Perhaps it is too late.  Sniatynski does not say when he was last at Ploszow, perhaps a week ago or maybe two; since then things may have gone much farther.  Yes, but I do not know anything for certain, and when all is said how can it be worse than it is already?  I feel that anybody with a little more energy in his composition would go at once, and I should feel more respect for myself if I brought myself to do it, especially as Sniatynski, who is usually so enterprising, does not urge me.  The very thought brightens me up, and in this brightness I see a beloved face which at this moment is dearer to me than anything else in the world, and—­per Baccho!  I shall most probably do it.

9 June.

“La nuit porte conseil.”  I will not go at once to Ploszow, it would be a journey in the dark; but I have written a long letter to my aunt, quite different from that I wrote at Peli.  Within a week, or at the most ten days, I shall get an answer, and according to it I shall either go or stay,—­in fact, I do not know myself yet what I shall do.  I might count upon a favorable answer if I had written for instance like this:  “Dearest aunt, send Kromitzki about his business; I beg Aniela to forgive me.  I love her, and my dearest wish is to make her my wife.”  Unless she were married already,—­and things could not have been managed there so speedily,—­such a letter could have but one result.  But I did not write anything of that kind.  My missive was intended to reconnoitre the position, sent in fact as a scout to find out how affairs were progressing, and partly, to learn what Aniela was thinking.  To say the truth, if I did not express myself more definitely, it is because experience has taught me to mistrust myself.  Ah! if Aniela, in spite of the wrong inflicted upon her by me, refused Kromitzki, how gratified I should feel towards her; and how immeasurably higher she would rise in my esteem if once removed from the ranks of marriageable girls whose only aim is to get a husband.  What a pity I ever heard about Kromitzki.  Once rid of the entanglement with Laura, I should have flown on wings to Aniela’s side.  This dear aunt has managed things with a clumsy hand in writing to me about Kromitzki and the encouragement he had from Aniela’s mother.  In these times of overwrought nerves, it is not only women that are like sensitive plants.  A rough touch, and, the soul shrinks, folds itself up, maybe forever.  I know it is foolish, even wrong, but I cannot help it.  To change myself I should have to order at an anatomist’s a new set of nerves, and keep those I have for special occasions.  No one, not even Pani Sniatynski, can judge me more severely than I judge myself.  But is Kromitzki better than I?  Is his low, money-making neurosis better than mine?  Without any boastfulness I may say that I have more delicacy of feeling, nobler impulses, a better heart, more tenderness, and—­his own mother would be obliged to own it—­more intelligence.  It is true I could not make millions to save my life; but then Kromitzki has not achieved it yet; instead of that, I could guarantee that my wife would spend her life in a broader and warmer atmosphere; there would be more sincerity in it and nobler aims.