to part with that one of him as a little boy. Now it has all gone, but the veil which lay in the drawer with all the other things I could not burn. Mother's and my veil. I buried my face in it; it seemed to me a living being, a faithful friend, silent to all others, but whispering to me a sweet and intoxicating perfume of beautiful memories. I could not kill that. I felt as if it imploringly touched my cheek. I kissed it, and wept into its soft folds, and promised it that we two should never part. I will wind it round my diary and hide them both so that no one shall find them. But should hours come when life seems grey, and poor, and empty, I will seek out my two old confidants, and revive with them the short time when life's rich and manifold splendours, like a wonderful revelation, blessed my poor youth.
My diary is finished. The year I started with such uncertainty is finished. It became the year of my fate. Rich in happiness and rich in pain. I wonder which was greater, the happiness or the sorrow? I cannot, and will not, measure it. I only know that I wish nothing altered.
Beautiful and terrible year, I part from you in gratitude. Because you wrote my life's fairy-tale—never to be forgotten.
