n I am very tired or when my mind is concentrated upon
one point I seem to look into the future, into far-away space which
remains invisible to me in a normal state. Then there comes to me such
a conviction that Aniela belongs to me--that in some way she is or
will be mine--that when I wake up I have to remind myself that there
exists such a man as Kromitzki. Maybe in moments like those I cross
the boundary which separates the living from the dead, and have a
vision of things more perfect, such as the ideals we dream about,
as they might shape themselves in outward form. Why is it these two
worlds are not more in touch with each other? As often as I try to
solve this problem I lose myself; I cannot understand this want of
harmony, but feel dimly that therein lie our imperfection and our
misery. The thought comforts me, for in the ideal world Aniela could
not belong to a man like Kromitzki.

11 July.

Another disappointment, another plan shattered, but I have still hope
that all is not lost. I spoke to-day with Kromitzki about the Boyar
who sold his wife, and invented a whole story in order to discover his
real feelings. We met the Englishman with his purchased wife near the
Cascades. I began by praising her beauty, and then remarked:--

"The doctor here told me something about the transaction, and I think
you are a little hard upon the Boyar."

"Hard upon him? not a bit; he amuses me intensely," he replied.

"There are extenuating circumstances in the case. He is not only a
Boyar, but the owner of extensive tannery works. Suddenly, because of
the infection, the importation of skins from Roumania was forbidden.
The man recognized that unless he could tide over the time until the
law was repealed he would be ruined, and with him hundreds of families
to whom he gave employment. My dear fellow, he looked at it from
a business point of view; perhaps business morality is a little
different from general morality, and as he had once entered into
that--"

"He had a right to sell his wife? To fulfil one part of his duties he
had no right to trample upon another and perhaps more binding duty."

Kromitzki could not have disappointed me more thoroughly than by thus
showing some decent feeling. But I did not give up my hope at once.
I know that even the meanest person has still at his disposition
high-sounding words wherewith to mask his real character. Therefore I
went on:--

"You do not take into account one thing, name