Now and then I remind myself that Aniela loved me, that I could have
married her, that my life might have been made bright and happy, that
it merely depended upon me, and that I wasted all that through my
incapacity for action. Then I put to myself the question: "Is there
any sign of insanity in me, and is it indeed true that I could have
had Aniela forever?" It must be true, for how could I otherwise recall
all the incidents from the time I met her first up to the present
moment? And to think that she might have been mine, and as faithful
and loyal to me as she is to that other one!--a hundred times more
faithful, because she would love me from her whole soul. Innate
incapacity?--yes, that is it. But even if it justifies me in my own
eyes, what matters it to me, since it does not give me any comfort?
The only thought that gives me comfort is that the descendants of
decayed as well as of the most buoyant races have to go the same
way,--to dust and ashes. This makes the difference between the weak
and the strong a great deal less. The whole misfortune of beings like
me is their isolation. What erroneous ideas have our novelists, and
for the matter of that even our physiologists, about the decaying
races. They fancy that inward incapacity must invariably correspond
with physical deterioration, small build, weak muscles, anæmic brain,
and weak intelligence. This may be the case now and then, but
to regard it as a general principle is a mistake and a pedantic
repetition of the same thing over and over again. The descendants of
worn-out races have no lack of vital powers, but they lack harmony
among these powers. I myself am physically a powerful man, and never
was a fool. I knew people of my sphere built like Greek statues,
clever, gifted, and yet they did not know how to fit themselves into
life, and ended badly, exactly through that want of even balance in
their otherwise luxuriant vital powers. They exist among us as in a
badly organized society where nobody knows where the rights of the
one begin and those of another cease. We live in anarchy, and it is a
known fact that in anarchy society cannot exist. Each of the powers
drags its own way, often pulling all the others with it; and this
produces a tragic exclusiveness. I am now suffering from this
exclusiveness, by reason of which nothing interests me beyond Aniela,
nothing matters to me, and there is nothing else to which I can
attach my life. But people do not understand that such a want of even
balance, such anarchy of the vital powers, is a far greater disease
than physical or moral anæmia. This is the solution of the problem.
Formerly the conditions of life and a differently constituted
community summoned us, and in a way forced us, into action. Now, in
these antihygienic times, when we have nothing to do with public life,
and are poisoned by philosophy and doubts, our disease has grown
more acute. We have come to this at last, that we are not capable of
sustained action, that our vitality shows itself only in sudden leaps
and bounds, and consequently the most gifted among us always end in
some kind of madness. Of all that constitutes life there is only woman
left for us; and we either fritter and squander ourselves away in
licentiousness or cling to one love as to a branch that overhangs a
precipice. As it is mostly an unlawful love we cling to, it carries
within itself the elements of a tragedy. I know that my love for
Aniela must end badly; and therefore I do not even try to defend
myself from it. Besides, whether I resist or submit, it means ruin
either way.