ony fail me, or rather help me only
for a moment; then I go back to the enchanted circle. Strictly
speaking, it is neither a great sorrow nor a sting of conscience; it
is rather a troublesome fastening upon one subject, and a restless,
feverish curiosity as to what will happen next,--as if upon that next
my very life depended. If I analyzed myself less closely, I should say
it was an all-absorbing love that had taken possession of me; but I
notice that there is something besides Aniela that causes me anxiety.
There is no doubt as to her having made a deep impression upon me; but
Sniatynski is right,--if I had loved her as much as Sniatynski loved
his wife, I should have desired to make her my own. But I--and this is
quite a fact--do not desire her so much as I am afraid to lose her.
It is not everybody perhaps who could perceive the singular and great
difference. I feel quite convinced that but for Kromitzki and the fear
of losing Aniela, I should not feel either anxieties or trouble. My
entangled skein is gradually getting straighter, and I can see now
more clearly that it is not so much love for Aniela as fear of losing
her, and with her some future happiness, that moves me, and still more
the utter loneliness I see before me should Aniela go out from my
life.

I have noticed that the stoutest pessimists, when fate or men try to
take something out of their lives, fight tooth and nail, and cry out
as loud as the greatest optimists. I am exactly in the like position.
I do not cry out, but a terrible fear clutches at my heart, that a few
days hence I shall not know what to do with myself in this world.

16 June.

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 l