I had indirect news of Laura through my lawyer, who is also their legal adviser. Mr. Davis is already in a lunatic asylum, and Laura at Interlaken, at the foot of the Jungfrau. Perhaps she has some ideas about climbing the mountain heights, drapes herself in Alps, eternal snow, and rising sun, sails gracefully on the lake, and bends over precipices. I expressed my regret at Mr. Davis's condition, and the lady's, who at so early an age was left without protection. Thereupon the old lawyer set my mind at rest, telling me that Count Maleschi, a Neapolitan, and Laura's cousin, had gone to Switzerland. I know him. He is beautiful as an Antinous, but an inveterate gambler, and somewhat of a coward. It appears I was a little out of my reckoning when I compared Laura to the tower of Pisa.
It has happened to me literally for the first time that the memory of a woman whom I did not love, though I made her believe I did, rouses within me much ill-feeling. I am so ungrateful and ungenerous to her that it makes me feel ashamed. Plainly, what reason have I for any ill-feeling, and what has she done to me that I cannot forgive? It is because, as I said before, from the very beginning of our relations, though not through any fault of hers, I did many things I have never done before in my life. I did not respect my sorrow, had no consideration for the weakness and helplessness of Davis, got corrupted, slothful, and finally sent off that fatal letter.
It is all my fault! But the blind man when he stumbles over a stone, curses the stone, not the blindness that made him stumble.
17 June.
To-day I paid Lukomski, gave a power of attorney to the lawyer, had my things packed, and am ready for the journey. Rome begins to pall upon me.
18 June.
I have been counting that my aunt's reply ought to have reached me by this. Putting aside all the worst suppositions, I try to guess what she is going to tell me. I regret, for I do not know how many times, that my letter was not more conclusive. Yet I wrote that I would come to Ploszow if I felt sure my presence would be acceptable to my aunt's guests, sending them my kindest regards at the same time. I also mentioned that during the last days of my stay at Peli I felt so irritable that I scarcely knew what I was doing. The letter, while I was writing it, seemed to me very clever; now it appears to me as the height of folly. It was simply that my vanity did not permit me to revoke clearly and decidedly what I had written previously. I counted upon my aunt grasping at the opportunity I gave her for settling matters, and then I meant to make my appearance as the generous prince. Human nature is very pitiful. Nothing now remains but to hold fast to the hope that my aunt would guess how it stood with me.
With my anxiety increasing every moment, I feel not only that I could have loved Aniela, but that I do love her beyond expression, and also that I might become an incomparably better man. Strictly speaking, why do I act as if beyond nerves and egoism there were nothing else in me? and if there be anything else, why does not my auto-analysis point it out to me? I have the courage to draw extreme conclusions, and do not hide the truth from myself, but I decidedly negative the notion. Why? Because I have the unshaken conviction that I am better than my actions. The cause of the latter is partly a certain incapacity of life, partly the inheritance of my race and the disease of the times in which I live, and finally that over-analysis which does not permit me to follow the first, simple impulses of nature, but criticises until it reduces the soul to utter impotence. When a child I used to amuse myself by piling up coin upon coin until the column, bending under its own weight, tumbled down into one chaotic heap. I am doing now exactly the same with my thoughts and intentions, until they collapse and roll over each other in a disorderly confusion. For this very reason it has always been easier for me to play a passive part than an active one. It appears to me that many cultured people are attacked by the same disease. Criticism of ourselves and everything else is corroding our active power; we have no stable basis, no point of issue, no faith in life. Therein lies the reason why I do not care so much to win Aniela as I am afraid of losing her. In speaking of a disease common to our time, I will not confine myself exclusively to my own case. That somebody takes to his bed when an epidemic disease is raging is a very common occurrence; nowadays criticism of everything is the epidemic spreading all over the world. The result is that various roofs that sheltered men collapse over their heads. Religion, the very name of which means "ties," is getting unloosened. Faith, even in those who still believe, is getting restive. Through the roof of what we call Fatherland social currents begin to filter. There remains only one ideal in presence of which the most hardened sceptic raises his hat,—the People. But on the base of this statue mischievous spirits are beginning already to scribble more or less ribald jokes, and, what is still more strange, the mist of unbelief is rising from the heads of those who, in the nature of things, ought to bow down reverently. Finally there will come a gifted sceptic, a second Heine, to spit and trample on the idol, as in his time did Aristophanes; he will not, however, trample on it in the name of old ideals, but in the name of freedom of thought, in the name of freedom of doubt; and what will happen then I do not know. Most likely on the huge, clean-wiped slate the devil will write sonnets. Can anything be done to prevent all this? Finally, what does it matter to me? To attempt anything is not my business; I have been trained too carefully as a child of my time. But if all that is thought, that is achieved and happening, has for its ultimate aim to increase the sum of general happiness, I permit myself a personal remark as to that happiness; by which I do not mean material comfort, but that inward spiritual peace in which I as well as anybody else may be wanting. Thus my grandfather was happier than my father, my father happier than I, and as to my son, if ever I have one, he will simply be an object of commiseration.
FLORENCE, 20 June.
The house of cards has tumbled down. I received a letter from my aunt. Aniela is engaged to Kromitzki, and the marriage will take place in a few weeks. She herself has fixed such a short date. After receiving the news I took a railway ticket, with the intention of going straight to Ploszow, conscious all the time that it was a foolish thing to do, which could lead to nothing. But the impulse was upon me, and carried me along; when, collecting the last remnants of common-sense and reflection, I stuck fast here.