen if the existing state of things ceased to satisfy Aniela. I
have no right to overstep the boundary, and I am afraid to do so;
suppose she too thought the same? Her innate modesty and shyness in
themselves would prove an almost insurmountable barrier; and if, added
to that, she thought the mutual agreement as binding for her as for
me, we should never come to an understanding; we should suffer in
vain.

Reflecting upon this, I understood the futility of such fears. She, to
whom even that Platonic relation appears too broad, who consciously or
unconsciously restricts, and does not even grant me what is due to me
within these limits, should be the first to acknowledge any greater
rights. And yet the human soul, even if in hell, will never lose hope
altogether. In spite of the self-evident impossibility, I resolved to
make myself safe by giving Aniela to understand that if I considered
the agreement as binding, it was not the same with her.

I wanted to say many other things, especially that she was doing me a
great wrong, and that my soul yearned to hear a word of love from her
lips, not once but many times, and that only thus I should be able to
remain on those lofty heights whereon she condemned me to dwell. But
that morning she was s