For in truth I was deeply wounded, and I cannot forgive Aniela.  If, on the way from Vienna, I had not thought so much of that new compact, if I had not made a wholesale sacrifice of all my desires, passions, and senses, in fact of my whole nature, I should not have felt the disappointment so acutely.  But it fell out so cruelly that, when, out of love for her, I was ready to change my whole being, when I climbed to a height I had never reached before, only to be near her, she, without any consideration or pity for me, wished to push me into the very depth of despair and without considering for a moment what would become of me!  These thoughts poison even the pleasure afforded by Kroimitzki’s departure.

The future will bring some kind of solution, but I am too tired to speculate upon it.  The simplest solution would be inflammation of the brain.  It will come to that.  I torment myself all the day, do not sleep at night, smoke endless cigars to stupefy myself, and sit up till daylight.

30 July.

I have not written in my diary for two weeks.  I went; with Kromitzki to Vienna to conclude his business; after which he remained three days and then left for the East.  I had such violent headaches that I could not write.  Pani Celina’s cure is completed, but we still remain at Gastein because of the great heat.

Kromitzki’s departure was a great relief to me, to Pani Celina,—­whom he irritates to such a degree that if he were not her son-in-law she could not stand him at all,—­and perhaps also to Aniela.  The latter cannot forgive him that he involved me in his affairs.  He, not supposing there could be anything between me and his wife except social relations, made no secret of the loan.  She opposed it energetically, but could not tell him the reason,—­perhaps from a secret fear that after an explanation he might compel her to remain where she is, and thus destroy the last shred of respect she has for him.  I am almost sure that since the sale of Gluchow, both she and her mother distrust him, and in the secrecy of their hearts consider him worse than he really is.  In my opinion he is a spiritual upstart, with a dry and wooden disposition, and incapable of any fine feeling or subtle thought.  There is no generosity in him; his mind is neither deep, noble, nor sensitive; but in the general acceptance of the word he is a decent member of society.  A certain natural pedantry aids him in this, which harmonizes with his money-making neurosis,—­a degenerated imaginativeness seeking expression in financial adventure.  Taking him all in all, he is so intensely repulsive to me—­with his eyeglass, oblique eyes, long legs, and sallow, hairless face—­that I doubt if I am capable of judging him objectively.  Nevertheless I am quite sure that unless he loses his own money I shall not lose mine.  But I put it down, in all sincerity, that I would rather he lost the money, his senses, his life, and went altogether to perdition.