future might have been but for my misdeeds and her severity.  Even then I was reading in her face that she felt frightened at her own thoughts and visions, and tried to drive them away by a conversation upon indifferent subjects.  My aunt is so full of the approaching races and the expected victory of Naughty Boy, who is put down for the government stakes, that she cannot think of anything else.  Aniela thereupon began to talk about the races, and made some random remarks and asked a few questions, until my aunt got scandalized and said:—­

“My dear child, I see you have not the slightest notion about races.”

I said to her with my eyes:  “I know you want to stifle your feelings;” and she understood me as if I had said it in so many words.  And indeed, I am quite certain that she is as much absorbed in our mutual relation as I am.  The thought of love independent of matrimony is already planted in her soul; it is there, and does not leave her for a moment.  She must live with it, and get reconciled to it.  In such a case a woman, even if she had loved her husband, would turn from him.  A drop of water will hollow out a stone.  If Aniela loves me ever so little, if she only loves the past, she will be mine.  I cannot think of it calmly, because the foretaste of happiness is almost choking me.

There are here and there quicksands on the seashore, and the unwary traveller who wanders there is lost.  At times it seems to me that my love is like one of those quicksands, and that I am dragging Aniela into it; I myself am sinking, sinking—­Let it be so—­but together!

28 May.

My aunt is spending six to eight hours out of the twenty-four at Burzany, one of her farms, a mile from Ploszow, where she passes her time in contemplation of Naughty Boy, and in looking after Webb, the English trainer.  I was there above an hour yesterday.  Naughty Boy is a fine animal,—­let us hope he will not be naughty when the great day arrives.  But what does it matter to me?  Various business is taking me to town, but I am loath to leave Ploszow.  Pani Celina has been worse the last few days, but young Chwast, as my aunt calls him, says it is merely a passing symptom; he considers it necessary that somebody should always be with the sick lady, to distract her from the thoughts which dwell upon the loss of the dear ancestral home, and consequently weaken her nerves.  I try to show her almost a son’s attention, because in this way I earn Aniela’s gratitude, and she gets used to consider me as belonging to them.  I have now not the slightest ill-feeling towards the old lady,—­she is too unhappy herself; and besides, I begin to love everything and everybody that belongs to Aniela,—­with one exception.

Yesterday I spent several hours with the invalid, together with Aniela and Chwast.  We were reading and talking.  Pani Celina does not sleep at night, and as the doctor does not approve of sleeping-draughts, she dozes off in the daytime after any lengthy conversation, and strange to say, only a sudden silence wakes her up.  For this reason we keep up the conversation or the reading.  It was the same to-day.  But for the doctor’s presence I could speak to Aniela with the greatest freedom.