These continual searchings of
my mind are leading me into the desert. And it might have been so
different! I am surprised that the memory of Aniela should be still so
fresh and green. Why is it that I never dream of walking arm-in-arm
with Laura? And since I come to mention her name, I add inwardly,
"Perdition upon the memory!" I often think I have been holding
happiness by both wings, and let it escape.

2 June.

I never was so amazed in my life as to-day, in regard to Lukomski. We
went together to the museum on the Capitol. When near the Venus,
he surprised me by saying he preferred the Neapolitan Psyche by
Praxiteles, as being more spiritual. A strange confession from a
sculptor like him; but a greater surprise was in store for me near
"The Dying Gladiator." Lukomski looked at him for nearly half an hour,
then said, through clenched teeth, as he does when deeply moved,--"I
have heard it said a hundred times that he has a Slavonic face, but
really the likeness is wonderful. My brother has a farm,--Koslowka,
near Sierpiec. There was one of the laborers, Michna, who was drowned
driving horses through the water. I tell you it is exactly the same
face. I come here very often for an hour, because I feel a longing to
look at it."

I could not believe my ears, and was surprised the roof of the Capitol
did not come down on our heads. Sierpiec, Koslowka, Michna, here in
the world of the antique, of classic forms! and from whose lips?--from
those of Lukomski! I saw at once, peeping out from beneath the
sculptor, the man. And that is the artist, I thought,--that the Roman,
the Greek! You come here to look at the Gladiator, not so much for the
sake of the form, as because he reminds you of Michna from Koslowka.
I begin to understand now the taciturnity and melancholy. Lukomski
evidently guessed my thoughts; for, the mystic eyes looking straight
before him, he began in a broken voice to reply to my unuttered words:
"Rome is well enough,--to live in, but not to die in! I am getting on
fairly well,--no right to complain. I remain here because I must; but
the longing for the old place tears me like all the devils. When the
dogs bark at night in the garden, I fancy the sound comes from the
village; and I feel as if I could scratch the walls. I should go mad
if I did not go there once a year. I am going now, shortly, because I
cannot breathe here any longer."

He put his hand to his throat, and screwed up his mouth as if
to wh