time to time, and seriously reflect, but the feeling has
lost its poignancy.

As to Aniela, I try to forget her, because the memory is troublesome,
or rather I cannot arrive at a clear understanding as to the whole
Ploszow episode. At times I feel inclined to think that I was not
worthy of her; at others, that I made an ass of myself over a girl
like dozens of others. This irritates my vanity, and makes me feel
angry with Aniela. One moment I feel an unsavory consciousness of
guilt in regard to her, in another the offence appears to me futile
and childish. Taken altogether, I do not approve of the part I played
at Ploszow, nor do I approve of the part I am playing here. The
division between right and wrong is becoming more and more indistinct
within me, and what is more I do not care to make it clearer. This is
the result of a certain apathy of mind, which again acts as a sleeping
draught; for when the inward struggle tires me out I say to myself:
"Suppose you are worse than you were--what of that? Why should you
trouble about anything?"

Then I see another change in myself. Gradually I have got used to what
at first chafed my honor,--the insulting of the crippled man. I notice
that I permit myself hundreds of things I would not do if Davis,
instead of being physically and mentally afflicted, were an
able-bodied man capable of defending his own honor. We do not even
take the trouble of going out to sea. I never even imagined that my
sensitiveness could become so blunted. It is very easy to say to
myself: "What does the wretched Eastern matter to you?" But verily I
cannot get rid of the thought that my black-haired Juno is no Juno at
all,--that her name is Circe, and her touch changes men (as one might
say in correct mythological language) into nurslings of Eumaeus.

And when I ask myself as to the cause, the answer shatters many of my
former opinions. It is this: our love is a love of the senses, but
not of the soul. The thought again comes back that we, the outcome of
modern culture, cannot be satisfied with it. Laura and I were like
unto gods and beasts with humanity left out. In a proper sense our
feelings cannot be called love; we are desirable to each other, but
not dear. If we both were different from what we are, we might be a
hundred times more unhappy, but I should not have the consciousness
that I am drawing near the shelter of Eumaeus. I understand that love
merely spiritual remains a shadow, but love wit