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a vast difference that the two cases cannot be even compared? I have
often thought over this, and have come to the conclusion that there
is a great difference. A human being can never be as absolutely a
property as a thing, and the taking away somebody's wife is an act of
a double will. Why should I respect the rights of a husband if his own
wife does not? What is he to me? I meet a woman who wants to be mine,
and I take her. Her husband does not exist for me; her vows are no
affair of mine. What should hold me back? Respect for the matrimonial
institution? But if I loved Pani Kromitzka, I would cry out from the
very depth of my soul: "I protest against this marriage; protest
against her duties towards Kromitzki. I am the worm this marriage has
crushed; and they tell me, writhing in anguish, to respect it,--me,
who would sting it with my last breath." Why; for what reason? What do
I care for a social institution that has wrung from me the last drop
of blood, deprived me of my very existence? Man lives on fish. Go tell
the fish to respect the order that it be skinned alive before being
put on the fire. I protest and sting,--that is my answer. Spencer's
ideal of a finally developed man, in whom the individual impulses will
be in perfect harmony with social laws, is nothing but an assumption.
I know perfectly that such as Sniatynski would demolish my theory with
one question: "You are then for free-love?" No, nothing of the sort. I
am for myself. I do not wish to hear anything about your theories. If
you fall in love with another woman, or your wife with somebody else,
we shall see what becomes of your rules, paragraphs, and respect for
social institutions. At the worst, I might be called inconsequent. I
was inconsequent, too, when I, a sceptic, had a mass offered up for
Leon and Aniela, and prayed like a child, and swallowed my tears like
any fool. In future I will always be inconsequent when it suits me and
makes me happier. There is only one logic in the world,--the logic of
passions. Reason holds the reins for a time, but when the horses tear
along in mad career, she sits on the box and merely watches lest
the vehicle should go to pieces. The human heart cannot be rendered
love-proof, and love is an element strong as tidal waves. The very
gates of hell cannot overcome a woman who loves her husband, for the
marriage vows are only the sealing of love's compact; but if it be
mere duty, the first tide will throw her on th