Kromitzki arrived to-day.
Gastein, 23 June.
We arrived at Gastein a week ago,--the whole family: Aniela, my aunt,
Pani Celina, Kromitzki, and myself. I interrupted my diary for some
time, not because I had lost the zest for it, nor because I did not
feel the necessity for writing, but simply because I was in a state of
mind which words cannot express. As long as a man tries to resist his
fate, and wages war against the forces that crush him, he has neither
brains nor time for anything else. I was like the prisoner in
Sansson's memoirs, who when they tore his flesh and poured molten lead
into the wounds shouted in nervous ecstasy, "Encore! encore!" until
he fainted. I have fainted too, which means that I am exhausted and
resigned.
A great hand seems to weigh upon me, as immense as the mountains that
loom up before me. What can I do against it? Nothing but submit and
remain passive while it crushes me. I did not know that one
could find, if not comfort, at least some kind of peace in this
consciousness of impotence and the looking straight at one's misery.
If only I could keep from struggling against it, and not disturb this
state of quiescence. I could write then about things that happen to me
as if they had happened to somebody else. But I know from experience
that one day does not resemble another, and I am afraid of what the
morrow will bring forth.