Aniela at that moment was hateful to me.  For the first time in my life I wished she really loved Kromitzki; she would have been less repugnant to me.  Anger and resentment almost deprived me of my senses, and I saw clearly that if I did not do something, revenge myself upon her in some way, something terrible would happen to me.  I jumped up, and under the influence of that thought, as if touched by a red-hot iron, I took my hat and went forth in search of Kromitzki.  I did not find him either in the house or in the garden.  I went to the Wandelbahn, then to the reading-rooms; he was in neither of the two places.  I stopped for a moment on the bridge near the Cascades, thinking what to do next.  The wind coming from that direction blew a cloud of spray into my face.  This caused me a pleasant sensation and relieved the tension of my nerves.  I bared my head and exposed it to the spray until my hair was quite wet.  I felt a purely animal delight in the coolness.  I had regained all my self-possession.  There remained now only the distinct and decided wish to thwart Aniela.  I said to her, “You shall not be allowed to go away, and henceforth I will treat you as a man who has paid for you with his money.”  I saw the way clear before me, and was not afraid of making any mistakes in dealing with Kromitzki.  I found him outside Straubinger’s hotel reading the paper.  When he saw me he dropped his eyeglass and said:—­

“I was just thinking of going to look for you.”

“Let us go on the Kaiserweg.”

And we went.  Not waiting for him to begin, I plunged at once into the subject.

“My aunt told me about your conversation with her yesterday,” I said.

“I am very sorry it took place at all,” replied Kromitzki.

“As far as I can judge, you were both not as calm as one ought to be in treating affairs of that kind.  My dear fellow, I will be open with you, and tell you at once that you do not know my aunt.  She is the dearest woman in the world, but she has one weakness.  Possessed of a great deal of common-sense and shrewdness, she likes to assert them; therefore any new scheme or proposition is met by her with a certain almost exaggerated suspicion.  For that reason she invariably refuses at first to have anything to do with it.  Chwastowski, her manager, might tell you something about that.  In dealing with her it is always best to suggest a thing and leave her time to digest it; and besides, you rubbed her the wrong way, and that makes her always more determined; a pity you could not have avoided that.”

“But how could I have irritated her?  If anybody it is I who should be able to discuss matters of this kind.”

“You made a mistake in saying that you had married Aniela without a dowry; she is still very angry about that.”

“I said it when she threw the sale of Gluchow in my teeth.  Besides I only spoke the truth; Gluchow was so encumbered that next to nothing really belonged to Aniela.”