There are men who lead astray other men's wives, deceive them, and
afterwards throw them aside and quietly resume their every-day life.
I have never done any such thing, and if Aniela had been my victim I
should have wiped the dust from off her path; no human power could
have torn me from her. There are greater crimes than mine, but upon
me has fallen such a burden that it gives me the impression of an
exceptional punishment; and I cannot help thinking that my love must
have been a terrible crime.
This is a kind of instinctive fear, against which scepticism is no
safeguard. And yet by all moral laws it must be admitted that it would
be a greater offence to lead a woman to ruin without love, and do from
calculation what I did from a deep love. Surely the responsibility
cannot be greater for an immense, overpowering feeling than for a mean
little weakness.
No! therefore my love is, above all, an awful calamity. A man free
from prejudices can imagine how he would feel if he were swayed by
prejudice; so, too, a man who doubts may imagine how he could pray if
he had the faith. I not only have the feeling, but it breaks forth
into a complaint, almost like a sincere prayer, and I say: "If I am
guilty, O God! I have been punished severely, and a little mercy might
be shown to me." But I cannot even imagine in what shape that mercy
could come to me now! It is impossible!