I had let Aniela see there was no resentment in my heart towards her, and I shall not allude even to the past, and for that reason did not try to see her alone.  In the evening during tea we discussed general topics.  My aunt questioned me about Clara, who interests her very much.  I told her all I knew about her, and from that we drifted into conversation about artists generally.  My aunt looks upon them as people sent into the world by kind Providence to give performances for the benefit of charitable institutions.  I maintained that artists, provided their hearts were pure and not filled with vanity and love of self, might be the happiest creatures in the world, as they are always in contact with something infinite and absolutely perfect.  From life comes all evil, from art only happiness.  This was, indeed, my point of view, supported by observation.  Aniela agreed with me, and if I took note of the conversation it is because I was struck by a remark of Aniela’s, simple in itself, but to me full of meaning.  When we spoke about the contentment arising from art she said:  “Music is a great consoler.”

I saw in this involuntary confession that she is unhappy, and is conscious of it.  Besides, in regard to that, I never had any doubts.  Even the face is not the face of a happy woman.  If anything, it is more beautiful than before,—­apparently calm, even serene; but there is none of that light which springs from inward happiness, and there is a certain preoccupation that was not there formerly.  In the course of the day I noticed that her temples have a slight yellow tint like that of ivory.  I looked at her with an ever renewed delight, comparing her to the Aniela of the past.  I could not get enough of this exchange of memories with reality.  There is something so irresistibly attractive in Aniela that had I never seen her before, if she were among thousands of beautiful women and I were told to choose, I should go straight to her and say:  “This one and no other.”  She answers so exactly to the feminine prototype every man carries in his imagination.  I fancy she must have noticed that I watched and admired her.

I left at dusk.  I was so shaken by the sensations of the day, so utterly different from all my preconceived ideas, that I had lost the power of dissecting my thoughts.  I expected to find Pani Kromitska, and found Aniela; I put it down once more.  God only knows what will be the consequence of this for us both.  When I think of it I have the sensation of a great happiness, and also a slight disappointment.  And yet I was right, theoretically, in expecting those psychical changes which necessarily take place in a woman after she is married, and I might easily be led to think she would show in some way that she was glad she had not chosen me.  There is not another woman who would have denied herself that satisfaction of vanity.  And as I know myself, my sensitiveness and my nerves, I could take my oath on it, that if such had been the case I should have been now full of bitterness, anger, and sarcasm,—­but cured.  In the mean while, things have fallen out differently,—­altogether differently.  She is a being of such unfathomable goodness and simplicity that the measure I have for goodness is not large enough for her.