25 May.

To-day is the third day since our conversation, and as Aniela has not referred to it again, I remain.  She does not say much to me, nor does she avoid me altogether, fearing to attract notice.  I try to be good, friendly, and attentive, but do not thrust myself in her way.  I want her to think I keep my feeling under control, but she cannot help seeing it is there, and increasing every moment.  At any rate we have a little world to ourselves, where only we two dwell; we have our mutual secret from the others.  When we speak about indifferent topics we both know that at the bottom of our hearts there is something we both think about but do not put into words.  This forms a tie; time and patience will do the rest.  From my love I weave a thousand threads around her, which will bind us more and more.  This would be all in vain if she loved her husband; it would make her hate me.  But the past speaks in my favor, and the present does not not belong to Kromitzki.  I still think it over with the greatest impartiality, and I come to the same conclusion, that she cannot love him.  Aniela’s resistance is the inward struggle of an exceptionally pure soul, that does not allow a breath of faithlessness to come near it.  But she is without help in that struggle.  I know the resistance will be long, and difficult to overcome; I must always be on the watch, give a clear account to myself of every trifle, and weave around her strong and invisible threads.  Even if I should commit any mistakes they will be only, the result of my love, and as such will be rather a help than a hindrance.

26 May.

I told Sniatynski about my intention to have my Roman collections conveyed to Warsaw,—­calculating that it would reach the press, which could not fail to laud me up to the sky as a public benefactor.  Aniela involuntarily must compare me to Kromitzki, which will count in my favor.  I sent also a telegram to Rome, asking for the Sassoferrato.

During breakfast I told Aniela, in presence of the others, that my father had left the picture to her in his will; which confused her, and she guessed at once that he had looked upon her as his future daughter.  It is true there was no name mentioned in the will, and for that very reason I want Aniela to have it.  The mention of this bequest reawoke in us both a host of memories.  I had done this on purpose to turn Aniela’s thoughts to the past, when she loved me and could love me in peace.  I know the remembrance must be mingled with some bitter thoughts, even some resentment; it cannot be otherwise; but it would be worse without the message I sent her through Sniatynski.  This message is the only extenuating circumstance in the whole guilty affair.  Aniela knows that I wanted to undo the wrong, that I loved her then, suffered, and repented,—­am repenting still, and that if we are unhappy she too helped to bring that unhappiness on both.  She is bound to absolve me in her heart, regret the past and dream what the