n experience
of life gives, but also with that magnetic force true love bestows on
man. Adding to this the fact that she knew how much I suffered when I
sent Sniatynski to her, she must have pitied me, and that pity cannot
have vanished altogether. I play for my life, but the cards are in my
favor. I cannot lose the game.

I am as much in my right as anybody who is defending his life. I do
not say this upon the impulse of the moment, but after calm reasoning.
I have no convictions, no beliefs, no principles, no stable ground
under my feet, for the ground has been undermined by criticism and
reflection. I have only those forces of life born with us, and they
are all concentrated on one woman. Therefore I clutch my love as a
drowning man clutches a plank; if this gives way there will be nothing
left to live for. If common-sense asks, "Why did you not marry
Aniela?" I say what I have said before: I did not marry her simply for
the reason that I am not straight, but crooked,--partly because born
so, partly because so reared by those two nurses, Reflection and
Criticism. Why this woman and no other should be my plank of
salvation, I do not know. Most likely because it was she and not
another. It did not depend upon me.

If she were free to-day, I would stretch my hands out for her without
hesitation; if she had never been married, who knows?--I am ashamed
of the thought, and yet it may be that she would not be so desirable.
Most likely, judging by the past, I should have gone on watching her,
watching my own feelings, until somebody else carried her off; but I
prefer not to think of it, because it makes me inclined to swear.

20 May.

I considered to-day what would happen if I gained Aniela's love, or
rather brought her to confess it. I see happiness before me but no way
of reaching it. I know that if in presence of these women I uttered
the word "divorce," they would think the roof was crashing down over
our heads. There cannot be even a question as to that, because my
aunt's and Pani Celina's ideas upon that point are such that neither
of them would survive the shock. I have no illusions as to Aniela; her
ideas are the same. And yet the moment she owns her love, I will say
the word, and she must accustom herself to it; but we shall have to
wait until my aunt's and Pani Celina's death. There is nothing else
for it. Kromitzki will either agree willingly or he will not. In the
latter case I shall carry Aniela off, if I