The sight
of Swedish lakes, Norwegian fiords, and Icelandic geysers conveyed to
me no direct impressions; I only tried to imagine what Aniela would
have felt or said to such a view,--in short, I saw with her eyes,
thought her thoughts, and felt with her heart. And when presently I
remembered that she was Aniela no longer, but Pani Kromitzka, I went
straight to the nearest railway station or ship to go somewhere else,
as what I looked upon had ceased to interest me. It did not matter
to me in the least that I played a part in one of the so commonly
ridiculed dramas where thousands of fools have played the same parts
before. And death is a drama; and those who are entering its gates
think the world is coming to an end; and so it is,--for them.
I do not know, and will not enter into it now, whether my feeling
the first few months was one of fathomless despair. Everything is
relative. I know only that my whole being was absorbed by one woman,
and I understood for the first time the void created by the death of a
dearly loved being.
But gradually the habit--not the zest--of life recovered its vital
power. This is a common enough fact. I have known people, inwardly
intensely sad, without a grain of cheerfulness in their souls, yet
keep up an appearance of cheerfulness because they had once been
cheerful, and the habit clung to them.
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