I might have been alone, I might have fallen under the burden of infamy and violence. But I would not yield because I was not fighting for myself alone. God has visibly sustained me, by animating my heart with feelings of esteem and gratitude for a chivalrous soul whom I have never heard utter a word of complaint, no matter how atrocious the intrigues and the cruelties which encompassed him. A base world has judged his devotion and my constancy from the lowest standpoint. Let such a world now realize that beings exist who are far above the sordid instincts to which humanity abandons itself, beings who, in a common aspiration to a lofty ideal, rise superior to all earthly weaknesses. The last lines of this short sketch of a life, the details of which would fill many volumes, must be a recognition of my gratitude towards Count Geza Mattachich. I have not said a great deal about him, because he will think that even a little is too much. This silent man only appreciates silence. "Silence alone is strong, all the rest is weakness." Thus wrote Alfred de Vigny, and this line is the motto of the strong. But you know, Count, that unlike you I cannot force myself to be silent. I wish to invoke the vision of the hour when you first spoke those words which penetrated my conscience and cleansed and illumined it. From that hour, this light has been my guide. I have sought in suffering the road towards spiritual beauty. But you preceded me thither, and in the dark depths of the madhouse I looked towards your prison cell, and in so doing I escaped the horrors of insanity. We have had to submit to the assaults of covetousness and hypocrisy. We have struggled in the mire; we have been separated in wild lands. The world has only seen the splashes of mud and the tattered banner of our combat. It has ignored the cause, and its malevolence has never pardoned us for emerging from the fight as victims. All this was very bitter at the time, but I never regret! My sufferings are dear to me because you, Count, have shared them, after having tried so ardently to spare me. There is always a certain joy in bearing unmerited afflictions in the spirit of sacrifice. This spirit of sacrifice is peculiarly your own. I never possessed it. But you have endowed me with it. No gift has ever been so precious to my soul, and I shall be grateful to you on this side of the tomb and beyond it! I, who alone know you as you really are, and know the adoration that has given you a reason for living, I thank you, Count, in the twilight of my days for the nobility which you have always shown in this adoration. Shall I ever know, will you ever know, the meaning of rest otherwise than the last rest which is the lot of mankind? Will earthly justice ever render unto us the hoped-for reparations? Will it be possible for us to remain outlawed from the truth, and crushed by the abuse of power and human wickedness? Let it be as God wills! INDEX