18 MAY²¹³

I WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE FOR. YES, THAT IS WHAT I CANNOT erase from my mind—even as I sit here to read or write—for my thoughts are constantly wandering. It feels as though some current is carrying me to the brink of destruction and I cannot fight it.

My dear Wilma, I call upon you, just like a Catholic man calling to the Virgin Mary at the hour of temptation.²¹⁴ There’s another image that always crops up before my mind’s eye, clouding your appearance so that my spirit cannot see it any longer, and when I try to seek comfort in memories of our happiest times—when we would silently understand one another and look with hope towards the future, with all our plans to live and work together in harmony—another memory surfaces. One that suffocates all else and affects me like a fever, or poison, or drunkenness. And when I open my arms … it is not you – – –

Whether I am awake or sleeping, she haunts me—this strange creature. She scares me, and yet she attracts my thoughts, harder and harder. I don’t understand how I have changed—how I have become crazed and obsessed.

I have seen her again, although I have sworn a solemn oath—more than once!—that I would never do so again. But what’s the use of that? Without the least forewarning, she shows up here.

When I sit here and write in my journal—only about the things I have experienced—she suddenly stands behind me, like the other day, when I put down my pen and left my diary. I hear nothing and don’t notice anything until I feel an electric shock run through my every nerve, urging me to look up, and then – – –

I will try to describe these personal trials, as that may make it easier to avoid them.

One example: I sat writing in the library after the Count had bid me good night. Suddenly, while writing those last lines on the previous page, I felt the urge to go up to the top floor—to the tower room next to the portrait gallery. Something drew me there against my will. I fought against it with all my might and continued to write, but it felt as though some voice were whispering in my ear, incessantly, “Why do you not come up? I thought you would visit us. I have so much to talk about with you. You will come. Remember that you are expected.”

I didn’t go up there—there I will not go again while I’m still in control of myself—but although I have considered myself tougher than most other people,²¹⁵ I am so weak. I can control my body, but my inner man I cannot.

Physically I was not there, but something in my inner man obeyed her and called her to me. I continued to write, but then I suddenly sensed her presence. The pen dropped from my hand—I looked back and saw that she stood behind the chair, gazing at me with those eyes that are like radiant beams, cutting through bone and marrow. – – –