1 June.

Yesterday I received news from Gastein.  The rooms for Pani Celina and Aniela are ready.  I sent them the particulars, together with a parcel of books by Balzac and George Sand.  To-day is Sunday, and the first day of the races.  My aunt has arrived from Ploszow and taken up her abode with me.  That she went to the races is a matter of course, she is altogether absorbed in them.  But our horses, Naughty Boy and Aurora, which arrived here two days ago with the trainer Webb and Jack Goose, the jockey, are on the list for Thursday; therefore my aunt’s attendance at the Sunday races was merely a platonic affair.  The goings on here are past all description.  The stables have been converted into a kind of fortress.  My aunt fancies the jockeys of other racing studkeepers shake in their shoes at the very mention of Naughty Boy, and are ready to use every means to prevent his running; consequently in every orange boy or organ grinder that comes into the yard, she sees an enemy in disguise, bent upon some evil practice.  The Swiss porter and the servants have strict orders to keep an eye upon everybody that comes in.  In the stables, the precautions taken are still stricter.  The trainer Webb, being an Englishman, remains impassive, but the unfortunate Jack Goose, a native of Burzany, and whose name is a literal translation from the Polish Kuba Gonsior, fairly loses his head; my aunt scolds him and the grooms, natives also of Burzany, whenever she fancies things are going wrong.  She was so much at the stables that I did not see much of her, and only when departing she told me that Aniela was to come for the races.  I suppose Pani Celina consented to this in order to please my aunt; besides, she can very well remain alone for one day, with the doctor and the maids to look after her.  Aniela, who is walled up at Ploszow day after day, really wants a little change.  For me this is joyful news indeed.  The very thought that she will be under my roof has a singular charm for me.  Here I began to love her and maybe her heart kept beating a little faster after that entertainment my aunt gave here in her honor.  Everything here will remind her of the past.

2 June.

It is fortunate I did not have the rooms altered to suit a museum.  I have an idea to give a dinner-party after the races.  In this way I shall be able to keep her here a few hours longer,—­and besides, she will understand that it is all for her.

3 June.

I ordered a cartload of plants and flowers to put along the staircase and in the rooms.  Aniela’s room remains exactly as it was when she occupied it.  I suppose the ladies will arrive in the morning and Aniela will want to change her dress.  I had a large mirror put there, and every requisite for a lady’s toilet.  Aniela will meet everywhere proofs of thoughtfulness, memory, and faithful love.  Only now, while writing, it strikes me how much easier I feel when occupied with something, when outward activity takes me out of the enchanted circle of reflection and pondering over myself.  Even driving nails into the wall for the pictures of the future museum would be better than twisting one idea around another.  Why cannot I be a simple-minded man?  If I had been that in times gone by I should be now the happiest man in the world.