The sky is clouded, and it has begun to rain.  A few hours only divide me from the moment when a new life is to begin for me.  Of course I do not sleep; I could not sleep now for anything in the world.  There is no heaviness on my eyelids,—­I write, and recall memories.  I still seem to feel the pressure of her hand on mine.  I made that soul, educated, developed it, and prepared it for love.  I am like the head of an army, who has foreseen all chances, arranged and calculated everything, and does not sleep on the eve of the day that will decide his fate.  But Aniela sleeps peacefully on the other side of the house; and even her dreams plead for me, for my love.  When I think of this, all my nerves are vibrating.

In that ocean of trouble, evil, foolishness, uncertainties, and doubts we call life, there is one thing worth living for, as certain and as strong as—­nay, stronger than—­death; and that is love.  Beyond it there is nothingness.

6 June.

I went with Aniela, and am even now asking myself, “Have I gone mad?” I did not hold her close to my heart, did not hear an avowal of love.  I was spurned without a moment’s hesitation; all her modesty risen in arms, she reduced me to a mere nothing.  What is it?  Am I a fool without brains, or has she no heart?  What am I fighting against?  What are the obstacles in my way?  Why does she spurn me?  My head is in such a chaotic state that I can neither think, write, nor reason.  I only repeat to myself, over and over again, “What is it that bars my way?”

7 June.

I have made an enormous mistake somewhere; there is something in Aniela I have not observed or taken into account.  For two days I have tried to understand what has happened to me, but my head was in such a whirl that I could not think.  Now I am collecting my thoughts, pulling myself together to look the situation in the face.  It would be clear enough if Aniela were guarded by a strong love for her husband.  I could understand then the offended modesty and indignation with which a being, so meek and sweet-tempered usually, spurned me from her feet.  But I cannot even suppose such a thing.  I have still enough brains left to know that it is a mistake to see things too black, as it is a mistake to see them too rose-colored.  Where should her love for Kromitzki have come from?  She married him without love.  In the short time they lived together, he deceived her and sold the land so dear to both of those women, and injured her mother’s health.  They have no child; besides, a child does not teach a woman to love her husband; it only teaches her to take him into account; it makes her safer,—­that is to say, it strengthens the union of hands, not of hearts.  Aniela besides does not belong to that kind of women to whom love comes suddenly, as a revelation after marriage; women like that pine more after their husbands, or more readily take a lover.  I speak of all this in such a matter of fact way that it hurts me; but why should I spare myself?  Finally, I am convinced she has no feeling even approaching to love for Kromitzki,—­what is more, does not even respect him; she does not permit herself to despise him, that is all.  I consider that as proved, otherwise I should be blind.