I am quite certain that Clara will not come back to Berlin; and what
is more, that when she went away it was with the intention of not
coming back again. She wanted to avoid my gratitude. I think of her
gratefully and sadly, and am sorry she did not meet a different man
from me. There is such an irony of fate in this! But what is the use
of deceiving myself? I am still yoked to my memories. I see before me
Aniela, as she appeared to me at Warsaw, as I saw her at Ploszow and
Gastein; and I cannot tear myself away from the past. Besides, it has
absorbed so much of my strength and life that I am not surprised at
it. The difficulty is, not to remember. Every instant I catch myself
in the act of thinking about Aniela, and I have to remind myself
that she is changed now, that her feelings will be going, have gone
already, into another direction, and that I am nothing to her now.
Formerly I preferred not to think of my wrecked condition, because my
brain could not stand the thought; now I do it sometimes on purpose,
if only to defend myself against the voice that calls out: "Is it her
fault? and how do you know what is passing in her heart? She would not
be a woman if she did not love her own child when it comes into the
world, but who told you that she is not as unhappy as you are?" At
times it seems to me that she is even more unhappy, and then I wish
for another inflammation of the lungs. Life with such a chaos of
thoughts is impossible.