mn him, and will confess openly that it has raised the
man in my esteem. There are some men who, justly accused of fraud and
wrong-dealing, and sentenced to imprisonment, take it easy, and pass
their time in prison gayly drinking champagne. He did not do that,--he
preferred death to disgrace. Maybe he remembered who he was. I should
have less sympathy with him if he had made away with himself merely
because he had failed; but I suppose even that would have been a
sufficient motive for him to do so. I remember what he said about
it at Gastein. If my love be a neurosis, then most undoubtedly his
feverish desire for gold is the same. When this one aim went out from
his life, this one basis slipped away from under his feet, he saw
before him, perhaps, a gulf and a desert such as I saw when alone at
Berlin. And what could hold him back? The thought of Aniela? He knew
we would take care of her; and besides,--who knows?--perhaps in a dim
way he felt that he was not necessary to her happiness. I did not
think he had it in him; I had not expected from him so much energy and
courage, and I confess that I judged him wrongly.

I had put down my pen, but take it up again because I cannot sleep;
and besides, while writing my thoughts flow more evenly, and I do not
feel my brain reeling. Aniela is free! Aniela is free! I repeat it to
myself and cannot encompass the whole meaning. I feel as if I could
go mad with joy, and at the same time I am seized with an undefined
dread. Is it really true that a new life is dawning for me? What is
it? Is it one of Nature's tricks, or is it God's mercy at last for all
I suffered, and for the great love I bear in my heart? Perhaps there
exists a mystic law which gives the woman to the man who loves her
most in order that a great, eternal commandment of the Creator should
be fulfilled. I do not know. I have a feeling as if I and all those
near me were carried away by an immense wave, beyond human will or
human control.

I interrupted my writing again, because the carriage I sent for the
doctor has come back without him. He has an operation on hand and
could not come, but promised to be here in the morning. He must remain
with us at Ploszow until our departure, and go with us to Rome. There
I shall find others to take his place.

It is late in the night. Aniela is asleep, and has no foreboding of
what is hanging over her, what a complete change in her life has taken
place. May it bring peace and hap