My aunt wanted me to stop to dinner; after which, according to our agreement, we were to start together for the concert.  But I pleaded some business; the truth was I wanted to be alone.  I gave orders for the carriage to be ready, and then my aunt remarked:—­

“I should like to show some gratitude to Miss Hilst, and thought of inviting her to Ploszow for the day.”

Evidently my aunt considers an invitation to Ploszow such a great reward that she doubted whether it would not be out of all proportion.

After a moment’s pause she began again:—­

“If I were quite sure that she is of a proper standing.”

“Miss Hilst is a personal friend of the queen of Roumania,” I replied, a little impatiently; “and if there be any honor, it will be altogether on our side.”

“Well, well,” muttered my aunt.

“You will come with us to the concert?” I said, turning to Aniela.

“I am afraid not.  I shall have to remain with mamma; and besides, I have some letters to write.”

“Oh! if it is a question of wifely tenderness I will not insist.”

This ironical remark gave me a momentary relief.  “Let her be aware that I am jealous,” I thought; “she herself, her mother, and my aunt belong to those women of the angelic kind, who do not believe there can be any evil in the world.  Let her understand that I love her, become familiar with the thought, troubled by it, and fight it.  To bring into her soul a strange, decomposing element, a ferment like this, is half the battle.  We shall see what will happen afterwards.”

It was a momentary but great relief, and very much like a wicked delight.  But presently, when alone in the carriage, I felt angry with myself and disgusted,—­disgusted because I became conscious of the littleness of all I had thought and felt, based as it was upon overstrung and fanciful nerves worthy an hysterical woman, not a man.  It was a heavy journey, far heavier than the one when after my return from abroad I went the first time to Ploszow.  I was reflecting upon that terrible incapacity for life which casts its shadow upon my existence and the existence of those like me, and came to the conclusion that its main source is the feminine element which predominates in our character.  I do not mean by this that we are physically effeminate or wanting in manly courage.  No! it is something quite different.  Courage and daring we are not deficient in; but as regards psychical elements, every one of us is a she, not a he.  There is in, us a lack of the synthetic faculty which distinguishes things that are important from those that are not.  The least matter discourages, hurts, and repulses us; in consequence of which we sacrifice very great things for small ones.  My past is a proof thereof.  I sacrificed inexpressible happiness, my future and the future of the beloved woman, because I had read in my aunt’s letter that Kromitzki wished to marry her.  My nerves took the bit between their teeth, and carried me where I did not wish to go.  This was nothing but a disease of the will.  But it is a feminine disease, not a masculine one.  Is it to be wondered at that I act as an hysterical woman?  It is a misfortune I brought with me into the world, to which whole generations have contributed their share, as also the conditions of life in which we exist.