November 27.--She is here, she has become kind to me now, only kind and gentle; I am no longer afraid of her love. I have been ill again, and she has taken care of me, she has taken me away from this horrible Giudecca. I look out on a great garden, in which I can forget there is any water in Venice; I am near the land and I see nothing but trees. The house is full of pictures, beautiful old Venetian things; it is like living in another century, yet in the midst of a comfort which rests me. I am no longer afraid of her love; I seem to have become a child, and her love is maternal. When I look at her I can see her face as it was, as it is, without a scar; I see that she is beautiful. If I get well again I will never leave her.
December 12.--There is a phrase of Balzac which turns over and over in my head. It is in the story called 'Sur Catherine de Médicis,' and he is speaking of the Calvinist martyr, who is recovering after being tortured. 'On ne saurait croire' says Balzac, 'à quel point un homme, seul dans son lit et malade, devient personnel.' Since I have been lying in bed, in this queer fever which keeps me shaking and hot (some Venetian chill which has got into my very bones), I have had so singularly little feeling of personality, I seem to have become so suddenly impersonal, that I wonder if Balzac was right. The world, ideas, sensations, all are fluid, and I flow through them, like a gondola carried along by the current; no, like a weed adrift on it.
The journal ends there, and the writing of the last page is faint and unsteady.
Here I might leave the matter, but I am impelled to mention a circumstance which I always associate in my mind with the tragical situation revealed in poor Luxulyan's journal. A year after it had come into my hands, and while I was still hesitating whether or not to have it printed, I happened to be passing through Rome, where the Eckensteins had gone to live; and a sort of curiosity, I suppose, more than any friendly feeling I had for them, suggested to me that I should call upon them in the palace which they had taken in the Via Giulia. The concierge was not in his loge, and I went up the first flight of broad low marble stairs and rang at the door. It was opened by a servant in livery. 'Is the Baroness von Eckenstein at home?' I asked; and as the man remained silent, I added, 'Will you send in my card?' He still stared at me without replying, and I repeated my question. At last he said: 'Madame la Baronne died the day before yesterday. She was buried this morning.'