should remain as it was, Aniela forever to reject my love, but Kromitzki not to come near her,—­I would sign the agreement without hesitation.  Because in the man rejected by a woman there grows involuntarily a conviction that she is like a Gothic tower far out of his reach, to which he scarcely dares to lift his eyes.  Thus I always thought of Aniela.  And then comes a Pan Kromitzki, with two rugs from Batoum, and drags her from the height, that inexorable priestess, down to a level with those rugs.  What a terrible thing it is, that imagination can bring it all so clear before us!  And how repulsively mean he is, and how ridiculous withal!

Where are all my theories, my reasonings, that love is far above matrimonial bonds,—­that I have a right to love Aniela?  I still have my theories, while Kromitzki has Aniela.  As the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb I thought the human being capable of carrying only a certain weight, and that if more were put upon his back he must needs break down.  In my misery without bounds, and in my equally great foolishness and degradation, I felt that from the time of Kromitzki’s arrival I was beginning to despise Aniela.  Why?  I could not justify it upon any common grounds.  “One wife, one husband.”  This law I know by heart, like any other fool; but in relation to my own feelings it is a degradation for Aniela.  What does it matter that it does not stand to reason?  I know that I despise her, and it is more than I can bear.  I felt that existence under these conditions would become simply impossible, and that necessarily there must be some change and the past be buried.  What change?  If my scorn could throttle my love, as a wolf throttles a lamb, it would be well.  But I had a foreboding that something else would take place.  If I did not love Aniela I could not despise her now; therefore my scorn is only another link in the chain, I understand perfectly that beyond Pani Kromitzka, beyond Pan Kromitzki and their relation to each other, nothing interests me,—­nothing whatever; neither light nor darkness, war nor peace, nor any other thing.  She, Aniela, or rather both she and her husband, and my part in their life, are my reason for existence.  If for this same reason I cannot bear my existence any longer, what will happen then?  Suddenly it came upon me, as a surprise, that I had not thought of the most simple solution of the problem,—­death.

What a tremendous power there is in human hands,—­the power of cutting the thread.  Now I am ready.  Evil genius of my life, do thy worst; pile weight upon weight,—­but only up to a certain time, as long as I consent.  If I find it too much I throw off the burden!  “E poi eterna silenza,” Nirvana, the “fourth dimension” of Zoellner—­what do I know?  The thought that it all depended upon me gave me an immense relief.