mes this influence of hers over me seems well-nigh incredible;
then again I explain it, and as usual take the worst view of it. I
have lived too quickly, passed already the zenith, and am going down
hill, where it is dark and cold. I feel that in her I could recover my
lost youth, vitality, and the desire for life. If she be lost to me,
then truly nothing remains but to vegetate, and gloominess unutterable
as the foretaste of decay. Therefore I love Aniela with the instinct
of self-preservation,--not with my senses only, not with my soul, but
also from the fear of annihilation.

Aniela does not know all this; but I suppose she pities me, just as I
torture her, who would give my life to make her happy. And therefore
I say again that the love for another man's wife is the greatest
misfortune, since it leads the man to make her unhappy whose happiness
he would ensure at the cost of his own. The result of this is that we
are both unhappy. But you, Aniela, have at least your dogma to support
you, whereas I am verily like a boat drifting without helm and oar.

I am not well in health either. I sleep very badly, or rather scarcely
at all. I should like to fall ill and lie unconscious for a month
without memories, without trouble--and rest. It would be a kind of
holiday. Chwastowski examined me yesterday, and said I had the nerves
of a decaying race, but had inherited a fair supply of muscular
strength. I believe he is right; but for that I should have succumbed
ere this to my nerves. Maybe to my very strength I may ascribe this
present concentration of feeling; it had to find an outlet somewhere,
and as it did not find it either in science or other useful work, it
all got absorbed into love for a woman. But owing to my nervous system
it is turbid, stormy, and crooked,--above all, crooked.

What sensations I pass through every day! Towards evening the dear old
aunt came to me and began to apologize for praising Panna Zawilowska
to me. I kissed both her hands, and in my turn asked her to forgive my
momentary show of temper. She then said,--

"I promise never to mention her again. It is true, my dear Leon, I
wish from all my heart to see you married, for you are the last of our
race; but the Lord knows what is best. But believe me, dearest boy, it
is not family pride, but your happiness I am thinking of."

I soothed her agitation as well as I could, and then said:--

"You must not mind me, dearest aunt; I am like a woman,--a