“Don’t think of it even.  Suppose Celina should fall ill again, who would look after them, or accompany Aniela to the studio?  She must not go alone.”  She shook her finger playfully at Aniela, and with a frown on her brow, and smiling mouth she added:  “I don’t quite trust that painter, he looks at her more than his work requires; and she sees it too and is pleased with it,—­I know her little ways.”

“But aunty, he is not a young man,” said Aniela, laughingly kissing her hands.

My aunt muttered:  “Little coaxing rogue, he is not a young man, you say? but he pays you compliments all the same.  Leon, you must keep your eye on them.”

I relinquished the journey to Ploszow with delight, yielding to my aunt’s convincing reasons.  Pani Celina insisted upon her taking the maid, at least, who had gone with them to Gastein.  My aunt refused at first, but consented when Aniela pointed out that they would do very well without a maid in the hotel.  She gave orders at once to have her things packed.  She is very quick in her decisions and wants to go to-morrow by an early train.  I teased her during dinner, saying that she liked her horses better than all of us together.  “Foolish boy,” she said, “don’t talk nonsense;” then forgot herself, and began soliloquizing about the horses.  The sitting was a very long one to-day.  Aniela posed much better.  The face is already laid in.

28 August.

My aunt left us this morning.  Pani Celina, who went with us to the studio, could scarcely restrain an exclamation of horror when she saw Aniela’s face on the picture.  She has no idea about painting and the different phases a picture has to go through, and fancied the face would remain thus.  I had to set her mind at rest.  Then Angeli, who guessed what was the matter, laughed and said that what she saw before her was only the chrysalis, from which the butterfly would come forth in time.

“I believe it will be one of the best portraits I ever painted,” he said; “for a long time I have not worked so con amore.”

I hope his words will prove true.  After the sitting I went to get tickets for the opera.  When I returned I found Aniela alone, and suddenly temptation seized me with the force of a hurricane.  I thought if she would come into my arms, now was the moment; and at the very thought I felt myself growing pale, my pulses beat wildly, I trembled and caught my breath.  The room was in semi-darkness, veiled by heavy curtains.  I made superhuman efforts to conquer the irresistible power that pushed me towards her.  It seemed as if a hot wave emanating from her enfolded me, and that she too must feel the same storm in her breast.  “I must take her in my arms, kiss her eyes and lips,” a voice within me seemed to say, “though I were to perish for it afterwards.”  She noticed at once my unusual state; there was a momentary terror in her eyes, but she collected herself at once and said quickly:—­