During the whole time of breakfast I did not say a word. When alone in my own room I held my head with both hands and with a weary, over-wrought brain, began to think again of what had happened. My thoughts were still very bitter. Women of narrow hearts often remain unyielding through a certain philistinism of virtue. The first thing with them is to keep their accounts in order, like any tradesman. They fear love, as the grocer fears street-risings, war, riots, exalted ideas, and audacious flights of fancy. Peace at any price, because peace is good for business. Everything that rises above the rational and commonplace standard of life is bad, and deserves the contempt of reasonable beings. Virtue has its heights and precipices, but also its level plains.
I now struggled with the exceedingly painful question whether Aniela did not belong to that kind of commonplace virtuous women, who want to keep their accounts in order, and reject love because it reaches above the ordinary standard of their hearts and minds. I searched in the past for proofs. "Who knows," I said to myself, "whether her simple ethical code is not resting upon such a foundation?" I had believed her to be one of those exceptional natures, different from all other women, inaccessible as the snowy heights of the Alps that without any slope soar straight heavenward. And now this lofty nature considers it the most proper thing that a husband in slippers should trample on those snows. What does it all mean? Whenever thoughts like these crowd my brain I feel as if I were on the brink of madness; such a rage seizes me that if I could I would throw down, trample, and spit upon the forces of life, reduce the whole world to chaos and obliterate its existence. On my journey back from Vienna I was searching for some unearthly abode where I might love Aniela even as Dante loved Beatrice. I built it of the sufferings from which as from fire my love had risen purified, of my renunciations and sacrifices, and thought that in a superhuman, simply angelic way she would be mine, and feel that she belonged to me. And now it came into my thoughts that it was not worth while to speak about it, as she would not understand me; not worth while leading her on to those heights, as she would not be able to breathe there. She might agree, in her soul, that I should go on loving her, go on suffering, since that flatters her vanity; but no compact, no union the most spiritual, no mutual belonging even in the Dantesque meaning,—to none of these will she agree, because she understands only one belonging and one right, which is expressed in a man's dressing-gown, and her soul cannot rise above the narrow, mean, matrimonial, book-keeping spirit.
I felt an overwhelming regret that I had not been in the wrecked train. The regret was as much the result of physical exhaustion as of Aniela's cruelty. I was tired, as one who has watched night after night at the sick bed of a very dear friend, and to whom death appears as a desired rest. And then I thought that if they had brought my mangled remains to Gastein something would perhaps have stirred in her. Thinking of this I suddenly remembered yesterday's Aniela, who went with my aunt in search of me. I recalled to my mind the sudden terror and the joy close upon it, those eyes full of tears, the disordered hair; and love immeasurable, love a hundred times more real than all my thoughts and reasonings took possession of me. It was like a great convulsive motion of the heart, which almost at once got buried in a wave of doubts. All I had noticed that day might be explained upon quite different grounds. Who knows whether it was I or my aunt who played the principal part in this emotion? Besides impressionable women have always a store of sympathy at command, even for the merest stranger. What more natural than that she should exhibit some feeling when he who was threatened by some danger was a relative? She would naturally be horrified at the thought of my death, and rejoice at seeing me alive. If, instead of her, Pani Sniatynska had been staying with my aunt, she too would have been terror-stricken, and I should have seen her without her gloves, and her hair in disorder. No, in regard to that I cannot delude myself any longer. Aniela knew very well that her departure would be to me a more dangerous catastrophe than a wound on my head or the loss of an arm or leg; and yet she did not hesitate a moment. I was perfectly aware that it was all her doing. She wanted to be near her husband, and what would become of me was not taken into account.
Again I felt myself growing pale with anger, hatred, and indignation, and only one step removed from madness. "Stop a little," I said to myself, pressing both hands against my temples; "perhaps she is seeking safety in flight because she loves you, and feels she cannot resist any longer." Ah me! and these thoughts sprung up, but they did not find any congenial soil and perished like the seed sown on a rock; they only roused a bitter, despairing irony. "Yes," something said within me, "hers is a love resembling the compassion which makes people remove the pillow from under the dying man's head, to shorten his agony. I shall not suffer much longer, and Kromitzki will be able to see her often and bring her such comfort as a wife expects from her husband."
Aniela at that moment was hateful to me. For the first time in my life I wished she really loved Kromitzki; she would have been less repugnant to me. Anger and resentment almost deprived me of my senses, and I saw clearly that if I did not do something, revenge myself upon her in some way, something terrible would happen to me. I jumped up, and under the influence of that thought, as if touched by a red-hot iron, I took my hat and went forth in search of Kromitzki. I did not find him either in the house or in the garden. I went to the Wandelbahn, then to the reading-rooms; he was in neither of the two places. I stopped for a moment on the bridge near the Cascades, thinking what to do next. The wind coming from that direction blew a cloud of spray into my face. This caused me a pleasant sensation and relieved the tension of my nerves. I bared my head and exposed it to the spray until my hair was quite wet. I felt a purely animal delight in the coolness. I had regained all my self-possession. There remained now only the distinct and decided wish to thwart Aniela. I said to her, "You shall not be allowed to go away, and henceforth I will treat you as a man who has paid for you with his money." I saw the way clear before me, and was not afraid of making any mistakes in dealing with Kromitzki. I found him outside Straubinger's hotel reading the paper. When he saw me he dropped his eyeglass and said:—
"I was just thinking of going to look for you."
"Let us go on the Kaiserweg."
And we went. Not waiting for him to begin, I plunged at once into the subject.
"My aunt told me about your conversation with her yesterday," I said.
"I am very sorry it took place at all," replied Kromitzki.