This may be said especially in regard to Aniela.  The greatest subtility of feeling and thought goes hand in hand with the utmost simplicity of moral ideas.  Her Ten Commandments are the same as the village girls’, with the exception that those of the latter are wrought on coarse linen, and hers on a web as fine as lace.  Why do I discuss this question?  Simply because it is a question of my happiness, almost my life; for I feel that with all my complex and intricate philosophy of love, I cannot get over the Ten Commandments.  And how can I conquer them, since I do not even believe in that philosophy, while Aniela’s faith in her principles is calm and unshaken?

Only the lips that have been drinking at the fountain of doubt opine that a forbidden kiss is not a sin.  A religious woman may be carried away, as a tree is swept away by a hurricane, by forbidden love, but she will never acknowledge it.

Shall I ever be able to carry off Aniela?  It is possible that my present state of despondency and discouragement is only a passing one, and to-morrow I shall feel more hopeful,—­to-day all seems impossible.

I wrote once in this same diary that in certain families they inoculate their children with modesty as they inoculate for small-pox.  The rule which says the wife shall belong to the husband, and in which Aniela believes so firmly, is strengthened by that modesty, so knitted into her being, so worked into the system, that I could sooner fancy Aniela cold and lifeless than baring her bosom in my presence.

And I can still delude myself with the idea that I may expect anything from her!  It is simple idiocy!

What am I to do then?  Go away?

No; I shall not go away.  I will not, and cannot.

I will remain, and since my love is idiotic, I will do as idiots do.  Enough of systems, calculations, forethought!  Let things take their own way.  My former ways did not lead to anything.

9 June.

She is not a bit happier than I am.  What I saw to-day confirmed my suspicion that she is fighting a heavy battle, with nothing to help her except the truth of her own faith and convictions.

After the departure of Pan Zawilowski and his daughter, who had paid us a visit, my aunt, evidently with a certain purpose, began to enlarge upon the good qualities of Panna Zawilowska.  I burst out into a sudden rage; I was tired, my nerves over-wrought by sleeplessness and irritated beyond measure.  I exclaimed:  “Have your way then!  If it be a question of marriage only, and not of happiness, I will propose to-morrow to Panna Zawilowska.  She or somebody else; what does it matter?”