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 happiness to her!  She deserves it all.  Perhaps it is for her sake God’s mercy is showing.

My nerves are so overstrung that I start when I hear a dog barking in the distance, or the watchman’s rattle; it seems to me as if somebody were bringing news and trying to get to Aniela.  I make an effort to calm myself, and explain away the strange fear that haunts me, by the state of Aniela’s health; I try to be convinced that but for this I should not feel so uneasy.  I repeat to myself that my fear will pass, as everything passes, and afterwards there will be the beginning of a new life.

I have to familiarize myself with the thought that Kromitzki is no more.  Out of this catastrophe springs my happiness, such happiness as I dared not hope for; but there is within us a moral instinct which forbids us to rejoice at the death of even an enemy.  And moreover in death itself there is an awful solemnity,—­those who speak in presence of it speak in hushed voices; that is the reason I dare not rejoice.