is always before us; we bestow our attentions upon her until we become so used to it that she counts only as a venial sin in our lives.  To disappoint a woman causes us but little trouble of conscience, though a little more perhaps than she feels in disappointing us.  With all the sensitiveness of my nature, I have a rather blunted conscience.  Sometimes it happened I said to myself, “Now is the time for a pathetic lecture!” but I only shrugged my shoulders and preferred to think of something more pleasant.  This time it is altogether different.  For instance, I think of something that has no connection with it whatever; presently I am overcome by a feeling that something is missing, a great trouble seizes me, a fear as if I had forgotten something of great importance, not done a thing I ought to have done; and I find out that the thought of Aniela has percolated through every nook and cranny of the mind, and taken possession of it.  It knocks there night and day like the death-tick in the desk of Mickiewicz’s poem.  When I try to lessen or to ridicule the impression, my scepticism and irony fail me, or rather help me only for a moment; then I go back to the enchanted circle.  Strictly speaking, it is neither a great sorrow nor a sting of conscience; it is rather a troublesome fastening upon one subject, and a restless, feverish curiosity as to what will happen next,—­as if upon that next my very life depended.  If I analyzed myself less closely, I should say it was an all-absorbing love that had taken possession of me; but I notice that there is something besides Aniela that causes me anxiety.  There is no doubt as to her having made a deep impression upon me; but Sniatynski is right,—­if I had loved her as much as Sniatynski loved his wife, I should have desired to make her my own.  But I—­and this is quite a fact—­do not desire her so much as I am afraid to lose her.  It is not everybody perhaps who could perceive the singular and great difference.  I feel quite convinced that but for Kromitzki and the fear of losing Aniela, I should not feel either anxieties or trouble.  My entangled skein is gradually getting straighter, and I can see now more clearly that it is not so much love for Aniela as fear of losing her, and with her some future happiness, that moves me, and still more the utter loneliness I see before me should Aniela go out from my life.

I have noticed that the stoutest pessimists, when fate or men try to take something out of their lives, fight tooth and nail, and cry out as loud as the greatest optimists.  I am exactly in the like position.  I do not cry out, but a terrible fear clutches at my heart, that a few days hence I shall not know what to do with myself in this world.

16 June.