“Thank you, aunty, he is very well.”

“And how are his affairs going on?”

“Thank God! he writes that everything prospers beyond expectation.”

“When does he think of coming back?”

“He says as soon as he can possibly manage.”

And I, with my sensitiveness, had to listen to these questions and answers.  If my aunt and Aniela had started unexpectedly a quite improbable cynical conversation it could not have shocked me more.  The first time since my arrival at Ploszow I felt something like resentment towards Aniela.  “Have a little mercy at least, and do not speak of that man in my presence; do not return thanks for being asked after him, and say ‘Thank God!’ because he is prosperous,” I thought.  In the mean time she had opened the second letter, and looking at the date, said:  “It has been written at an earlier date;” then began to read.  I looked at the bowed head, the parting of the hair, the drooping lashes—­and it seemed to me that the reading lasted very long.  I thought what a world of mutual interests and aims bound these two together, and that for some indispensable reason they must feel that they belonged to each other.  I felt that I had no part in it, and that by force of circumstances I should always be outside her life even if I won her love.  Up to now I had felt the depth of my misery as one sees the depth of a precipice veiled by clouds.  Now the mist lifted, I looked down and comprehended its whole extent.

My nature is so constituted that under great pressure it resists.  Up to the present my love had not dared to ask for anything, but at this moment hatred began to clamor loudly for the abolition of merciless laws, those ties and bondages.  Aniela did not read many minutes, but during that time I ran through a whole gamut of tortures, because other thoughts relating to my self-analysis and criticism were haunting me.  I said to myself that the agitation, the very bitterness I felt, were nothing but the ridiculous characteristics of female ill-humor.  How is it possible to live with nerves such as mine?  If such a simple thing as a letter from the husband to his wife makes you lose your balance, what will happen when he himself comes to claim her?

I said to myself:  “I will kill him!” and at the same time I felt the ridiculousness and folly of the answer.

Aniela having finished her letters noticed at once that something was amiss, and looked at me with troubled eyes.  Hers is one of those sweet dispositions that cannot bear to see unfriendly faces, or live in an atmosphere of cold displeasure.  This springs from a great tenderness of heart.  I remember how uneasy she used to be when first she witnessed the disputes between my aunt and Chwastowzki.  Now she was evidently ill at ease.  She began to speak about the concert and Clara, but her eyes seemed to say:  “What have I done, what is the matter with you?” I merely replied by a cold glance, not being able to forgive her either the letters or her conversation with my aunt.  After breakfast I rose at once and said I was obliged to go back to Warsaw.