This morning I sent the letter to Clara. To-morrow I shall have a reply, or perhaps Clara herself will come tonight. In the afternoon they sent me a second despatch from Kromitzki. It expresses as much despair as a few words can contain. Things seem to have turned out very badly, indeed; even I did not think ruin would come so quickly. Some unexpected circumstances must have intervened that even Kromitzki could not have foreseen. The loss I incur does not make a great difference to me; I shall always be what I was,—but Kromitzki? Why should I deceive myself? There lurks somewhere in a corner of my heart a certain satisfaction at his ruin,—if only for the reason that these two will be now entirely dependent on us; that is, upon my aunt, who is the administrator of the Ploszow estate, and myself. In the mean while I do not intend to reply at all. If I changed my intention it would be to send him my congratulation at the expected family increase. Later on it will be different. I will secure their future; they shall have enough to live upon and more.
23 October.
Clara has not arrived, and up to this moment there is no answer. This is the more strange as she used to write every day, inquiring after my health. Her silence would not surprise me if I thought she wanted even ten minutes to make up her mind. I shall wait patiently; but it would be better if she did not put it off. I feel that if I had not sent off that letter, I should send now another like it; but if I could take it back I should probably do so.
24 October.
This is what Clara writes:—
Dear Monsieur Leon,—Upon receiving your letter I felt so foolishly happy that I wanted to start for Berlin at once. But it is because I love you sincerely that I listened to the voice which said to me that the greatest love ought not to be the greatest egoism, and that I had no right to sacrifice you for myself.
You do not love me, Monsieur Leon. I would give my life were it otherwise; but you do not love me. Your letter has been written in a moment of impulse and despair. From the first instant of meeting you in Berlin I noticed that you were neither well in body nor easy in your mind, and it troubled me; the best proof of this is that although you had wished me good-by, I sent every day to the hotel inquiring whether you had gone, until I was told you were ill. Afterwards, nursing you in your illness, I became convinced that my second fear had been also right, and that you had some hidden sorrow, one of those painful disappointments, after which it is difficult to be reconciled to life.
Now I have a conviction—and God knows how heavily it weighs upon my heart—that you want to bind your life to mine in order to drown certain memories, to forget and put a barrier between you and the past. In the face of that is it possible that I could agree to what you ask? In refusing your hand, the worst that can happen to me is that I shall feel very unhappy, but I shall not have to reproach myself with having become a burden and a dead weight upon you. I have loved you from the first time we met, therefore it is nothing new to me; and I have got used to the sorrow which is the inevitable consequence of separation and the hopeless certainty that my love will never be returned. But even if my life be sad, I can weep either with tears in the usual woman-fashion, or through my music as an artist. I shall always have that comfort at least, that when you think of me it will be as a dear friend or sister. With this I can live. But if I were your wife and came to see that you regretted your impulsiveness, were not happy, perhaps learned to hate me, I should certainly die. Besides, I say to myself: "What have you done to deserve such happiness?" It is almost impossible to imagine perfect happiness. Can you understand that one may love somebody with all one's heart in a humble spirit? I can understand it, for I love thus.
What I am going to say seems to me overbold, yet I do not feel it in my heart to give up hope altogether. Do not be angry with me; God is merciful, and the human soul is so athirst for happiness that it would fain leave a door open for it to enter. If you ask me again in half a year, a year, or any time in life the same question, I shall consider myself rewarded for all I have suffered, and for the tears I am shedding even at this moment.
Clara.