24 June.

Towards the end of my sojourn at Warsaw I put down these words:  “Love for another man’s wife, if only a pastime, is a great villany, and if real, is one of the greatest misfortunes that can happen to a man.”  Writing this before Kromitzki’s arrival, I had not taken into account all the items which make up the sum of this misfortune.  I also thought it nobler than it really is.  Now I begin to see that besides great suffering, it includes a quantity of small humiliations, the consciousness of villany, ridicule, the necessity of falsehood, the doing of mean things, and the need of precautions unworthy of a man.  What a bouquet!  Truly the scent of it is enough to overpower any man.

God knows with what delight I would take such a Kromitzki by the throat, press him to the wall, and tell him straight in his face, “I love your wife!” Instead of that I must be careful lest the thought should enter his mind that she pleases me.  What a noble part to play in her presence!  What must she think of me?  That too is one of the flowers in the bouquet.

As long as I live I shall not forget the day of Kromitzki’s arrival.  He had gone straight to my house.  Coming home late at night, I found somebody’s luggage in the anteroom.  I do not know why it did not occur to me that it might be Kromitzki’s.  Suddenly he himself looked out from the adjacent room, and dropping his eyeglass rushed up with open arms to salute his new relative.  I saw as in a dream that dry skull, so like a death’s-head, the glittering eyes, and the crop of black hair.  Kromitzki’s arrival was the most natural thing in the world, and yet I felt as if I had looked into the face of death.  It seemed to me like a nightmare, and the words, “How do you do, Leon?” the most fantastic and most improbable words I could have heard anywhere.  Presently such a rage, such a loathing combined with fear, seized me that it took all my self-control to prevent me from throwing him down and dashing out his brains.  I have sometimes felt such paroxysms of rage and loathing, but never combined with fear; it was not so much fear of a living man as horror of the dead.  For some time I could not find a word to say.  Fortunately he might suppose I had not recognized him at first, or was astonished that a man I scarcely knew should treat me so familiarly.  It still irritates me when I think of it.

I tried to recover myself; he in the mean while readjusted his eyeglass, and shaking my hand once more, said:—­

“Well, and how are you?  How are Aniela and her mother?  Old lady always ill, I suppose.  And our aunt, how is she?”

I was seized with amazement and anger that this man should mention those nearest and dearest to me as if they belonged to him.  A man of the world bears most things and hides his emotions, because he is trained from his earliest years to keep himself under control; nevertheless I felt that I could not bear it any longer, and in order to pull myself together and occupy my thoughts with something else, I called for the servant and told him to get tea ready.