I am as much in my right as anybody who is defending his life.  I do not say this upon the impulse of the moment, but after calm reasoning.  I have no convictions, no beliefs, no principles, no stable ground under my feet, for the ground has been undermined by criticism and reflection.  I have only those forces of life born with us, and they are all concentrated on one woman.  Therefore I clutch my love as a drowning man clutches a plank; if this gives way there will be nothing left to live for.  If common-sense asks, “Why did you not marry Aniela?” I say what I have said before:  I did not marry her simply for the reason that I am not straight, but crooked,—­partly because born so, partly because so reared by those two nurses, Reflection and Criticism.  Why this woman and no other should be my plank of salvation, I do not know.  Most likely because it was she and not another.  It did not depend upon me.

If she were free to-day, I would stretch my hands out for her without hesitation; if she had never been married, who knows?—­I am ashamed of the thought, and yet it may be that she would not be so desirable.  Most likely, judging by the past, I should have gone on watching her, watching my own feelings, until somebody else carried her off; but I prefer not to think of it, because it makes me inclined to swear.

20 May.

I considered to-day what would happen if I gained Aniela’s love, or rather brought her to confess it.  I see happiness before me but no way of reaching it.  I know that if in presence of these women I uttered the word “divorce,” they would think the roof was crashing down over our heads.  There cannot be even a question as to that, because my aunt’s and Pani Celina’s ideas upon that point are such that neither of them would survive the shock.  I have no illusions as to Aniela; her ideas are the same.  And yet the moment she owns her love, I will say the word, and she must accustom herself to it; but we shall have to wait until my aunt’s and Pani Celina’s death.  There is nothing else for it.  Kromitzki will either agree willingly or he will not.  In the latter case I shall carry Aniela off, if I have to go as far as the Indies, and the divorce, or rather invalidation of the marriage, I shall conduct myself, in spite of his wishes.  Fortunately, there is no want of means.  As regards myself, I am ready for everything, and the inward conviction that I am right justifies me in my own eyes.  This time it is not a mere love intrigue, but a feeling that absorbs my whole being.  Its sincerity and strength make all my stratagems lawful.  I know that I deceive her in saying that all I wish to gain is a sister’s love.  I deceive her when I say I do not desire anything; all this would be wrong and a lie if my love were in itself a lie.  In presence of a great truth, they are mere diplomatic stratagems of love.  It all belongs to the course of love.  It is a known fact that even affianced lovers have recourse to stratagems, in order to make each other confess their love.  As to myself, I am sincere even when I say what is not true.