I began to observe now that Lukomski had in the expression of his eyes, and the way he listened to what was said to him, a certain peculiarity noticed in deaf people.  His hearing was still excellent, but he evidently feared that he might be losing the faculty.

I told him he had no right to let that stand in his way.

“I thought so a little myself.  It is not worth while to spoil one’s life for a thing that may never happen.  There is the cholera that sweeps now and then over Italy; it would be foolish for Italians not to marry for fear they might leave orphans and widows.  Besides I have done what I considered my duty.  I told Panna Vanda that I loved her and would give my life to call her my own, but there was this impediment.  And do you know what her answer was?  ’When you are no longer able to hear me saying I love you, I will write it.’  All this did not come off without some crying, but an hour afterwards we made merry over it.  I pretended to have suddenly grown deaf, to make her write, ‘I love you.’”

This conversation fixed itself in my mind.  Sniatynski is wrong when he maintains that among us only asses have still a kind of will.  This sculptor had a real motive to reflect, and yet a week seemed sufficient for such a weighty decision.  Maybe he does not possess the same knowledge of self as I, but he is a very intelligent fellow.  What a plucky woman the future Pani Lukomska is; I like her ready answer.  Aniela would do the same.  If, for instance, I were to lose my eyesight, Laura would care only in so far as she could show me off, a picturesque Demadoc, singing at her feast; but Aniela would take care of me even if she were not my wife.

I must acknowledge that, having such convictions, a week of indecision seems a long time; and here I have been wavering for five months, and the letter I wrote to my aunt was not very decisive either.

But I comfort myself with the thought that my aunt is a clever woman, and loving me as she does, will guess what I meant to say, and will help me in her own way; and then there is Aniela who will assist her.  Nevertheless, I regret now that I did not write more openly, and I feel half inclined to send another letter, but will not yield to the impulse.  Perhaps it will be as well to wait for the reply.  Happy those people, like Lukomski, whose first impulse is towards action.

15 June.

Whatever name I might give to the feeling I cherish for Aniela, it is different from anything I ever felt before.  Either night or day she is never out of my thought; it has grown into a kind of personal affair for which I feel responsible to myself.  This never used to be the case.  My other love affairs lasted a longer or shorter time, their memories were pleasant sometimes, a little sad at others, or distasteful as the case might be, but never absorbed my whole being.  In the idle, aimless life we are leading, woman, perforce, occupies a large space,—­she