t be right?
I fill my life with these questions of "to be, or not to be," because
I have nothing else to do. Thoughts like mine are not reckoned among
the delights of life. It is like the dog trying to catch his tail; he
does not catch anything. I do not prove anything, only tire myself;
but have the satisfaction that another day has passed, or another
night gone by.

I observe at the same time, that with all my scepticism, I am still
beset with scruples worthy of the vicar of Ploszow. The modern man is
composed of so many threads that in trying to set himself right, he
gets more and more entangled. It was in vain I repeated to myself,
if only in theory, that I had the right. A voice, as from the parish
church, seemed to say at intervals: "No! no! you have not the right!"
But scruples like these ought to be kept down, as for me this is a
question of keeping my mind evenly balanced. At this quiet evening
time, I feel just in the humor for it. This afternoon, at a well-known
painter's studio, I heard Mrs. Davis maintain, in discussion with two
literary men, that a woman ought to be unapproachable all her life,
if only "pour la nettete du plumage," and Maleschi repeated, "Oui,
oui,--du plumaze." Oh, ye gods and fishes! I fancied all the crabs
in the Mediterranean rolling on their backs in silent laughter, and
raising their claws to heaven, imploring Jove for a thunderbolt! By
the bye, Mrs. Davis borrowed that sentence from me, and I borrowed
it from Feuillet. I kept my gravity, and did not permit myself the
slightest smile, but it put me into a merry, cynical humor, the
reflection of which still remains with me, and is for the moment the
best weapon against scruples of conscience.

Now for the start. Would it be right for me to fall in love with Pani
Kromitzka, and in case of success lead her from the path of duty?
First, let us look at it from a point of honor, as people consider it
who call themselves, and whom the world regards as, gentlemen. There
is not a single paragraph there against it. It is one of the queerest
codices ever invented under the sun. If, for instance, I steal
somebody's money, the disgrace falls upon me, and not upon the man who
is robbed, according to the world's rule of honor; but if I rob him of
his wife, it is not I, but the robbed man who is disgraced. What does
it mean? Is it a mere aberration of the moral sense, or is it that
between stealing a man's purse and stealing his wife, there is suc