ms, and that is her heart; but no artificial
scenes, no phrases or false pathos. There is not the slightest
possibility of her yielding to these.

If it be a great misfortune to love another man's wife, be she ever so
commonplace, it is an infinitely greater misfortune to love a virtuous
woman. There is something in my relations to Aniela of which I never
heard or read; there is no getting out of it, no end. A solution,
whether it be a calamity or the fulfilment of desire, is something,
but this is only an enchanted circle. If she remain immovable and I do
not cease loving her, it will be an everlasting torment, and nothing
else. And I have the despairing conviction that neither of us will
give way.

If she has a narrow heart it will not trouble her very much. As to
myself I desire nothing more ardently than to get free from bondage;
but I cannot get free. I say to myself, over and over again, that it
must be done; and I put forth all my strength, as the drowning man
does to save himself. At times I fancy that I have achieved some kind
of victory, when lo! I see her passing under my window, my eyes rest
upon her, and I experience a shock in my heart; the whole depth of
my feeling is revealed, as the flash of lightning tears asunder the
clouds and shows the depth of the sky. Ah me! what torture to have to
deal with virtue, cold and merciless as the letter of the law! Even if
Aniela had no heart I should still love her, as a mother would love a
child though it were deformed. Pity then grows all the stronger,--and
so does pain.

5 August.

What an inadequate, mean standard is human intellect when it comes to
measure anything great, awesome, or very lofty. Reason, which serves
well enough in the everyday conditions of life, becomes a drivelling
fool, like Polonius, in exceptional cases. It seems to me that the
usual ethical code cannot be considered a standard by which to measure
great passions. To see in an immense feeling like mine only the
infringement of this or that law, not to see anything else, not to see
that it is an element and part of those higher forces that mock at
empty rules, a godlike, immeasurable, creative power on which rests
the All-Life, is a kind of blindness and littleness. Alas, Aniela thus
looks upon my love! I suppose she often thinks I must respect her for
her conduct; while I--God knows, I do not say it because it concerns
my own fate, but judging her quite impartially--despise her, or at