was such evident constraint and uneasiness, that I
left off asking. To be quite open with me, she would have to reveal
all she felt for me and what was her relation to her husband. I wanted
her to come to that; but her modesty and her loyalty for the absent
husband would not permit her to speak.

I understood all perfectly, but I could not help feeling very sore,
and my pessimism says: "It is you who pay the score; you give
everything, without getting anything in return; you are deceived in
thinking her soul belongs to you; even that soul remains a blank to
you; then what do you possess?"

I admit the truthfulness of the utterance, but still I count upon the
future.

17 August.

I am often reminded of the poet Mickiewicz's words, "Alas! it was only
a half-salvation!" But even if I did not see in that half-salvation
all that is wanting, I could not arrive at perfect peace. This would
be achieved only by not desiring anything more, in other words by
ceasing to love. There come upon me, more and more, moments of
despondency when I say to myself that this is only another enchanted
circle. I found some relief from torments I could bear no longer, that
is true; but relief is not the same as the removal of the pain. When
the famished Arab sucks pebbles instead of drinking water, he does not
satisfy his thirst; he only deceives it. Query: Do I deceive my self?
There are again two persons within me: the spectator and the actor;
and the one criticises and mocks the other. The sceptic Ploszowski,
the Ploszowski who has no settled and unshakable belief in the
existence of a soul, in love with a soul, appears simply ridiculous to
that critical number two. What is, after all, my relation with Aniela?
Sometimes I see in it merely the product of a diseased imagination. I
am now indeed like the bird that drags one wing on the earth. I have
doomed to paralysis one half of my being, live only half a life, and
love with half a love. It is a vain enterprise. To separate desire
from love is as impossible as to separate thought from existence.
Even religious feelings, the most ideal of all feelings, manifest
themselves by words, by songs, by kneeling, and kissing of sacred
objects; and I would deprive the love for a woman of all embodiment,
sever all connection with the earth, and make it live upon earth in a
transmundane shape! Love is a natural tendency and desire. What did I
take away from it? The tendency and the desire. I might a