And that is the reason why I do not resist any longer.  What good can it do either to her or to me?  The sentence has been pronounced.  I should be blind if I did not perceive that some power as strong as the universe is parting us.  What this power is, what it is called, I do not know.  I know only that if I knelt down, beat my head on the floor, prayed, and cried out for mercy, I might move a mountain sooner than move that power.  As nothing now could part me from Aniela but death, she must die.  This may be very logical, but I do not consent to part from her.

21 November.

Aniela wished to see me.  My aunt took everybody out of the room, thinking she wanted to recommend her mother to my care, and this was really the case.  I saw my beloved, the soul of my life.  She is always conscious her eyes are very bright and her mental faculties excited.  The pain has almost ceased.  All traces of her former state have disappeared, and her face is like an angel’s.  She smiled at me, and I smiled back.  Since yesterday I know what is awaiting me, and it seems to me as if I were dead already; therefore I am calm.  Taking my hand in hers, she began to speak about her mother, then looked at me as if she wished to see as much as she could of me before her eyes closed forever, and said:—­

“Do not be afraid, Leon,—­I feel much better; but in case anything should happen to me I wanted to leave you something to remember me by.  Perhaps I ought not to say it so soon after my husband’s death; but as I might die, I wanted to tell you now that I loved you very, very much.”

I replied to her:  “I know it, dearest;” and I held her hand and we looked into each other’s eyes.  For the first time in her life she smiled at me as my betrothed wife.  And I wedded her by vows stronger and more lasting than earthly vows.  We were happy at this moment though overshadowed by a sadness as strong as death left her only when we were told the priest had come.  She had prepared me for his coming, and asked me not to grieve at it; she had sent for him, not because she thought she was dying, but that it might do her good and set her mind at rest.

When the priest had left I went back to her.  After so many sleepless nights she was tired and fell asleep she is sleeping now.  When she wakes up I will not leave her again until she falls asleep again.

22 November.

She is very much better.  Pani Celina is beside herself with joy.  I am the only one who knows what it is.  There was no need for the doctor to tell me that it means paralysis of the bowels.

23 November.

Aniela died this morning.

ROME, 5 December.

I might have been your happiness, and became your misfortune.  I am the cause of your death, for if I had been a different man, if I had not been wanting in all principles, all foundations of life, there would not have come upon you the shocks that killed you.  I understood that in the last moments of your life, and I promised myself I would follow you.  I vowed it at your dying bed, and my only duty is now near you.