I did not want to say an untruth when I told Aniela I would love her as if she were dead; but resignation does not exclude all hope.  In spite of all my disappointments, in spite of the consciousness that my hopes are vain, I still nourish in a corner of my heart the hope that the present state of affairs is only a halting-place on the way to love.  I may repeat to myself over and over again, “Delusion! delusion!” but I cannot get rid of it until I get rid of my desire.  They are inseparable.  I agreed to the compact because I could not help myself, because I preferred this to nothing at all; but I consider it, almost unconsciously, as a diplomatic move which aims at complete, not half happiness.  What makes me nevertheless thoughtful, surprises, and grieves me, and what I simply cannot understand, is that on this line even I am defeated.  My victories lie in the dim, far-off future; but in the present, in spite of all my cunning, experience of life, strong feelings, and diplomacy, I am defeated by a being infinitely more simple than I, less skilled in life’s tactics, less cautious and calculating in the course she takes.  It is a defeat; there is no other word for it.  What is our present relation?  Nothing more than the relation of brother and sister, which she wished for and which I did not wish.  Formerly I fought with the storm and often came to grief, but I steered my own bark.  Now Aniela steers for us both; we go more smoothly and more evenly, but I feel I am going where I did not wish to go.  I now understand why she put out her hand at once, when I mentioned 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.