nervous
woman!"

"You a woman?" she said, indignantly. "Everybody is liable to make
mistakes. I only wish everybody had as much intelligence and character
as you; the world would then be quite a different place!"

Ah, me! how can I dispel these illusions? Sometimes I grow quite
desperate as I say to myself: "What business have I in this house,
among these women who have taken a monopoly for saintliness? For me it
is too late to convert myself to their faith; but how many troubles,
disappointments, misfortunes may I not bring upon them?"

10 June.

To-day I received two letters,--one from my lawyer in Rome, the other
from Sniatynski. The lawyer informs me that the difficulties the
Italian government usually raises at the exportation of art treasures
can be got over, my father's collections being private property and as
such not under government control, and that they could be transported
simply as furniture.

I shall have to see to the arrangement of the house, which I do
unwillingly, as my heart is not any more in the scheme. What does it
matter to me now, and what is the use of it? If I do not give it up
altogether, it is only because I spread the news about it myself, and
cannot possibly draw back. I have fallen back into that state of mind
which possessed me during my wanderings after Aniela's marriage. Again
I understand nothing, cannot act or look upon anything that has no
direct bearing upon Aniela. The thoughts in which I do not see her
image at the bottom are meaningless to me. It is a proof how far a man
may sink his own self. I read this morning a lecture by Bunge called
"Vitality and Mechanism," and I perused it with exceptional interest.
He demonstrates scientifically that which has been in my mind more
as a dim, shapeless idea than a definite conviction. Here science
confesses scepticism in regard to itself, and, moreover, not only
confirms its own impotence but clearly points to the existence of
another world which is something more than matter and motion, which
cannot be explained either physically or chemically. It does not
concern me in the least whether that world be above matter or subject
to it. It is a mere play of words! I am not a scientist; I am not
bound to be careful in my deductions; therefore I throw myself
headforemost into that open door, and let science prate and say a
hundred times over that all is dark there. I feel it will be lighter
than here. I read with almost feverish eage