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Without Dogma: A Novel of Modern Poland

by Henryk Sienkiewicz · English · Gutenberg #11686 · 835,763 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Without Dogma: A Novel of Modern Poland

Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz

Translator: Iza Young


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #11686]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11686

Credits: E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Tim Koeller, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHOUT DOGMA: A NOVEL OF MODERN POLAND ***

WITHOUT DOGMA.

A NOVEL OF MODERN POLAND.

BY

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

AUTHOR OF
"WITH FIRE AND SWORD," "THE DELUGE," "QUO VADIS," ETC.

TRANSLATED FROM THE POLISH BY

IZA YOUNG.

1893






"A man who leaves memoirs, whether well or badly written, provided
they be sincere, renders a service to future psychologists and
writers, giving them not only a faithful picture of the times, but
likewise human documents that can be relied upon."




PUBLISHER'S PREFACE


In "WITHOUT DOGMA" we have a remarkable work, by a writer known
only in this country through his historical novels; and a few words
concerning this novel and its author may not be without interest.

Readers of Henryk Sienkiewicz in America, who have known him only
through Mr. Curtin's fine, strong translations, will be surprised to
meet with a production so unlike "Fire and Sword," and "The Deluge,"
that on first reading one can scarcely believe it to be from the pen
of the great novelist.

"Fire and Sword," "The Deluge," and "Pan Michael" (now in press) form,
so to speak, a Polish trilogy. They are, first and last, Polish in
sentiment, nationality, and patriotism. What Wagner did for Germany in
music, what Dumas did for France, and Scott for all English-speaking
people, the great Pole has achieved for his own country in literature.
Even to those most unfamiliar with her history, it grows life-like and
real as it speaks to us from the pages of these historical romances.
Only a very great genius can unearth the dusty chronicles of past
centuries, and make its men and women live and breathe, and speak to
us. These historical characters are not mere shadows, puppets, or
nullities, but very real men and women, our own flesh and blood.

His warriors fight, love, hate; they embrace each other; they laugh;
they weep in each other's arms; give each other sage counsels, with a
truly Homeric simplicity. They are deep-versed in stratagems of love
and war, these Poles of the seventeenth century! They have their
Nestor, their Agamemnon, their great Achilles sulking in his tent.
Oddly enough, at times they grow very familiar to us, and in spite of
their Polish titles and faces, and a certain tenderness of nature that
is almost feminine, they seem to have good, stout, Saxon stuff in
them. Especially where the illustrious knights recount their heroic
deeds there is a Falstaffian strut in their performance, and there
runs riot a Falstaffian imagination truly sublime.

Yet, be it observed, however much in all this is suggestive of the
literature of other races and ages, these characters never cease for a
moment to be Poles. Here is a vast, moving panorama spread before us;
across it pass mighty armies; hetman and banneret go by; the scene
is full of stir, life, action. It is constantly changing, so that
at times we are almost bewildered, attempting to follow the quick
succession of events. We are transported in a moment from the din
and uproar of a beleaguered town to the awful solitude of the vast
steppes,--yet it is always the Polish Commonwealth that the novelist
paints for us, and beneath every other music rises the wild Slavic
music, rude, rhythmical, and sad.

There is, too, a background against which these pictures paint
themselves, and it reminds us not a little of Verestchagin,--the same
deep feeling for nature, and a certain sadness that seems inseparable
from the Russian and Lithuanian temperaments, tears following closely
upon mirth. At times, after incident upon incident of war, the reader
is tempted to exclaim, "Something too much of this!" Yet nowhere,
perhaps, except from the great canvases of Verestchagin, has there
ever come a more awful, powerful plea for peace than from the pages of
"Fire and Sword."

In "Without Dogma" is presented quite another theme, treated in a
fashion strikingly different. In the historical novels the stage
is crowded with personages. In "Without Dogma," the chief interest
centres in a single character. This is not a battle between contending
armies, but the greater conflict that goes on in silence,--the battle
of a man for his own soul.

He can scarcely be considered an heroic character; he is to some
extent the creature of circumstances, the fine product of a
highly complex culture and civilization. He regards himself as a
nineteenth-century Hamlet, and for him not merely the times, but his
race and all mankind, are out of joint. He is not especially Polish
save by birth; he is as little at home in Paris or at Rome as in
Warsaw. Set him down in any quarter of the globe and he would be
equally out of place. He folds the mantle of his pessimism about him.
Life has interested him purely as a spectacle, in which he plays no
part save a purely passive one. His relation to life is that of the
Greek chorus, passing across the stage, crying "Woe, woe!"

Life has interested, entertained, and sometimes wearied him. He muses,
philosophizes, utters the most profound observations upon life, art,
and the mystery of things. He puts mankind and himself upon the
dissecting-table.

Here is a nature so sensitive that it photographs every impression,
an artistic temperament, a highly endowed organism; yet it produces
nothing. The secret of this unproductiveness lies perhaps in a certain
tendency to analyze and philosophize away every strong emotion that
should lead to action. Here is a man in possession of two distinct
selves,--the one emotional, active; the other eternally occupied in
self-contemplation, judgment, and criticism. The one paralyzes the
other. He defines himself as "a genius without a portfolio," just as
there are certain ministers-of-state without portfolios.

In such a character many of us will find just enough of ourselves to
make its weaknesses distasteful to us. We resent, just because
we recognize the truth of the picture. Leon Ploszowski belongs
unmistakably to our own times. His doubts and his dilettanteism are
our own. His fine aesthetic sense, his pessimism, his self-probings,
his weariness, his overstrung nerves, his whole philosophy of
negation,--these are qualities belonging to this century, the outcome
of our own age and culture.

If this were all the book offers us one might well wonder why it
was written. But its real interest centres in the moment when the
cultivated pessimist "without dogma" discovers that the strongest and
most genuine emotion of his life is its love for another man's wife.
It is an old theme; certainly two thirds of our modern French novels
deal with it; we know exactly how the conventional, respectable
British novel would handle it. But here is a treatment, bold,
original, and unconventional. The character of the woman stands out in
splendid contrast to the man's. Its simplicity, strength, truth, and
faith are the antidote for his doubt and weakness. Her very weakness
becomes her strength. Her dogmatism saves him.

The background of the book, its lesser incidents, are thoroughly
artistic, its ending masterly in its brevity and pathos; here again is
the distinguishing mark of genius, the power of condensation. The man
who has philosophized and speculated now writes the tragedy of
his life in four words: "Aniela died this morning." This is the
culmination towards which his whole life has been moving; the rest is
foregone conclusion, and matters but little.

One sees throughout the book the strong influence that other minds,
Shakespeare notably, have produced upon this mind; here its attitude
is never merely pessimistic. It does not criticise them, it has
absorbed them.

One last word concerning this novel. It does not seek to formulate, or
to preach directly. Its chief value and the keynote to its motive lie
in the words that Sienkiewicz at the beginning puts into the mouth of
his hero:--

"A man who leaves memoirs, whether well or badly written, provided
they be sincere, renders a service to future psychologists and
writers, giving them not only a faithful picture, but likewise _human
documents_ that may be relied upon."

A _human document_--the modern novel is this, when it is anything at
all. If Mr. Crawford's canons of literary art are true, and we believe
they are, they give us a standard by which to judge; he tells us that
the heart in each man and woman means the whole body of innate and
inherited instincts, impulses, and beliefs, which, when quiescent, we
call Self, when roused to emotional activity, we call Heart. It is to
this self, or heart, he observes, that whatever is permanent in the
novel must appeal; and whatever does so must live and find a hearing
with humanity "so long as humanity is human." If this be a test, we
cannot doubt as to what will be the reception of "Without Dogma."

A few words concerning the novelist himself. The facts obtainable
are of the most meagre kind. He was born in 1845, in Lithuania. The
country itself, its natural and strongly religious and political
influences, its melancholy, seem to have left their strong, lasting
impression upon him. He has a passionate fondness for the Lithuanian,
and paints him and his surroundings most lovingly.

His student days were spent at Warsaw. He devoted himself afterward to
literature, writing at first under a pseudonym. He does not seem to
have won immediate recognition. He spent some years in California;
a series of articles published in this connection in a Polish paper
brought him into notice.

In 1880, various novelettes and sketches of his production were
published in three volumes.

In 1884 were given to the Polish public the three historical novels
which immediately gave their author the foremost place in Polish
literature. It is a matter of pride that the first translation of
these great works into English is the work of an American, and offered
to the American public.

He is a prolific writer, and it would be impossible to attempt to give
even the names of all his minor sketches and romances. Some of them
have been translated into German, but much has been lost in the
translation.

Sienkiewicz is still a contributor to journalistic literature. He has
travelled much, and is a citizen of the world. He is equally at home
in the Orient or the West, by the banks of the Dnieper, or beside the
Nile. Probably there is scarcely a corner of Poland that he has not
explored. He depicts no type of life that has not actually come under
his own observation. The various social strata of his own country, the
condition of its peasantry, the marked contrast between the simplicity
of that life and the culture of the ecclesiastic and aristocratic
bodies, the religious, poetic, artistic temperament of the
people,--all these he paints in a life-like fashion, but always as an
artist.

So much of the writer. Of the man Sienkiewicz there is little to
be obtained. Like all great creative geniuses, he is so completely
identified with his work that even while his personality lives in
his creations it eludes them. He offers us no confidences concerning
himself, no opinions or prejudices. He does not divert the reader with
personalities. He sets before us certain groups of men and women, whom
certainly he knows and loves, and has lived among. He sets them in
motion; they become living, breathing creations; they assume relations
in time and space; they speak and act for themselves. If there be a
prompter he remains always behind the scenes. Admire or criticise or
love the actors as you will, you cannot for a moment doubt that they
are alive.

This is the supreme miracle of genius,--the fine union of dramatic
instinct, the aesthetic sense, and an intense, vital realism; not the
realism of the cesspool or the morgue, but the realism of the earth
and sky, and of healthy human nature. We are inclined to believe that
Henryk Sienkiewicz has answered an often discussed question that has
much exercised the keenly critical intellect of this age. One school
of thought cries out, "Let us have life as it is. Paint anything, but
draw it as it is. Let the final test of all literary works be, 'Is it
real and true?'"

To the romantic school quite another class of ideas appeals; to it
much of the so-called realistic literature seems very bad, or merely
"weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." The profoundest utterances of
realism do not impress it much in themselves. It insists that art has
something to say to literature, that in this field as elsewhere
holds good the law of natural selection of types and survival of the
fittest.

While each school has its down-sittings and up-risings, its supporters
and its critics, neither school has yet exhausted the possibilities of
literature. The novel's aim is to depict Life, and life is neither all
romance nor all realism, but a curious mixture of both. Man is neither
a beast nor a celestial being, but a compound. Though he can crawl,
and may have clinging to him certain brute instincts that may be
the relics of his anthropoidal days, he has also, thank God, divine
desires and discontents, and certain rudimentary wings. And neither
school alone is competent to paint him as he is. The author of "La
Bête Humaine" fails as completely as the visionary À Kempis. Neither
realism nor romance alone will ever with its small plummet sound to
its depths the human heart or its mystery; yet from the union of the
two much perhaps might come.

We believe that just here lies the value of the novels of Henryk
Sienkiewicz. He has worked out the problem of the modern novel so as
to satisfy the most ardent realist, but he has worked it out upon
great and broadly human lines. For him facts are facts indeed; but
facts have souls as well as bodies. His genius is analytic, but also
imaginative and constructive; it is not forever going upon botanizing
excursions. He paints things and thoughts human.

The greatest genius assimilates unconsciously the best with which
it comes in contact, and by a subtle chemistry of its own makes new
combinations. Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, and the realists, as well as
all the forces of nature, have helped to make Henryk Sienkiewicz; yet
he is not any one of them. He is never merely imitative. Originality
and imaginative fire, a style vivid and strong, large humor, a
profound pathos, a strong feeling for nature, and a deep reverence
for the forms and the spirit of religion, the breath of the true
cosmopolitan united with the intense patriotism of the Pole, a great
creative genius,--these are the most striking qualities of the work of
this modern novelist, who has married Romance to Realism.

       *       *       *       *       *




WITHOUT DOGMA.


ROME, 9 January.

Some months ago I met my old friend and school-fellow, Jozef
Sniatynski, who for the last few years has occupied a prominent place
among our literary men. In a discussion about literature Sniatynski
spoke about diaries. He said that a man who leaves memoirs, whether
well or badly written, provided they be sincere, renders a service
to future psychologists and writers, giving them not only a faithful
picture of the times, but likewise human documents that can be relied
upon. He seemed to think that most likely the novel of the future
would take the form of diary; finally he asserted that anybody who
keeps a diary works for the common good, and does a meritorious thing.

I am thirty-five, and do not remember ever having done anything for my
country, for the reason, maybe, that after leaving the University, my
life, with slight intervals, was spent abroad. This fact, so lightly
touched upon, has given me, in spite of all my scepticism, many a
bitter pang; therefore I resolved to follow my friend's advice. If
this indeed means work, with some kind of merit in it, I will try to
be of some use in this way.

I intend to be perfectly sincere. I enter upon the task, not only
because of the above-mentioned reasons, but also because the idea
pleases me. Sniatynski says that if a man gets accustomed to put down
his thoughts and impressions it becomes gradually one of the most
delightful occupations of his life. If it should prove the contrary,
then the Lord have mercy on my diary; it would snap asunder like a
string too tightly drawn. I am ready to do much for my community; but
to bore myself for its sake, oh, no! I could not do it.

Nevertheless, I am resolved not to be discouraged by first
difficulties, and shall give it a fair trial. "Do not adopt any style;
do not write from a literary point of view," says Sniatynski. Easier
said than done. I fully understand that the greater the writer, the
less he writes in a purely literary style; but I am a _dilettante_,
and have no command over any style. I know from experience that to one
who thinks much and feels deeply, it often seems that he has only
to put down his thoughts and feelings in order to produce something
altogether out of the common; yet as soon as he sets to work he falls
into a certain mannerism of style and common phraseology; his thoughts
do not come spontaneously, and one might almost say that it is not the
mind that directs the pen, but the pen leads the mind into common,
empty artificiality. I am afraid of this for myself, for if I am
wanting in eloquence, literary simplicity, or picturesqueness, I am
not wanting in good taste, and my own style might become distasteful
to myself, and thereby render my task impossible. But this I shall see
later on. I begin my diary with a short introductory autobiography.

My name is Leon Ploszowski, and I am, as I said before, thirty-five
years of age. I come from a wealthy family which has been able to
preserve its fortune. As to myself I shall not increase it, and at the
same time I am not likely to squander it. My position is such that
there is no necessity for me to enter into competition with struggling
humanity. As to expensive and ruinous pleasures, I am a sceptic who
knows how much they are worth, or rather, knows that they are not
worth anything.

My mother died a week after I was born. My father, who loved her
more than his life, became affected with melancholia. Even after he
recovered from this, at Vienna, he did not wish to return to his
estates, as the memories associated with them rent his very soul; he
left Ploszow under the care of his sister, my aunt, and betook himself
in the year 1848 to Rome, which, during thirty-odd years, he never
left once, so as to be near my mother's tomb. I forgot to mention that
he brought her remains to Rome, and buried her on the Campo Santo.

We have our own house on the Babuino, called Casa Osoria, from our
coat of arms. It looks more like a museum than anything else, as
my father possesses no mean collections, especially from the early
Christian times. In these collections his whole life is now absorbed.
As a young man, he was very brilliant in appearance as well as in
mind; his wealth and name added to this, all roads were open to him,
and consequently great things were expected from him. I know this from
his fellow-students at Berlin. He was deeply absorbed in the study of
philosophy, and it was generally believed his name would rank with
such as Cieszkowski, Libelt, and others. Society, and his being a
favorite in female circles, diverted him somewhat from scientific
studies. In society he was known by the nickname of "Leon
l'Invincible." In spite of his social success he did not neglect his
philosophical researches, and everybody expected that some day he
would electrify the world with a great work, and make his name
illustrious. They were disappointed in their expectations.

Of the once so beautiful appearance there still remains up to this day
one of the finest and noblest heads. Artists are of the same opinion,
and not long ago one of them remarked that it would be difficult to
find a more perfect type of a patrician head. As to his
scientific career, my father is and remains a cultured and gifted
nobleman-dilettante. I almost believe dilettantism to be the fate of
all Ploszowskis, to which I will refer later on, when I come to
write about myself. As to my father, there is in his desk a yellow
manuscript about Triplicity in Nature. I perused it, and it did not
interest me. I only remember a comparison between the transcendental
belief of Christianity in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and
the natural triplicity of oxygen, hydrogen, and ozone, with many other
analogous triplicities from absolute truth, goodness, and beauty,
to the syllogism of the minor premise, the major premise, and the
conclusion,--a quaint mixture of Hegel and Hoene-Wronski, and utterly
useless. I am quite convinced that my father did not intend to have
it published, if only for the reason that speculative philosophy had
failed in him even before it was set aside by the world. The reason
for this failure was the death of my mother. My father, who in spite
of his nickname, "Leon l'Invincible," and reputation of conqueror of
hearts, was a man of deep feelings and simply worshipped my mother,
put many terrible questions to his philosophy, and not obtaining
either answer or comfort, recognized its utter emptiness in the
presence of a great sorrow. This must have been an awful tragedy of
his life, since it almost shattered its foundations,--the brain
and heart. His mind became affected, as I said before, and when he
recovered he went back to his religious convictions. I was told that
at one time he prayed night and day, knelt down in the street when he
passed a church, and was carried away by his religious fervor to such
an extent that he was looked upon by some as a madman, by others as a
saint. It was evident he found more consolation in this than in his
philosophical triplicities, for he gradually calmed down and began
to lead a more rational life. His heart, with all his power for
affection, turned towards me, and his aesthetic bent found employment
in the study of early Christianity. The lofty, restless mind wanted
nourishment. After his first year in Rome he took up archaeology, and
by dint of hard study acquired a thorough knowledge of the antique.

Father Calvi, my first tutor and at the same time a great judge of
Roman antiquities, gave him the final impulse towards investigation of
the Eternal City. Some fifteen years ago my father became acquainted
and subsequently on terms of friendship with the great Rossi, in
whose company he spent whole days in the catacombs. Thanks to his
extraordinary gifts he soon acquired such consummate knowledge of Rome
as to astonish Rossi himself. Several times he began writing treatises
on the subject, but never finished what he had begun. Maybe the
completion of his collections took up too much of his time, but most
likely the reason he will not leave anything behind him except his
collections is that he did not confine himself to one epoch or any
specialty in his researches. Gradually mediaeval Rome began to
fascinate him as much as the first era of Christianity. There was a
time when his mind was full of Orsinis and Colonnas; after that he
approached the Renaissance, and was fairly captivated by it. From
inscriptions, tombs, and the first traces of Christian architecture he
passed to nearer times; from the Byzantine paintings to Fiesole
and Giotto, from these to artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, and so on; he fell in love with statues and pictures; his
collections certainly increased, but the great work in Polish
about the three Romes remained forever in the land of unfulfilled
intentions.

As to these collections my father has a singular idea. He wants to
bequeath them to Rome under the condition they should be placed in
a separate gallery named after him, "Museum Osoria Ploszowski." Of
course his wishes will be respected. I only wonder why my father
believes that in doing this he will be more useful to his community
than by sending them to his own country.

Not long ago he said to me: "You perceive that scarcely anybody there
would see them, and very few derive any benefit, whereas here the
whole world can study them, and every individual that benefits thereby
carries the benefit to other communities." It does not befit me to
analyze how much family pride and the thought of having his name
engraved in marble in the Eternal City has to do with the whole
scheme. I almost think that such must be the case. As to myself, I
am perfectly indifferent where the collections are to remain. But my
aunt, to whom by the bye I am shortly going to pay a visit at Warsaw,
is very indignant at the idea of leaving the collections out of the
country, and as, with her, thought and speech go always together, she
expresses her indignation in every letter. Some years ago she was at
Rome, and they wrangled every day over the matter, and would have
quarrelled outright had not the affection she has towards me subdued
her temper.

My aunt is older than my father by several years. When my father,
after his great sorrow, left the country, he gave up the Ploszow
estate to her, and took instead the ready capital. My aunt has managed
the property for thirty years, and manages it perfectly. She is of a
rather uncommon character, therefore I will devote to her a few lines.
At the age of twenty she was betrothed to a young man who died in
exile just when my aunt was about to follow him abroad. From that time
forth she refused all offers of marriage and remained an old maid.
After my mother's death she went with my father to Vienna and
Rome, where she lived with him, surrounding him with the tenderest
affections, which she subsequently transferred to me. She is, in the
full meaning of the word, _une grande dame_, somewhat of an autocrat,
haughty and outspoken, with that self-possession wealth and a high
position give, but withal the very essence of goodness and kindliness.
Under the cover of abrupt manners she has an excellent and lenient
disposition, loving not only her own family, as for instance my father
and myself and her own household, but mankind in general. She is so
virtuous that really I do not know whether there be any merit in
it, as she could not be otherwise if she tried. Her charities are
proverbial. She orders poor people about like a constable, and tends
them like a Saint Vincent de Paul. She is very religious. No doubts
whatever assail her mind. What she does, she does from unshaken
principles, and therefore never hesitates in the choice of ways and
means. Therefore she is always at peace with herself and very happy.
At Warsaw they call my aunt, on account of her abrupt manners, _le
bourreau bienfaisant_. Some people, especially among women, dislike
her, but generally speaking she lives in peace with all classes.

Ploszow is not far from Warsaw, where my aunt owns a house in which
she spends the winter. Every winter she tries to inveigle me there in
the hope to see me married. Even now I received a mysteriously worded
missive adjuring me to come at once. I shall have to go, as I have not
seen her for some time. She writes that she is getting old and wishes
to see me before she dies. I confess I do not always feel inclined to
go. I know that my aunt's dearest wish is to see me married, therefore
every visit brings her a cruel disappointment. The very idea of such a
decisive step frightens me. To begin a new life when I am so tired
of the old one! Finally, there is another vexatious element in my
relations with my aunt. As formerly my father's friends looked upon
him as a genius, so she persists in regarding me as one exceptionally
gifted, from whom great things are to be expected. To allow her to
remain of this opinion seems an abuse of her good faith; to tell
her that nothing is to be expected from me would be a more likely
conclusion, but at the same time inflict upon the dear old lady a
cruel blow.

To my misfortune many of those near me share my aunt's opinion, and
this brings me to the point of drawing a sketch of my own character,
which is by no means an easy task, as my nature is rather a
complicated one.

I brought with me into the world very sensitive nerves, nerves
perfected by the culture of generations. During the first years of my
childhood I remained under the care of my aunt; after her departure,
according to the custom of our country, a nursery governess was
engaged for me. As we lived in Rome, among foreign surroundings, and
my father wished me to be well grounded in my own language, he engaged
a Polish governess. She is still with us as housekeeper at Babuino.
My father also bestowed some pains upon me, especially after my fifth
year. I used to go to his room to talk with him, and this developed my
mind prodigiously, too much so perhaps for my age. Later on, when his
studies and archaeologic researches took up his whole time, he engaged
a tutor, Father Calvi. This was an old man, with a mind and faith
exceedingly serene. He loved art beyond everything. I believe religion
even reacted upon him through its beauty. In the galleries before the
old masters, or listening to the music in the Sistine Chapel, he lost
himself altogether. There was nothing pagan in these feelings, as they
were not based upon sybaritism or sensual enjoyment. Father Calvi
loved art with the pure, serene feeling as maybe a Da Fiesole, a
Cimabue, or Giotto loved it. And he loved in all humility, as he
himself had no gifts that way. I could not say which of the fine arts
he loved best, but I believe he leaned mostly towards harmony, which
responded to the harmony of his own mind.

Whenever I think of Father Calvi, I am reminded at the same time of
the old man that stands beside Raphael's Saint Cecilia listening
intently to the music of the spheres.

Between my father and the priest sprang up a friendship which lasted
unto the latter's death. It was he who confirmed my father in his
archaeologic researches, especially about Rome. There was another
bond between these two,--their love for me. Both considered me as an
exceptionally gifted child, and of a God knows what promising future.
It strikes me at times that I formed for them a kind of harmony,--a
rounding of and completion to the world in which they lived; and they
loved me with the same absorbing passion with which they loved Rome
and its antiquities. Such an atmosphere, such surroundings, could not
fail to impress my mind. I was brought up in an original way. With
my tutor,--sometimes with my father,--I visited galleries, museums,
villas, ruins, catacombs, and the environs of Rome. Father Calvi was
equally sensitive to the beauties of nature and to those of art, and
taught me at an early age to understand poetic melancholy. The Roman
Campagna, the harmony of the arch-line on the sky of the arches in the
ruined aqueducts, the fine tracery of the pines,--I understood all
this before I could read or had mastered the first rudiments of
arithmetic. I was able to set English tourists right to whom the names
of Carracci and Caravaggio caused confusion. I learned Latin early and
without effort, from being familiar with the Italian language. I
gave my opinion about Italian and foreign masters,--which, however
unsophisticated, made both my father and my tutor look at each other
in astonishment. I did not like Ribera,--there was too great a
contrast of color in his pictures, and he frightened me a little; but
I liked Carlo Dolce. In short, my tutor, my father, and his friends
considered me a very prodigy; I heard myself praised, and it flattered
my vanity. But, all the same, it was not the healthiest of educations;
and my nervous system, developed too early, always remained very
sensitive. It seems strange that these influences were neither so deep
nor so lasting as might have been expected. That I did not become an
artist is owing, may be, to a lack of gifts that way,--although my
drawing and music masters opined differently; but how was it that
neither my father nor the priest was able to imbue me with that
love of art for art's sake? Have I a feeling for art? Yes. Is art a
necessity of my life? Yes, again. But they loved it; I only feel it as
a _dilettante_; it is a necessity in so far as it complements every
kind of pleasant and delightful sensation. It is one of my delights,
but not an all-absorbing passion; I should not like to live without
it, but could not devote my whole life to it.

As the schools at Rome left much to be desired, my father sent me to
a college in Metz, where I carried off honors and prizes with very
little effort. A year before the last term, I ran away to join Don
Carlos, and with Tristan's detachment wandered for some time about
the Pyrenees; until my father, with the help of the consul in Burgos,
found me, and I was sent back to Metz to be duly punished. The penalty
was not a heavy one, as my father and the teachers were secretly proud
of my escapade. A brilliant success at the examinations quickly earned
me a full absolution.

Among my schoolfellows, whose sympathies were naturally with Don
Carlos, I henceforth passed as a hero; and as I was at the same time
one of the foremost pupils, my position as the first at school was
beyond dispute. I was growing up with the conviction that later on, in
a larger sphere, it would be the same. This opinion was shared by
my teachers and schoolfellows; and yet the fact is that many of my
schoolfellows who at one time would not have dreamed of competing with
me, occupy to-day in France high places in literary, scientific, and
political spheres; whereas I, had I to choose a profession, should
feel considerably perplexed. My social position is excellent. I
possess independent means from my mother's side, shall inherit my
father's fortune in time to come, and administer the Ploszow estate
more or less wisely, as the case may be; but the very limitation
of the work excludes all hope of distinguishing myself in life, or
playing any prominent part in it.

I shall never be a great administrator or agriculturist; for though I
do not mean to shirk my duties, I could not devote my whole life to
them,--for the simple reason that my aspirations aim much higher.
Sometimes I ask myself whether we Ploszowskis do not delude ourselves
as to our abilities. But if such were the case, the delusion would be
only personal; other people, strangers, could not be deceived in the
same way. Besides, I know that my father is an extraordinarily gifted
man. As to myself, I will not enter more fully on the subject, as it
might appear mere boastfulness; nevertheless I have the conviction
that I could be something infinitely greater than I am.

For instance, at Warsaw (my father and my aunt wished me to enter the
university there) Sniatynski and I were fellow-students. We both were
drawn towards literature, and tried our hand at it. I do not say I was
looked upon as the more gifted of the two, but the truth is that my
work then was considered better and more promising than Sniatynski's.
Sniatynski has for some years past occupied a prominent position in
literature, and I am still the greatly promising Pan Ploszowski, of
whom here and there people are wont to say: "If he would only take up
something!"

Ah! there is the rub,--"if he would!" But they do not seem to take it
into account that one has to know how to will. I thought sometimes
that if I had no means of subsistence I should have to work. Certainly
I should have to do something in order to earn my bread; but even
then I am firmly convinced I should not derive the twentieth part of
advantage from my capacities. Besides, such men as Darwin or Buckle
were rich; Sir John Lubbock is a banker; most of the known men in
France are in easy circumstances. This proves that wealth is not a
hindrance, but rather a help towards attaining a proper standing in
the chosen field of labor. I confess that, as far as I am concerned,
it has done me some service, as it preserved my character from many a
crookedness poverty might have exposed it to. I do not mean by this
that I have a weak character,--although struggle for existence might
have made it stronger; but still I maintain that the less stony the
road, the less chance of a fall. It is not owing to constitutional
laziness, either, that I am a nullity. I possess alike a great
facility for acquiring knowledge, and a desire for it; I read much,
and have a good memory. Perhaps I could not summon energy enough for a
long, slow work, but the greater facility ought to serve instead; and
besides, there is no urgent necessity for me to write encyclopedias,
like Littré. He who cannot shine with the steady light of a sun
might at least dazzle as a meteor. But oh! that nothingness of the
past,--the most probable nothingness of the future! I am growing
peevish--and tired; and will leave off writing for to-day.


ROME, 10 January.

Last night, at Count Malatesta's reception, I heard by chance these
two words: "l'improductivité Slave." I experienced the same relief as
does a nervous patient when the physician tells him that his symptoms
are common enough, and that many others suffer from the same disease.
I have many fellow-sufferers, not only among other Slavs, a race which
I know but imperfectly, but in my own country. I thought about that
"improductivité Slave" all night. He had his wits about him who summed
the thing up in two words. There is something in us,--an incapacity to
give forth all that is in us. One might say, God has given us bow and
arrow, but refused us the power to string the bow and send the arrow
straight to its aim. I should like to discuss it with my father, but
am afraid to touch a sore point. Instead of this, I will discuss it
with my diary. Perhaps it will be just the thing to give it any value.
Besides, what can be more natural than to write about what interests
me? Everybody carries within him his tragedy. Mine is this same
"improductivité slave" of the Ploszowskis. Not long ago, when
romanticism flourished in hearts and poetry, everybody carried his
tragedy draped around him as a picturesque cloak; now it is carried
still, but as a jaegervest next to the skin. But with a diary it is
different; with a diary one may be sincere.


ROME, 11 January.

The few days which remain to me before my departure I will use in
retrospects of the past, until I come to note down day after day the
events of my present life. As I said before, I do not intend to
write an autobiography; who and what I am, my future life will show
sufficiently. I should not like to enter into minute details of the
past,--it is a kind of adding number to number, and a summing up. I
always hated the four rules of arithmetic, and especially the first.
But I want to have a general idea of the total, so as to have a
clearer view of myself. Therefore I go on with the mere outline.

After having finished my studies at the university I went to an
agricultural school in France. The work there was easy enough, but it
had no special attraction for me. I did it as one who knows that this
special branch of knowledge will be useful to him, but at the same
time feels that he lowers himself to it and that it does not respond
either to his ambition or his faculties. I derived a twofold gain from
my sojourn there. Agriculture became to me familiar enough to protect
me from being cheated by any agents or bailiffs, and it strengthened
my frame so that it could withstand the life I later on led in Paris.

The years following I spent either in Koine or in Paris, not to
mention short stays at Warsaw, where my aunt summoned me now and then
in order to introduce me to some special favorite of hers with a view
to matrimony.

Paris and its life attracted me greatly. With the truly excellent
opinion I had then of myself, with more confidence in my intelligence
and the self-possession an independent position gives, I still played
a very unsophisticated part on this scene of the world. I began by
falling desperately in love with Mademoiselle Richemberg of the
Comédie Française, and absolutely insisted upon marrying her. I will
not dwell now upon the many tragicomic imbroglios, as I am partly
ashamed of those times, and partly inclined to laugh at them. Still
later on it happened that I took counterfeits for pure gold. The
French women, and for the matter of that, my own countrywomen, of
whatever class and in spite of all their virtues when young, remind me
of my fencing lessons. As the fencer has his hour of practice with the
foils so as to keep his hand in, so women practise with sentimental
foils. As a mere youth, fairly good looking, I was sometimes invited
to a passage of arms, and as I took the matter seriously, received
many a scratch. They were not mortal wounds and healed quickly.
Besides, everybody has to pay for his apprenticeship in this
world, especially in a world like that. My time of probation was,
comparatively speaking, a short one. Then came a period one might call
"la revanche." I paid back in the same coin, and if now and then I was
still taken in, it was with my eyes open to the fact.

Myself of a good social standing, I came to know all shades of
society, from the old legitimist circles, where I was not a little
bored, to the new aristocracy created by the Bonapartes and the
Orléanists, representing the society, perhaps not of Paris, but let
us say, of _Nice_. Dumas the Younger, Sardou, and others, take
thence their counts, marquises, and princes, who, without historical
traditions, have titles and money in plenty, and whose principal aim
is to enjoy life. I frequented their salons mostly for the sake of
their female element. They are very subtle, the women there, with
highly strung nerves always in search for new pleasures, fresh
sensations, and truly void of any idealism. They are often as corrupt
as the novels they are reading, because their morality finds no
support either in religion or tradition. But it is a brilliant world
all the same. The hours of practice with the foils are so long
there that they look more like days and nights, and the weapons are
dangerous sometimes, as they are not blunted. There too I received a
few painful lessons until I got my hand in. It would be a sign of mere
vanity and still more of bad taste to write about my successes, and
I will only say this, that I tried to keep alive the tradition of my
father's youth.

The lowest circles of this world slightly merge into the higher sphere
of the great _demi-monde._ This _demi-monde_ is far more dangerous
than appears on the surface because it is not in the least
commonplace. Its cynicism has a certain air of refinement and art. If
I did not leave many feathers there it must be because my beak had
acquired a certain curve and my claws had grown. Generally speaking of
the life in Paris, a man who has passed through that mill feels rather
exhausted, and what then of such as I, who leave only to go back
again? It is only later on in life we begin to understand that
triumphs like these are somewhat like the victories of Pyrrhus. My
naturally strong constitution withstood this life, but my nerves are
somewhat shattered.

Paris, though, possesses one superiority over other centres of
civilization. I do not know of any other city in the world where the
elements of art, science, and all kinds of human ideas seem to float
in the air to be assimilated by the human brain. Almost unconsciously
it imbibes not only the newest ideas in the sphere of intellect,
but also loses some of its onesidedness, broadens out, becomes more
civilized. I say again, civilized, because in Italy, Germany, and
Poland, I met with brains and powerful brains too, but who would not
recognize any light but their own, so onesided and barbarian that for
one who did not want to sacrifice his own opinions, intercourse from
an intellectual point of view was simply impossible.

In France and still more in Paris, similar manifestations have no
existence. As a running stream smoothes and polishes the pebbles,
rubbing them against each other, so the swift current of life rubs
off the angles from the human mind. It is obvious that under such
influences my mind became that of a civilized being, that can make due
allowance for other people's opinions; I do not utter peacock cries
when I hear of anything opposed to my views or something utterly new.
It may be that such leniency and tolerance of all opinions leads
finally to indifferentism and weakens the active principle in the
human mind, but I could not be different now.

A certain mental current got hold of me and carried me along. If the
social circles, salons, boudoirs, and clubs took up a considerable
part of my time, they did not occupy it altogether. I made many
acquaintances in the literary and artistic world, and lived their
life, or rather I live it still. Prompted by innate curiosity I read
very much, and as I have the faculty of assimilating what I read, I
may say that I derived considerable benefit from it and am able to
keep step with every intellectual movement of the time.

My consciousness of self is highly developed. At times I feel inclined
to send that second self to the devil, that self which does not permit
yielding to any sensation, but is always there, searching, criticising
every action, feeling, delight, or passion. "Know thyself" may be a
wise maxim, but to carry about one's self an ever watchful critic
deadens the feeling, dividing as it were your soul in two parts. To
exist in a state of mind like this is about as easy as for the bird
to fly with one wing. Besides, selfconsciousness too much developed
weakens the power of action. But for this, Hamlet would have made a
hole in his uncle in the first act, and with the greatest composure
taken possession of the throne.

As far as I am concerned, it sometimes protects me or saves me
from heedless slips, yet more often tires me, preventing absolute
concentration upon one point of action. I carry within me two
beings,--the one that protests and criticises, the other leading only
half a life, losing gradually all power of decision. I am afraid I
shall never free myself from that yoke; on the contrary, the more my
mind expands, the more minute will be the knowledge of self, and even
on my deathbed I shall not leave off criticising the dying Ploszowski
unless disease has fogged my brain.

I must have inherited from my father a synthetic mind, because I
always try to generalize matters, and for that reason science attracts
me more than philosophy. In my father's time philosophy embraced no
more nor less than the whole universe and all being; consequently
it had a ready answer for all questions. In our times it has become
rational in so far as to confess that it has ceased to exist in the
old meaning of the word and remains only as a philosophy of special
scientific branches. Truly, when I come to think of it it seems that
the human mind too has its tragedies, and it began by confessing its
own powerlessness. As I write a personal diary I will treat these
matters from a personal point of view. I am not a professed
philosopher, because I am nothing by profession; but as a thinking
being I am interested in the new philosophic movement; I have been
and am under its influence, and have a full right to speak about what
entered the composition, and contributed to the creation, of my moral
and intellectual being.

To begin with, I note down that my religious belief I carried still
intact with me from Metz did not withstand the study of natural
philosophy. It does not follow that I am an atheist. Oh, no! This was
good enough in former times, when he who did not believe in spirit,
said to himself, "Matter," and that settled for him the question.
Nowadays only provincial philosophers cling to that worn-out creed.
Philosophy of our times does not pronounce upon the matter; to all
such questions it says, "I do not know!" and that "I do not know"
sinks into and permeates the mind. Nowadays psychology occupies itself
with close analysis and researches of spiritual manifestations; but
when questioned upon the immortality of the soul it says the same,--"I
do not know;" and truly it does not know, and it cannot know. And now
it will be easier to describe the state of my mind. It all lies in
these words: I do not know. In this--in the acknowledged impotence
of the human mind--lies the tragedy. Not to mention the fact that
humanity always has asked, and always will ask, for an answer, they
are truly questions of more importance than anything else in the
world. If there be something on the other side, and that something an
eternal life, then misfortunes and losses on this side are as nothing.
In this case we might exclaim with Hamlet: "Nay, then, let the devil
wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables."

"I am content to die," says Renan; "but I should like to know whether
death will be of any use to me."

And philosophy replies, "I do not know."

And man beats against that blank wall, and like the bedridden sufferer
fancies, if he could lie on this or on that side, he would feel
easier. What is to be done? Are we to abuse philosophy that, instead
of building up new systems which, like a house of cards, fall at a
touch, it has confessed its impotence, and begun to search for and
classify manifestations within reach of the human intellect? Methinks
that I and everybody else has a right to say: "Philosophy, I am struck
by your common sense, admire your close analysis; but with all that,
you have made me supremely wretched. By your own confession you have
no answer for a question, to me of the greatest importance, and yet
you had power enough to destroy that faith which not only cleared up
all doubts, but soothed and comforted the soul. And do not say that,
since you do not lay down the law, you permit me to adhere to my old
beliefs. It is not true! Your method, your soul, your very essence is
doubt and criticism. This, your scientific method, this scepticism,
this criticism you have implanted in the soul till they have become a
second nature. As with lunar caustic, you have deadened the spiritual
nerves by the help of which one believes simply and without question,
so that even if I would believe I have lost the power. You permit me
to go to church if I like; but you have poisoned me with scepticism
to such a degree that I have grown sceptical even with regard to
you,--sceptical in regard to my own scepticism; and I do not know, I
do not know. I torture myself, and am maddened by the darkness."


ROME, 12 January.

Yesterday I allowed myself to be carried away by my writing. But all
the same it seems to me that I laid a finger upon the rottenness of my
soul and that of humanity. There are times when I am indifferent to
these questions; then again they seem to tear at me without mercy; all
the more as those are matters kept within the privacy of the soul.
It would be better to put them aside; but they are too important for
that. We want to know what we are to expect, and arrange our life
accordingly. I have tried to say to myself: "Stop, you will never
leave that enchanted circle; why enter it at all?" I have every
qualification to render myself a well-satisfied, cheerful animal;
but I cannot always be satisfied with that. It is said the Slav
temperament has a tendency towards mysticism. I have noticed that
our greatest writers and poets end by becoming mystics. It is not
surprising that lesser minds should be now and then troubled. As to
myself I feel obliged to take notice of those inward struggles in
order to get a faithful image of myself. Perhaps I feel also the want
of justifying myself before my own conscience. For instance, with the
great "I do not know" before me, I still observe the regulations of
the Church; yet do not consider myself a hypocrite. This would be the
case if, instead of the "I do not know," I could say "I know there is
nothing." But our scepticism is not an open negation; it is rather a
sorrowful, anxious suspicion that perhaps there is nothing,--a dense
fog around our minds that stifles the breath and hides from us the
light. I therefore stretch out my hands towards that sun that maybe
shines beyond the mist. I fancy that not I alone am in that position,
and that of all those who go to church and mass on Sundays the prayers
might be condensed in these words: "O God! lift the mist!"

I cannot write coldly or dispassionately about all this. I keep
religious observances for the simple reason that I long to believe,
and since the sweet teaching of my childhood tells me that faith is a
gift of grace, I am waiting for that grace. I am waiting that it may
be given unto me; that my soul may believe unquestioningly, even as it
believed in childhood. Those are my motives; no self-interest prompts
me; it would be much easier to be a cheerful, contented animal. Since
I am justifying my outward semblance of piety, I have some other less
noble and more practical reasons. From the days of my childhood I have
been accustomed to keep certain rules, and they have grown into a
habit. Henry the Fourth said Paris was well worth a mass; so say I
that the peace of those nearest is worth a mass; people of my class,
as a rule, observe religious prescriptions, and I should protest
against the outward symbols only in such a case if I could find
something more conclusive to say than "I do not know." I go to church
because I am a sceptic in regard to my own scepticism. It is not a
comfortable feeling, and my soul drags one wing along the earth.
But it would be much worse with me if I always pondered over these
questions so earnestly as I have done while writing these last pages.
Fortunately for me this is not the case. I have mentioned already that
at times I am indifferent to them. Life carries me along, and although
in the main I know what to think of its hollow pleasures, I give
myself up to it altogether, and then the moral "to be, or not to be"
has no meaning for me. A strange thing, about the power of which not
much has been said, is the influence of social suggestion on the mind.
In Paris, for instance, I feel happier not only because the continual
mill deafens me,--I am swallowed up by the surging masses, and my
mind is diverted by tricks of the fencing ring,--but also because the
people there, without being conscious of it, live as if it were worth
their while to put all their energies into this life, and as if beyond
there was nothing but a chemical process. My pulse begins to beat in
unison with theirs; I feel myself in harmony with my surroundings;
amuse myself or bore myself, conquer or am conquered, but enjoy a
comparative rest.


ROME, BABUINO, 13 January.

I have only four days left before my departure, and will now sum up
what I said about myself. I am an individual rather worn out, very
sensitive, and of a highly nervous temperament. I have a strongly
developed consciousness of self, seconded by comparative culture, and
taken altogether, may consider myself an intellectually developed
being.

My scepticism debars me from all firm convictions. I look, observe,
criticise, sometimes fancy I get hold of some essential truth, but
am ready always to doubt even that. I have already said all that was
necessary in reference to religion. As to my social creed I am a
conservative so far as a man in my position is bound to be, and so
far as conservatism suits me. No need to mention that I am far from
considering conservatism as a dogma, which no one is allowed to touch
or to criticise. I am too much civilized to take a party view of
either aristocracy or democracy. I leave that as a pastime to those
who live in the country, or in remote places where ideas, like
fashions, are some ten years late. From the time when privileges were
done away with, the question has been closed; but in remoter parts,
where the world remains more or less stagnant, it has become not
so much a question of principle as rather a question of vanity and
nerves. In regard to myself, I like well-bred people,--people with
brains and nerves, and look for them where they are most readily
found. I like them as I like works of art, fine scenery, and beautiful
women. From an aesthetic point of view, I possess refined nerves,--too
refined, perhaps, owing to my early training and a naturally
impressionable temperament. This aesthetic sensitiveness gives me
as many delights as torments, and renders me one great service: it
preserves me from cynicism or otherwise extreme corruption, and serves
me instead of moral principle. I recoil from many things, not because
they are wicked, but because they are ugly. From my aesthetic nerves I
derive also a certain delicacy of feeling. Taken all in all, it seems
to me that I am a man a little marred by life, decent enough though to
say the truth, rather floating in mid-air because not supported by any
dogma, either social or religious. I am also without an aim to which I
could devote my life.

One word more about my abilities before concluding the synthesis. My
father, my aunt, my colleagues, and sometimes strangers, consider them
simply prodigious. I allow that my intellect has a certain glitter.
But will the _improductivité Slave_ scatter all the hopes invested in
me? Considering all I have, or rather have not done up to this day,
either for others or myself, I feel inclined to think that such
will be the case. This confession costs me more than appears on the
surface. My irony when I think of myself tastes bitter on the palate.
There was something barren in the clay from which God formed the
Ploszowskis, since on that soil everything springs up and grows so
luxuriously, yet produces no fruit. Truly, if with this barrenness,
this powerlessness to act, I possessed the abilities of a genius, it
would be a strange kind of genius,--a genius without portfolio, as
there are ministers of state without portfolio.

This definition, "a genius without portfolio" seems to fit me to
perfection. I shall take out a patent of invention for the word. But
the definition does not apply to me alone. Its name is legion. Side
by side with the _improductivité Slave_ goes the genius without
portfolio; it is a pure product of the Slav soil. Once more I say its
name is legion. I do not know another part of the world where so much
ability is wasted, in which even those who bring forth something give
so little, so incredibly little, in comparison with what God gave
them.


ROME, BABUINO, 14 January.

Another letter from my aunt urging me to come. I am coming, I am
coming, dear aunt, though God knows I am doing it out of love for you;
otherwise I should greatly prefer to remain where I am. My father
seems not well; from time to time he feels a strange numbness on
the whole of his left side. At my urgent entreaties he has seen a
physician, but I am quite sure the physic he received is safely stowed
away in a cupboard, according to an old custom he has. Once he opened
the mysterious receptacle and showed me a whole collection of bottles,
pill-boxes, and powders, saying: "For mercy's sake! this would kill
a strong man, let alone a sick one." Up to now, this quaint way of
looking upon medicine has not done him any harm, but I am troubled
about the future. Another reason for my unwillingness to go is my
aunt's plan of campaign. Of course she is anxious to see me married. I
do not know whether she has anything definite in view. God grant I
may be wrong; but she does not deny the intention. "About an eligible
_parti_ like you," she writes, "there will be at once a war of the
roses, you may be sure of that." I am tired and do not wish for any
war, and least of all to end it like Henry VII. by a marriage. On the
other hand,--I dare not tell my aunt, but may confess it to myself,--I
do not like Polish women. I am thirty-five, and like other men that
live much in society, I had my sentimental passages, among others,
with Polish women, and from these encounters I carried away the
impression that they are the most impossible and most wearying women
in the world. I do not know whether, generally speaking, they are more
virtuous than their French or Italian sisters; I only know that they
are more pathetic. The very remembrance of it gives me a creepy
sensation. I can understand an elegy over a broken pitcher when you
behold the shards for the first time; but to go on with the same
pathos over a much mended pitcher, looks more like a comic opera. A
pleasant role that of the listener, whom courtesy bids to take it
seriously.

Strange, fantastic women with fiery imagination and cold temperaments!
In their sentiments there is neither cheerfulness nor even simplicity.
They are in love with the outward forms of love, caring less for
its intrinsic value. With French or Italian women after the first
skirmishes, you may be sure of your "ergo." With a Pole it is
different. Somebody said that if a man is mistaken and says two and
two makes five, you may be able to set him right; a woman says two and
two is a lamp, and you come against a blank wall. In a Polish woman's
logic two and two may be not four, but a lamp, love, hatred, a cat,
tears, duty, scorn; in brief, you cannot foresee anything, calculate
upon anything, or guard against anything. It may be, after all,
because of these very pitfalls that their virtue is better guarded
than that of other women, if only for the reason that the beleaguering
forces get mortally tired. But what struck me, and what I resented
most, is that those pitfalls, barricades, and the whole array of
defence are not so much erected for the repulse of the enemy as to
give them the sensation of warfare. I spoke of this in a roundabout
way with a clever woman only half a Pole, for her father was an
Italian.

She listened to me for a while, then said at last:--

"It seems to me you are very much like the fox looking at the
dovecote. He does not like, and it makes him wroth, to see the doves
dwelling so high, and unlike the hens, always on the wing. All you
have said tells in favor of Polish women."

"How do you make that out?"

"The more a Polish woman seems intolerable as somebody else's wife,
the more desirable she is to have for one's own."

She had driven me into a corner, and I could not find an answer.
Perhaps she is right, and I look upon it from a fox's point of view.
There is also not the slightest doubt that if I were to marry,
especially a Pole, I not only should search for her among the high
flying doves, but I should choose a perfectly white one.

But I am like the chickens when asked in what sauce they would like to
be served; I do not want to be dished up at all. Now, to return to my
grievance against you, dear ladies, you are before everything in love
with love, and not with the lover. Every one of you is a queen in her
own rights, and in this you differ from other women; every one seems
to confer a boon and a favor in permitting herself to be loved; none
agrees to be only an addition or completion of a man's life, who,
besides matrimony, has some other aims in life. You want us to live
for you, instead of living for us. Last, but not least, you love your
children more than your husband. His final fate is that of a satellite
turning forever round in the same orbit. I have seen this and noticed
it very often in a general way; but now and then there happens to
be found a pure diamond too among the chaff. No, my queens and
princesses, permit me to worship you from a safe distance.

Fancy putting aside all other aims, all ideals, in order to burn
incense every day at the shrine of a woman, and that woman one's own
wife. No, dear ladies, that is not sufficient to fill a man's life.

Nevertheless, that second self sometimes mutters, "And what else is
there for you to do? If, anybody it is you who are fittest for the
sacrifice, for what are your aims or your intentions? No! the deuce
and all! To change the whole tenor of one's life, renounce old habits,
comforts, pleasures, it must be a great love, indeed, that could
induce me to such a venture. Marriage means a most amazing act of
faith in a woman, I could never summon courage enough to commit. No,
most decidedly, I do not wish to be served up in any sauce whatever."


WARSAW, 21 January.

I arrived here to-day. I broke my journey at Vienna which made it less
tiring, but my nerves do not let me sleep, so I take up my journal
which has grown as a friend to me. What joy there was in the house
at my arrival, and what a dear, kind soul that aunt of mine is! I do
believe she is awake now for very joy. She could scarcely eat any
dinner. When in the country at Ploszow, she is continually wrangling
with her land-agent, Pan Chwastowski, a burly old nobleman who does
not give in to her one whit. Sometimes their disputes reach to such
a pitch that a catastrophe seems imminent; then suddenly my aunt
relaxes, falls to with an appetite and eats her dinner with a certain
determination. To-day she had only the servants to scold, and that was
not sufficient to give her an appetite. She was in capital spirits
though, and the loving glances she bestowed on me beggar description.
In intimate circles I am called my aunt's fetich, which makes her very
angry.

Of course my fears and presentiments have not deceived me. There are
not only plans, but also a definite object. After dinner my aunt is
in the habit of walking up and down the room, and often thinks aloud.
Therefore, in spite of the mystery she deems fit to surround herself
with, I heard the following monologue:--

"He is young, handsome, rich, intelligent; she would be a fool if she
did not fall in love with him at once."

To-morrow I am to go to a picnic the gentlemen are giving for the
ladies. They say it is going to be a grand entertainment.


WARSAW, 25 January.

I am often bored at balls. As a _homo sapiens_ and an _éligible
parti_, I abhor them; as an artist, that is, artist without portfolio,
I now and then like them. What a splendid sight, for instance, that
broad staircase well lit up, where, amid a profusion of flowers the
women ascend to the ball-room. They all appear tall, and when not seen
from below (because the training robes destroy the illusion) they
remind one of the angels on Jacob's ladder. I like the motion, the
light, the flowers, and the gauzy material which enwraps the young
girls as in a soft mist; and then those shoulders, necks, and arms
which released from the warm cloaks seem at once to grow firm and
crisp as marble. My sense of smell, too, is gratified, for I delight
in good perfumes.

The picnic was a great success. To give Staszewski his due, he knows
how to arrange these things. I arrived together with my aunt, but lost
sight of her in the entrance hall, for Staszewski himself came down to
lead her upstairs. The dear old lady had on her ermine cloak she uses
on great occasions, and which her friends call her robe of state. When
I entered the ballroom I remained near the door and looked around.
What a strange sensation when, after a long interval, one comes back
to once familiar scenes. I feel I am a part of them, and yet I look at
them and criticise them as if I were a stranger. Especially the women
attracted my attention,--I must admit, fastidious as I am, that our
society is very choice. I saw pretty faces and plain faces, but all
stamped with the same well-bred refinement. The necks and shoulders,
in spite of the softly rounded contours, simply reminded me of Sevres
china. There is a restful elegance, something daintily finished, in
all of them. Truly, they do not imitate Europe,--they are Europe.

I remained there about a quarter of an hour indolently musing which of
all these dainty damsels my aunt had chosen for me, when Sniatynski
and his wife came up. I had seen him only a few months ago at Rome,
and had known her, too, for some time. I like her very much; she has a
sweet face and belongs to those exceptional Poles that do not absorb
their husband's whole life, but surrender their own. Presently a young
girl slipped in between us, and while greeting Pani Sniatynska, put
out a small hand encased in a white kid glove and said:--

"Don't you know me, Leon?"

I felt slightly perplexed at this question, for indeed I did not know
who it was that greeted me thus familiarly; but not wishing to seem
rude, I smiled and pressed the little hand, saying, "Of course I do."
I must have looked a little foolish because, presently Pani Sniatynska
burst out laughing and said, "But he does not recognize you; it is
Aniela P."

Aniela, my cousin! No wonder I did not recognize her. The last time
I saw her, some ten or eleven years ago at Ploszow, she wore a short
frock and pink stockings. I remember the midges had stung her about
the legs, and she stamped on the ground like a little pony. How could
I dream that these white shoulders, this breast covered with violets,
this pretty face with the dark eyes, in short, this girl in the full
bloom of maidenhood, was the same as the little wagtail on thin feet
I had known formerly. How pretty she had grown; a fine butterfly
had come from that chrysalis. I renewed my greeting very heartily.
Afterwards when the Sniatynskis had left us she told me that my aunt
and her mother had sent her to fetch me. I offered my arm and we went
across the room.

All at once it burst in upon me. It was she, Aniela, my aunt had in
her mind. That then was the secret, the surprise meant for me. My aunt
always used to be fond of her, and troubled herself not a little over
Pani P.'s financial difficulties. I only wondered why these ladies
were not stopping with my aunt; but I did not ponder over it long; I
preferred to look at Aniela, who naturally interested me more than the
average girl. As we had to make our way to the other end of the
room and the crush was great, I had ample time for conversation and
scrutiny. Fashion this year has it that gloves should be worn halfway
up the elbow, so I noticed that the arm which rested on mine had a
slightly dusky shade, covered as it was with a light down. And yet she
could not be called a brunette. Her hair is a light brown with a gleam
of bronze. Her eyes are light too, but appear dark, shaded as they are
by long eyelashes; the eyebrows, on the contrary, are dark and very
pretty. The characteristic of this little head with the low brow is
that exuberance of hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, and that down, which
on the face is very slight. This at some future time may spoil her
beauty, but at present she is so young that it points only to an
exuberance of organism, and shows that she is not a doll, but a woman
full of warm, active life.

I do not deny that, fastidious as are my nerves and not easily
thrilled, I fell under a spell. She is my type exactly. My aunt, who,
if she ever heard about Darwin would call him a wicked writer, has
unconsciously adopted his theory of natural selection. Yes, she is my
type. They have baited the hook this time with a dainty morsel.

An electric current seemed to pass from her arm into mine. Besides I
noticed that she too seemed pleased with me, and that naturally raises
one's spirits. My scrutiny from an artistic point of view proved
highly satisfactory. There are faces that seem to be a translation
from music or poetry into human shape. Such a face is Aniela's. There
is nothing commonplace about it. As children are inoculated for
small-pox so the upper classes inoculate modesty in their girls; there
is something so very innocent in this face, but through that very
innocence peeps out a warm temperament. What a combination!--as if
some one said, "An innocent Satan!"

Unsophisticated as Aniela is, she is yet a little bit of a coquette,
and quite conscious of her attractions. Knowing for instance that she
has beautiful eyelashes, she very often drops her eyes. She has also
a graceful way of lifting her head and looking at the person she
is speaking to. In the beginning she was slightly artificial, from
shyness I fancy, but soon afterwards we chatted together as if we had
never been separated since those times at Ploszow. My aunt is highly
amusing with her absentmindedness, but I should not care to have her
for a fellow-conspirator. Scarcely had we approached the two elderly
ladies and I exchanged greetings with Aniela's mother, when my aunt,
noticing my animation, turned to her companion and said aloud, "How
pretty she looks in those violets! It was, after all, a happy thought
that he should see her the first time at a ball."

Aniela's mother grew very confused, and so did Aniela, and the truth
began to dawn upon me why it was the ladies were not staying with my
aunt. This had been Pani P.'s idea; she and my aunt had been plotting
together. I suppose Aniela had not been taken into confidence, but
thanks to female perspicacity could not help guessing how matters
stood.

To put an end to the embarrassing situation I turned to her and said,
"I warn you that I am not very proficient at dancing, but as they will
carry you off any moment, will you grant me a waltz?"

Aniela for all answer handed me her tablets and said resolutely, "Put
down as many as you like."

I confess that I do not like the rôle of a puppet pulled by a string,
therefore I resolved to take an active part in the old ladies'
politics. I took the tablets and wrote, "Did you understand that they
want us to marry?"

Aniela read it and changed color. She remained silent for a moment,
as if not trusting her voice, or hesitating what to say; at last she
lifted her eyelashes and looking straight into my eyes she replied,
"Yes."

It was now her turn to question me, not in words but with her eyes. I
already knew I had made a favorable impression on her, and if she had
an inkling of the truth her mind must needs dwell a good deal on me.
I interpreted the look of her eyes thus: "I am aware my mother and my
aunt want us to become acquainted, to know each other well. And you?"

Instead of an answer I put my arm around her waist, and lightly
drawing her towards me, led her into the mazes of a waltz. I
remembered my fencing practice.

A mute answer could not but stir up fancies in a girl's mind,
especially after what I had written on the tablets. I thought to
myself: "What harm is there if her fancy turns into my direction? As
far as I am concerned I shall not go a step further than I intend,
and if her fancy travels further I cannot help it." Aniela dances
exquisitely, and she danced this waltz as a woman should, with a
certain vehemence and self-abandon at the same time. I noticed that
the violets on her breast rose and fell far quicker than the quiet
step of the dance warranted. I understood that she felt agitated. Love
is a law of nature, kept under control by a careful bringing-up. But
once the girl is told that she may love this one or that, the chance
is she will obey very readily. Aniela evidently expected that after
I had been bold enough to write those few words I would allude to it
further, but I kept aloof on purpose to leave her in suspense.

I wished also to look at her from a distance. Decidedly she is my
type. Women of that kind have a special attraction for me. Oh, if only
she were thirty, and not a girl they expect me to marry!


WARSAW, 30 January.

They have come to stay with us. Yesterday I spent all the day with
Aniela. She has more pages to her soul than most girls at her age. On
many of these pages the future will write, but there is room for many
beautiful things. She feels and understands everything, and is an
excellent listener, and follows the conversation with her large,
intelligent eyes. A woman that can listen possesses one more
attraction, because she flatters man's vanity. I do not know whether
Aniela is conscious of this, or whether it be her womanly instinct.
Maybe she has heard so much about me from my aunt that she deems every
word I say an oracle. She is decidedly not without coquetry. To-day
I asked her what she wished for most in life. She answered, "To see
Rome;" then her eyelashes fell, and she looked indescribably pretty.
She sees that I like her, and it makes her happy. Her coquetry is
charming, because it comes straight from a delighted heart, and tries
to please the chosen object. I have not the slightest doubt that her
heart is fluttering towards me, as a moth flutters into the candle.
Poor child! she feels the elders have given their mute consent, and
she obeys only too willingly. I can watch the process from hour to
hour.

Perhaps I ought to inquire of myself, "If you do not want to marry
her, why are you trying to make her love you?" But I do not choose to
answer that question. I feel at peace here, and restful! After
all, what is it I am doing? I try not to appear more foolish or
disagreeable or less courteous than I am by nature, that is all.

Aniela appeared to-day at breakfast in a loose sailor-dress,
which only just betrayed the outline of her shape, and she looked
bewitching. Her eyes were still full of dreaminess and sleep. It is
something wonderful what an impression she is making on me.


31 January.

My aunt is giving an entertainment in honor of Aniela. I am
paying visits and leaving cards right and left. I called upon the
Sniatynskis, and sat with them for a long time, because I feel there
at home. Sniatynski and his wife are always wrangling with each other,
but their life is different from that of most other married people.
As a rule, it happens when there is one cloak, each tries to get
possession of it; these two dispute because he wishes her to have
it, and she wants it all for him. I like them immensely,--it is so
refreshing to see there is still happiness out of novels. With all
that, he is so clever; as sensitive as a Stradivarius violin, and
quite conscious of his happiness. He wanted it, and has got it. I envy
him. I always used to like his conversation. They offered me some
black coffee; it is only at literary people's houses one can get such
coffee. He asked me what I thought of Warsaw after so long an absence.
There was also some talk about the ball, especially from the lady's
part. She seems to guess something about my aunt's plans, and wants to
have one of her rosy fingers in the pie,--especially as she comes from
the same part of the country as Aniela.

We touched personal matter very slightly, but had a lively discussion
about society in general. I told him what I thought about its
refinement; and as Sniatynski, though he criticises it himself
mercilessly, is always greedy to hear its praises sung, it put him
into capital spirits.

"I like to hear you say so," he remarked, "as you have so many chances
to make comparisons, and are rather inclined to look at the world from
a pessimist's point of view."

"I do not know whether what I just said does not lean that way."

"How do you prove that?" asked Sniatynski, quickly.

"You see, refined culture might be compared to cases with glass and
china, upon which is written, 'Fragile.' For you, a spiritual son of
Athens, for me and a few others, it is pleasant to be in touch with
it; but if you want to build anything on such foundation, you will
find the beams coming down on your head. Don't you think those refined
_dilettanti_ of life are bound to get the worst in a struggle with a
people of strong nerves, a tough skin, and iron muscles?"

Sniatynski, who is very lively, jumped up and walked about the room,
then rushed at me impetuously. "You have seen only one side of the
picture, and not the best one, either; do not think there is nothing
more to be seen. You come from abroad, and pronounce judgment upon us
as if you had lived here all your life."

"I do not know what else there may be, but I know that nowhere in the
world is there such a vast difference between the classes. On one
side, the most refined culture,--over-refined, if anything; on the
other, absolute barbarism and ignorance."

A long discussion followed, and it was dusk before I left them. He
said if I came oftener to see them, he would show me the connecting
link between the two classes, introduce me to men who were neither
over-refined, ignorant, nor sickening with dilettantism, but strong
men, who knew what they wanted, and were going straight for it.

When I was going away, Sniatynski called out after me:

"From such as you nothing good will come, but your children may
be men; but you and such like must lose every penny you possess,
otherwise even your grandchildren will do nothing useful."

I still think that on the whole I was right. I have taken special
notice of this conversation, as this discrepancy has occupied my
thoughts ever since my arrival. The fact is that between the classes
there is a vast gulf that precludes all mutual understanding, and
makes simultaneous efforts simply impossible. At least, I look upon
it in that light. Sèvres china and common clay,--nothing between; one
_très fragile_, the other, Ovidius's "rudis indigestaque moles." Of
course Sèvres china sooner or later breaks, and from the clay the
future may mould anything it likes.


2 February.

Yesterday my aunt's entertainment took place. Aniela was the cynosure
of every eye. Her white shoulders peeping out from a cloud of muslin,
gauze, or whatever it is called, she looked like a Venus rising from
the foam. I fancy it is already gossiped about that I am going to
marry her. I noticed that her eyes often strayed in my direction, and
she listened to her partners with an absent, distracted expression.

Guileless child! she cannot hide the truth, and shows so plainly what
is going on in her heart that I could not help seeing it, unless I
were blind. And she is so humble and quietly happy when I am with her!
I like her immensely, and begin to waver. Sniatynski is so happy in
his home life! It is not the first time I have asked myself whether
Sniatynski be more foolish or wiser than I. Of the many problems of
life, I have not solved one. I am nothing; scepticism is sapping
my whole system; I am not happy, and am very tired. He, with less
knowledge than I, does useful work, has a good and handsome wife, the
rogue! and his very philosophical principles, adapted to life, help to
make him happy. No, it must be acknowledged, it is I who am the more
foolish of the two.

The keynote of Sniatynski's philosophy is found in his dogmas of life.
Before he was married he said to me: "There are two things I never
approach with scepticism, and do not criticise: to me as a literary
man, the community is a dogma; as a private individual, the beloved
woman." I thought to myself then: "My mind is bolder,--it analyzes
even that." But I see now that this boldness has not led me to
anything. And how lovely she is,--that little dogma of mine with the
long eyelashes! Decidedly, I am going the way I did not mean to go.
The singular attraction which draws me towards her cannot be explained
by the law of natural selection. Ho! there is something more, and I
know what it is. She loves me with all the freshness of her honest
heart, as I was never loved before. How different from the fencing
practice of former years, when thrusts were dealt or guarded against!
The woman who is much liked, and who in her turn loves, is sure to win
in the end if she perseveres.

"The stray bird," says the poet Slowacki, "comes back to his haven
of rest and peace all the more eagerly after the lonesomeness of his
stormy flight. Nothing takes so firm a hold upon a man's heart as the
consciousness that he is loved."

A few pages before, I wrote God knows what about Polish women; but if
any one fancies that for the sake of a few written sentences I feel
myself bound to pursue a certain course, he is vastly mistaken.

How that girl satisfies my artistic taste is simply wonderful. After
the ball, came the pleasantest moment when, everybody gone, we sat
down and had some tea. Wanting to see how the world looked outside, I
drew back the heavy curtains. It was eight o'clock in the morning and
a flood of daylight poured into the room. It was so perfectly blue,
seen by the glare of the lamps, that it reminded me of the Capri
grotto. And there stood Aniela, with that blue haze around her white
shoulders. She looked so lovely that all my resolutions tottered and
fell to pieces; I felt positively grateful to her for this glimpse of
beauty, as if it were her doing. I pressed her hand more tenderly than
I had ever done before when saying good-night to her.

"Good-morning, you mean, not good-night,--good-morning."

Either I am blind and deaf or her eyes and voice expressed: "I love
you, I love you."

I do the same--almost.

My aunt looking at us gave a low grunt of contentment. I saw tears
shining in her eyes.

To-morrow we leave here for Ploszow.


PLOSZOW, 5 February.

This is my second day in the country. We had a splendid drive. The
weather was clear and frosty. The snow creaked under the runners of
the sledge and glittered and sparkled in the fields. Towards sunset
the vast plain assumed pink and purple shades. The rooks, cawing and
flapping their wings, flew in and out the lime trees. Winter, the
strong, homely winter, is a beautiful thing. There is a certain vigor
in it, and dignity, and what is more, so much sincerity. Like a true
friend, who, regardless as to consequences, hurls cutting truths,
it smites you between the eyes without asking leave. By way of
compensation it bestows upon you some of its own vigor. We were all
of us glad to leave the town--the elder ladies, that their pet scheme
might be brought to a climax by closer companionship; I, because I was
near Aniela; she, maybe for the same reason, felt happy too. She bent
down several times to kiss my aunt's hands, apropos of nothing, out
of sheer content. She looked very pretty in a long, fluffy boa and
a coquettish fur cap, from under which the dark eyes and the almost
childish face peeped forth.

How young she looks.

I feel at home in Ploszow, it is so quiet and restful; and I like the
huge, old-fashioned chimneys. The woods are to my aunt as the apple of
her eye, but she does not grudge herself fuel; and big logs, which are
crackling and burning there from morning until night, make it look
bright and cheerful. We sat around the fire the whole afternoon. I
brought out some of my reminiscences, and told them about Rome and its
treasures. The three women listened with such devoutness that it made
me feel ridiculous in my own eyes. From time to time, while I was
talking, my aunt cast a searching glance at Aniela to see whether she
expressed enough admiration. But there is too much of that already.
Yesterday she said to me:--

"Another man might spend there his whole life and not see half the
beautiful things you do."

My aunt added with dogmatic firmness,--

"I have always said so."

It is as well that there is not another sceptic here, for his presence
would embarrass me not a little.

A certain dissonant chord in our little circle is Aniela's mother. The
poor soul has had so many sorrows and anxieties that her cheerfulness,
if ever she had any, is a thing of the past. She is simply afraid of
the future, and instinctively suspects pitfalls even in good fortune.
She was very unhappy in her married life, and afterwards has had
continual worries about her estate, which is very much involved. In
addition to all this she suffers from nervous headaches.

Aniela belongs to that category of women who never trouble themselves
about money matters. I like her for that, for it proves that she
thinks of higher things. For the matter of that, everything in her
pleases and delights me now.

Tenderness grows on the soil of attraction by the senses, as quick
as flowers after a warm rain. To-day, in the morning, I saw the maid
carrying up her gown and boots; this moved me very much, especially
the little, little boots, as if the wearing of them was the crown of
all virtues in Aniela.

PLOSZOW, 8 or 9 February.

My aunt has taken up her visual warfare with Pan Chwastowski. This
is such an original habit of hers that I must describe one of their
disputes. The dear lady can evidently not exist without it, or at
least not enjoy her dinner; Chwastowski, again, who, by the bye, is an
excellent manager, is a compound of brimstone and saltpetre, and does
not allow anybody to thwart him; therefore the quarrels sometimes
reach the acute state. When entering the dining-room they eye each
other with suspicious glances. The first shot is fired by my aunt
while eating her soup.

"It is a very long time, Pan Chwastowski, since I heard anything
about the winter crops, and Pan Chwastowski, instead of giving me the
information, speaks about anything but what I want to know."

"They were very promising in autumn, my lady; now they are covered by
a yard or two of snow,--how am I to know the state they are in? I am
not the Lord Almighty."

"I beg of you, Pan Chwastowski, not to take the Lord's name in vain."

"I do not look under His snow, therefore do not offend Him."

"Do you mean to insinuate that I do?"

"Most certainly."

"Pan Chwastowski, you are unbearable."

"Oho! bearable enough because he bears a great deal."

In this or that way the screw goes round. There is scarcely a meal but
they have some differences. Then my aunt at last subsides, and seems
to wreak the remnants of her anger on the dinner. She enjoys a hearty
appetite. As the dinner goes on she gradually brightens up and
recovers her usual spirits. After dinner, I offer my arm to Aniela's
mother, my aunt accepts Pan Chwastowski's, and presently they sip
their black coffee in peace and perfect amity. My aunt inquires after
his sons, and he kisses her hands. I saw those sons of his when they
were at the university, and I hear they are promising young men, but
great radicals.

Aniela used to get frightened at first at these prandial disputes,
until I gave her the clue to the real state of things. So now when
the first signal of battle is given, she looks at me slyly from under
those long lashes, and there is a little smile lurking in the corners
of her mouth. She is so pretty then I feel tempted to take her in
my arms. I have never met a woman with such delicate veins on her
temples.


12 February.

Truly a metamorphosis of Ovidius on the earth and within me! The frost
has gone, the fine weather vanished, and there is Egyptian darkness. I
cannot describe it better than by saying the weather is foul. What an
abominable climate! In Rome, at the worst, the sun shines at intervals
half a dozen times a day; here lamps ought to be lit these two days.
The black, heavy mist seems to permeate one's thoughts, and paint them
a uniform gray. My aunt and Pan Chwastowski were more intent than
usual upon warfare. He maintained that my aunt, by not allowing the
woods to be touched, causes the timber to spoil; my aunt replied that
others did their best to cut down all the timber, and not a bit of
forest would soon be left in the country. "I am getting old; let
the trees grow old too." This reminds me of the nobleman of vast
possessions who only allowed as much land to be cultivated as to where
the bark of his dog could be heard.

Aniela's mother, without intending it, gave me to-day a bad quarter of
an hour. Alone with me in the conservatory, she began telling me, with
maternal boastfulness, that an acquaintance of mine, a certain Pan
Kromitzki, had made overtures for Aniela's hand.

I had a sensation as if somebody tried to remove a splinter from my
flesh with a fork. As the blue waves of light had stirred up within me
a tender feeling for Aniela,--although it was no merit of hers,--so
now the wooing of such a man as Kromitzki threw cold water upon the
nascent affections. I know that ape Kromitzki, and do not like him. He
comes from Austrian Silesia, where it seems they had owned estates.
In Rome he used to say that his family had borne the title of count
already in the fifteenth century, and at the hotels put himself down
as "Graf von Kromitzki." But for his small, black eyes, not unlike
coffee-berries, and his black hair, his head looks as if cut out
from a cheese-rind,--for such is his complexion. He reminds me of a
death's-head, and I simply have a physical loathing for him. Ugh! how
the thought of him in connection with Aniela has spoiled her image.
I am quite aware that she is in no way responsible for Kromitzki's
intentions; but it has damaged her in my eyes. I do not know why her
mother should think it necessary to tell me these details; if it be a
warning, it has missed its aim. She must have some grand qualities,
this Pani P., since she has managed to steer her life through so many
difficulties, and at the same time educated her daughter so well; but
she is clumsy and tedious with her headaches and her macaronism.

"I confess," she said, "that the alliance suited me. At times I almost
break down under the weight of troubles. I am a woman with little
knowledge of business, and what I acquired I have paid for with my
health; but I had to think of my child. Kromitzki is very clever. He
has large concerns at Odessa, and is at present engaged in some large
speculations in naphtha at Baku, or some such place, 'que sais-je.' It
seems there is some difficulty about his not being a Russian subject.
If he married Aniela he might clear the estate; and as an extensive
landowner he would have no difficulty in getting naturalized."

"What does Aniela say to this?" I asked impatiently.

"She does not care for him, but is a good and obedient child. I am
anxious to see her married before I die."

I did not care to prolong the conversation, which irritated me more
than I can tell; and though I understand well enough, if that match
has not been arranged, it was Aniela's doing, yet I feel aggrieved
that she should allow a man like that even to look at her. For me this
would be a mere question of nerves. I forget, however, that others
are not constituted like me, and that Kromitzki, in spite of his
cadaverous face, passes among women as a good-looking man.

I wonder what his affairs are. I forgot to ask whether he is at
Warsaw; most likely he is, as he goes there every winter. As to his
business, it may be very magnificent, but I doubt whether it be on a
solid basis. I am not a speculator, and could not for the life of me
transact a stock-exchange affair; but I am shrewd enough to know
it. Besides I am a close observer, and quick to draw conclusions.
Therefore I do not believe in noblemen with a genius for speculation.
I am afraid Kromitzki's is neither an inherited nor innate quality,
but a neurosis driving him into a certain direction. I have seen
examples of that kind. Now and then blind fortune favors the
nobleman-speculator, and he accumulates wealth; but I have not seen
one who did not come to grief before he died.

Capacities such as these are either inherited or acquired by early
training. Chwastowski's boys will be able to do something in that way
because their father lost by accident all his fortune, and they
have to make a fresh start. But he who with ready capital, without
commercial tradition or professional knowledge, embarks upon commerce,
is bound to come to grief. Speculation cannot be based upon illusions,
and there is too much of that in the speculations of our noblemen.
Upon the whole, I wish Pan von Kromitzki every luck!


14 February.

Pax! pax! pax! The painful impression has vanished. What keen
perceptions Aniela has! I endeavored to be cheerful, though I felt out
of spirits, and I do not think there was any perceptible change in my
behavior; yet she perceived a change at once. To-day, when we looked
at the albums and were alone,--which happens pretty often, on purpose
I suppose,--she grew embarrassed and changed color. I saw at once she
wanted to say something, and did not dare. For a single moment the mad
thought flashed across my brain that she was about to confess her love
for me. But as quick as the thought, I remembered it was a Polish girl
I had before me. A mere chit of a girl--I beg her pardon, a young
princess,--would rather die than be the first to confess her love.
When asked she gives her assent rather as a favor. Besides, Aniela
very quickly corrected my mistake; suddenly closing the album she said
in a hesitating voice: "What is the matter with you, Leon? There is
something the matter, is there not?"

I began assuring her at once that there was nothing the matter with
me, and to laugh away her perturbation; but she only shook her head
and said: "I have seen that something was amiss these last two days. I
know that men like you may be easily offended, and I have asked myself
whether anything I might have done or said--" Her voice shook a
little, but she looked straight at me.

"I have not hurt you, have I?"

There was a moment I felt tempted to say, "If there is anything
wanting to my happiness it is you, Aniela, only you;" but a sudden
terror clutched me by the hair. Not terror of her, but of the
consequences that might follow. I took her hand, kissed it, and said
in the most cheerful voice I could assume, "You are a good and dear
girl; do not mind me,--there is nothing whatever the matter; besides,
you are our guest, and it is I who ought to see that you are
comfortable."

And I kissed again her hand, both hands in fact. All this could be
still put down to cousinly affection,--human nature is so mean that
the consciousness that there was still a door through which I could
escape lent me courage. I call this feeling mean for the very reason
that I am not responsible to anybody except to myself, and myself I
cannot deceive. Yet I feel that even to myself I shall not give a
strict account, because in so far as my relations to Aniela are
concerned I am carried away by my sensations. I still feel on my lips
the touch of her hand,--and my desires are simply without limit.
Sooner or later I shall myself close that door through which I could
still escape. But could I still escape? Yes, if some extraneous
circumstances came to my aid.

In the meanwhile she loves me, and everything draws me towards her.
To-day I asked myself, "If it is to be, why put it off?" I found
a ready answer: "Because I do not want to lose any of my present
sensations; the sudden thrills, the charm of the words unspoken, the
questioning glances, the expectations. I wish to spin out the romance
to the very end. I found fault with women that they preferred the
semblance of love to love itself, and now I am quite as anxious not to
lose any of its outward manifestations. But as one gets more advanced
in years one attaches greater importance to these things; and besides,
I am an Epicurean in my sensations."

After the above conversation with Aniela, we both recovered our
spirits. During evening I helped her in the cutting out of lampshades,
which gave me the opportunity to touch her hands and dress. I hindered
her with the work and she became as gay as a child, and in a child's
quick, plaintive voice called out, "Aunty, Leon is very naughty."


14 February.

Ill luck would have it that I accepted an invitation to attend a
meeting at Councillor S.'s, who always tries to bring together
representatives of all shades and opinions, and over a cup of tea and
a sandwich to bring about a mutual understanding. As a man almost
continually living abroad, I came to this meeting to find out what was
going on in the minds of my countrymen and listen to their reasonings.
The crush was very great, which made me feel uncomfortable, and at the
same time happened what usually happens at large gatherings. Those of
the same shade of opinion congregated in separate rooms to pay each
other compliments and so forth. I was made acquainted with various
councillors and representatives of the press. In other countries,
there is a considerable difference between writers and journalists.
The first is considered an artist and a thinker, the latter, a mere
paragraph-monger--I cannot find a better word. Here there is no such
distinction, and men of both occupations are known under the same
collective name as literary men. The greater part of them follow both
avocations, literature and journalism. Personally, they are more
refined than the journalists I met abroad. I do not like the daily
press, and consider it as one of the plagues sent down to torment
humanity. The swiftness with which the world becomes acquainted with
current events is equal to the superficiality of the information, and
does not compensate for the incredible perversion of public opinion,
as any one who is not prejudiced must perceive. Thanks to the daily
press, the sense which knows how to sift the true from the false
has become blunted, the notions of right and wrong have well-nigh
disappeared, evil stalks about in the garb of righteousness, and
oppression speaks the language of justice; in brief, the human soul
has become immoral and blind.

There was, among others, also Stawowski, who is considered a leader
among the advanced progressists. He spoke cleverly, but appeared to me
a man suffering from a two-fold disease: liver, and self. He carries
his ego like a glass of water filled to the brim, and seems to say,
"Take care, or it will spill." This fear, by some subtle process,
seems to communicate itself to his audience to such an extent that
nobody dares to be of a different opinion. He has this influence over
others because he believes in what he says. They are wrong, those who
consider him a sceptic. On the contrary, he is of the temperament
which makes fanatics. Had he been born a hundred years ago and been a
judge, he would have sentenced people to have their tongues cut out
for uttering blasphemy. Born as he is in the more enlightened times,
he hates what he would have loved then; but essentially it is the same
man.

I noticed that our conservatives crowded round Stawowski, not so
much out of curiosity to hear what he said as rather with a certain
watchful coquetry. Here, and maybe in other countries, this party has
little courage. They looked at the speaker with insinuating smiles, as
if they would say: "Although conservatives, nevertheless--" Ah! that
"nevertheless" was like an act of contrition, a kind of submission.
This was so evident that I who am a sceptic as to all party spirit,
began to contradict Stawowski, not as a representative of any party,
but simply as a man who is of a different opinion. My audacity excited
some astonishment. The matter in question was the position of the
working-men. Stawowski spoke of their hopeless condition, their
weakness and incapacity for defending themselves; the audience which
listened to his words grew every minute larger, when I interrupted:--

"Do you believe in Darwin's theory, the survival of the fittest?"

Stawowski, who is a naturalist by profession, took up the challenge at
once.

"Of course I do," he said.

"Then allow me to point out to you that you are inconsequent. If I,
as a Christian, care for the weak and defenceless, I do so by the
doctrine of Christ; but you, from a standpoint of a struggle-for-life
existence, ought to see it in a different light: they are weak, they
are foolish, consequently bound to succumb; it is a capital law of
nature,--let the weaker go to perdition. Why is it you do not take it
this way? please explain the contradiction."

Whether Stawowski was taken aback by the unexpected opposition, or
whether he really had never put the two things together, the fact was
that he was at a loss for a ready answer, grew confused, and did not
even venture upon the expression "altruism," which, after all, says
very little.

The hero of the evening worsted, the conservatives came over to me in
a body, and I might have become the hero now; but it was getting late,
I was bored, and wanted to get back to Ploszow. Gradually the others
too began to disperse. I was already in my fur coat and searching
for my eyeglasses, that had slipped between the coat and furs, when
Stawowski, who evidently had found his answer, came up to me and
said:--

"You asked why--"

I, still searching for the eyeglasses and rather put out, said
impatiently:--

"Plainly speaking, the question does not interest me very much. It is
getting late and everybody is leaving; besides I can guess what you
are going to say, therefore permit me to wish you good-night."

I fancy I have made an enemy of the man, especially by my last remark.

It was one o'clock when I arrived at Ploszow, and there a pleasant
surprise awaited me; Aniela was sitting up to make some tea for me. I
found her in the dining-room, still fully dressed, with the exception
of her hair, which was done up for the night. From the intense delight
I felt in seeing her thus unexpectedly, I perceived how deeply she had
entered into my heart. What a dear girl she is, and how pretty she
looks with the tresses coiled low down her neck. And to think that I
have only to say the word and in a month or two I might have the right
to undo those tresses and let them fall on her shoulders. I cannot
think of it quietly. It seems past all belief that happiness should be
so easy to get.

I began to scold her a little for sitting up so late, and she
replied:--

"But I was not in the least sleepy, and begged mamma and aunty to let
me sit up for you. Mamma would not allow it, said it was not proper;
but I explained to her that we were cousins, and that makes all the
difference. And do you know who took my part?--auntie."

"Dear aunt! You will take some tea with me, will you not?"

I watched her handling the cups with those deft, graceful fingers, and
felt a desire to kiss them.

She looked at me now and then, but upon meeting my eyes her eyelashes
drooped. Presently she inquired how I had spent the evening, and what
impressions I had carried away. We spoke in a low voice, though the
sleeping-rooms were far enough away to make it unnecessary. There was
such confidence and heartiness in our intercourse as among relatives
who are fond of each other.

I told her what I had seen and noticed, as one tells a friend. I spoke
about the general impression the society of the country makes upon a
man that has chiefly lived abroad. She listened quietly with wide-open
eyes, happy to be thus taken into confidence. Then she said:--

"Why do you not write about all that, Leon? That I do not think
of such things is not to be wondered at; but nobody else here has
thoughts like these."

"Why do I not write?" I replied. "There are many reasons for it. I
will explain to you some time; one of them is that I have nobody near
me who, like you, says: 'Leon, why do you not do something?'"

After this we both became silent. I had never seen Aniela's lashes
veil her eyes so closely, and I could almost hear the beating of her
heart.

And indeed she had a right to expect me to say: "Will you remain with
me always and put the same question?" But I found such a keen delight
in skirting the precipice before making the final plunge, and feeling
that heart palpitating almost in my hand that I could not do it.

"Good-night," I said, after a short time.

And that angelic creature gave not the slightest sign that she had met
with a disappointment. She rose, and with the least touch of sadness
in her voice, but no impatience, replied: "Good-night."

We shook hands and parted for the night. My hand was already on the
latch, when I turned round and saw her still standing near the table.

"Aniela! Tell me," I said, "do you not think me a fantastic kind of
man, full of whims and fancies?"

"Oh, no, not fantastic; sometimes I think you a little strange, but
then I say to myself that men like you are bound to be different from
others."

"One question more; when was it you thought me strange the first
time?"

Aniela blushed to the tips of her ears. How pretty she looked with the
pink flame spreading over her face and neck.

"No, I could not tell you."

"Then let me guess, and if I am right say yes. It is a single word."

"What word?" she asked, with increased confusion.

"Tablets. Yes, or no?"

"Yes," said Aniela, with drooping eyes.

"Then I will tell you why I wrote those words. First, because I wanted
a link connecting us together, a little secret shared by both of us,
and also--"

I pointed at the flowers the gardener had brought from the hot-house.

"You know flowers want light to bring out all their beauty, and I
wanted plenty of light for our atmosphere."

"I cannot always follow you," she said, after a momentary silence,
"but I trust you, yes, and believe in you."

We remained once more silent; I pressed her hand again, saying
good-night. We stopped near the door, and our eyes met. The waters
begin to rise and to rise. They will overstep their boundary any
moment.


23 February.

The human being, like the sea, has his ebb and flood tides. To-day my
will, my energy, the very action of life are at a very low tide. It
came upon me without warning, a mere matter of nerves. But for that
very reason my thoughts are full of bitterness. What right have I,
a man physically worn out and mentally exhausted, to marry at all?
Involuntarily the words of Hamlet come in my mind: "Get thee to a
nunnery; why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" I shall not bury
myself within cloister walls. The future sinners will be like me,
all nerves, oversensitive, not fit for any practical life,--in fact,
artists without portfolios. But the deuce take it, it is not they, but
Aniela I am thinking of. Have I a right to marry her,--to link that
fresh budding life, full of simple faith in God and the world, to my
doubts, my spiritual impotence, my hopeless scepticism, my criticism
and nerves? What will be the result of it for her? I cannot regain
another spiritual youth, and even at her side cannot find my old self;
my brains cannot change, or my nerves grow more vigorous,--and what
then? Is she to wither at my side? It would be simply monstrous. I to
play the part of a polypus that sucks the life-blood of its victims in
order to renew its own life! A heavy cloud weighs on my brain. But if
such be the case why did I allow it to go so far? What have I been
doing ever since I met Aniela? Playing on her very heartstrings to
bring forth sweet music. And yet, what for me was "Quasi una fantasia"
may prove to her "Quasi un dolore." Yes, I have played on that
sensitive instrument from morning until night; and what is more,
I feel that in spite of my self-upbraidings, I shall do the same
to-morrow and the days following, for I cannot help it; she attracts
me more than any woman I ever met, I desire her above all things--I
love her!

Why delude myself any longer?--I love her!

What is to be done? Must I go away back to Rome? That means a
disappointment and sorrow for her; for who knows how deeply rooted
her feelings may be? To marry her is the same as to sacrifice her for
myself, and make her life unhappy in another way. A truly enchanted
circle! Only people of the Ploszowski species ever get into such
dilemmas. And there is devilish little comfort in the thought that
there are more such as I, or that their name is legion.

Whether the species be gradually dying out, as badly fitted for the
struggle of life, remains to be seen; for in addition to an incapacity
for life, there is ill luck as well. I might have met such an Aniela
ten years ago, when my sails were not, as now, worn to shreds and
patches.

If that honest soul, my aunt, knew how, with the best of intentions,
she brought me to this pass, she would be truly grieved. There was
tragedy enough in my life,--the consciousness of utter failure, the
dark mist in which my thoughts were straying; now there is a new,--to
be, or not to be; but no, it is far worse than that!


26 February.

Yesterday I went again to Warsaw by appointment, to meet a certain Pan
Julius Keo, on whose estates I lodged part of the capital I inherited
from my mother. Pan Julius Keo wants to pay off the mortgage, and
asked me to meet him at a fixed time; and I waited for him the whole
day. The devil take their ways of managing any business in this
country! He will make five other appointments, and not keep one. He is
very rich, wants to get rid of the mortgage, and is able to pay it off
any time; and yet--such is our way of transacting business.

From my own observations I long since came to the conclusion that in
money matters we are the most flighty and unbusinesslike people in the
world. I, who like to go to the root of matters, often pondered over
this phenomenon.

According to my ideas, this is the result of the purely agricultural
occupation of the people. Commerce was in the hands of the Jews, and
these could not teach us accuracy; the cultivator of the soil is
unreliable because the soil is unreliable, he is unpunctual because
nature has no punctuality. Working in the soil, they gradually take
some of its characteristics, which enters into their moral being, and
in the course of time becomes an inherited defect.

The knowledge of cause and effect does not restore me to an equable
temper. I had to tear myself away from Aniela for a whole day, and
what is more, shall have to go through the some process a few
days hence; but it cannot be helped. In my aunt's house I found
visiting-cards from Kromitzki,--one for me and two for the elder
ladies. I was afraid he might take it into his head to pay us a
visit at Ploszow; to avoid that, I went out to leave my card on him.
Unfortunately for me, he was at home, and I had to stay half an hour.
He began his conversation by telling me that he had promised to call
at Ploszow; to which I replied that we had gone there merely for a few
days, and would be back in town almost immediately. He asked after
Aniela's mother, and very guardedly after Aniela herself. He evidently
wanted to impress me with the fact that he inquired as a mere
acquaintance. I am so impressionable that even this gave me a twinge;
how I loathe that man! I fancy the Tartars under Batu Khan must have
played many pranks in what is to-day Austrian Silesia, when looting
the country after the battle of Liegnitz. That those black eyes, like
roasted coffee-berries, did not come from Silesian ancestors, I have
not the slightest doubt.

He was exceedingly polite to me, because I am rich. It is true, he
wants nothing from me,--I do not give him anything, and my being rich
is of no advantage to him; but as a financier he worships money. We
spoke about the difficulties in which Aniela's mother was and is still
involved. According to Kromitzki, a great deal of her fortune might
still be saved if she would part with the estate. Kromitzki looks upon
the reluctance to part with ancestral lands as a mere fad. He said he
might be able to understand it if she had the means to prevent it, but
as the case stood it was mere sentimentality.

He is very talkative, and discussed at some length our national
idiocy. Money was lying on the pavement, to be had for the picking up.
His father, like other noblemen, had left scarcely any fortune; when
all debts were cleared off there remained a paltry hundred thousand
florins, and the world knew how he, Kromitzki, stood at present.

"If that business in Turkestan comes off, I shall be able to wind up
my affairs. The Jews and Greeks have made millions in the contract
business; why should not we be able to do as well? I do not put
myself as an example; but I say, why should we not? There is room for
everybody,--why not go in for it?"

According to my opinion, Kromitzki has a certain aptness for business,
but is foolish in a general sense. That we are shiftless, everybody
knows that; and that here and there somebody makes a fortune by
contracts, I can well believe; but the greater part of the people must
work at home, and not look for millions from contracts in Turkestan.

May God save Aniela from an alliance with that man. He may have some
good qualities, but he belongs to a different moral type. If there be
a worse fate in store for her, ought I to hesitate any longer?


28 February.

The elder ladies seem uneasy that the affair is not going on as
speedily as they had fancied; my aunt, who is of an impatient temper,
must chafe inwardly not a little. But the expression of happiness on
Aniela's face soothes them, and allays their fears. I can read in her
eyes endless trust and thorough belief in me. She fills my thoughts so
that I cannot think of anything but her. I desire her more and more,
and do not want to play upon her feelings any longer,--I want her.


4 March.

This day has been to me of so much importance that I am obliged to
muster all my calmness and self-possession to put down everything in
its proper order. Nevertheless, I cannot contain myself. The die is
cast, or as good as cast. I could not have gone on quietly, had I not
put that down.

And now I can begin. Sniatynski and his wife arrived here towards
noon, for an early dinner. He had to go back, as a new play of his
is coming out at the theatre. However happy we may be in our rural
seclusion, we are always delighted to see them. Aniela is great
friends with Pani Sniatynska, and I suppose there will be an exchange
of confidences. Pani Sniatynska guessed at the state of things, and
tried to put her hand to the wheel, to make the cart go a little
faster. She had only just arrived, when she said to my aunt:--

"How lovely and peaceful everything is here! No wonder the young
people there do not pine after the dissipations of town."

We both, Aniela and I, understood perfectly well that Pani Sniatynska,
calling us the young people, was not referring only to our age.
Besides, she repeated the same thing several times during dinner: "the
young people," "the young couple," as if making a pointed difference
between us two and the elder ladies. But there was such real sympathy
for us in the friendly eyes; such a pricking up of her little ears to
hear what we were saying to each other; and the little woman looked so
charming withal that I forgive her readily her good-natured meddling.
I have arrived at such a state of infatuation that this coupling of
our names rather gladdens than irritates me. Aniela too seemed to hear
it with pleasure. In her efforts to please the Sniatynskis and the
attentions she bestowed on them during dinner, she truly looked like a
young bride, who receives dear visitors for the first time in her new
home. At the sight of this my aunt's heart seemed to swell, and she
said many kind and polite things to both Sniatynskis. I noticed a
wonderful thing, which I should not believe had I not seen it with my
own eyes. Pani Sniatynska blushes up to her ears when anybody praises
her husband! To blush with pleasure when her husband is praised after
eight years of married life! Surely, I committed an egregious mistake
writing as I did about Polish women.

The dinner passed off very pleasantly. A married couple, like these
two, are born matchmakers. The very sight of them sets people
thinking: "If married life is like that, let us go and commit
matrimony." I at least saw it for the first time in a quite different
light,--not as the prose of life, a commonplace, more or less
skilfully disguised indifference, but as a thing to be desired.

Aniela evidently read our future in the same light; I saw it in her
eyes shining with happiness.

After dinner I remained in the dining-room with Sniatynski, who liked
a quiet talk over a glass of cognac after his coffee. The elder ladies
went to the drawing-room, and Aniela took Pani Sniatynska upstairs to
show her some photographs of Volhynia. I questioned Sniatynski about
his new play, the fate of which seemed to make him a little anxious.
Our conversation drifted on to those times when we both tried our
sprouting wings. He told me how afterwards, step by step, he had
worked his way upward; how he had been full of doubts, and still
doubted his power, in spite of having acquired a certain reputation.

"Tell me," I asked, "what do you do with your fame?"

"How do you mean what I do with my fame?"

"For instance, do you wear it as a crown on your head, or as a golden
fleece round your neck? do you put it over your writing-desk, or hang
it up in your drawing-room? I only ask as a man who has no idea what
to do with it if he once obtains it?"

"Let us suppose I have won it; the man must be deuced ill-bred
mentally either to wear the so-called fame as an ornament or to put it
up for show. I confess that at first it gratifies one's vanity; but
only a spiritual parvenu would find it sufficient to fill the whole
life, or take the place of real happiness. It is quite another thing
to be conscious you are doing good work; that the public appreciates
it, and that your work calls forth an echo in other minds,--a public
man has the right to feel pleased with that. But as to feeling
gratified when somebody, looking more or less foolish, comes up and
says: 'We are indebted to you for so much pleasure;' or, when a dinner
does not agree with me, our daily press remarks: 'We communicate
to our readers the sad news that our famous XX suffers from a
stomachache,'--pshaw! what do you take me for, that such a thing could
give me satisfaction?"

"Listen," I said, "I am not inordinately vain; but I confess that,
when people speak of my extraordinary talents, and regret that I make
not a better use of them, it flatters me; and though I feel more
than ever my uselessness, it gives me pleasure; humankind is fond of
approbation."

"That is because you pity yourself, and in that you are quite right.
But you are turning away from the question. I do not say that it would
give one pleasure to be called an ass."

"But the public esteem that goes hand in hand with fame?"

Sniatynski, who is very lively and always walks about the room,
sitting down on any table or chair, now sat on the window-sill, and
replied:--

"Public esteem? You are wrong there, old fellow; there is no such
thing. Ours is a strange society, dominated by a pure republican
jealousy. I write plays, work for the stage; very good. I have gained
a certain reputation; better still. Now, these plays excite the
jealousy,--of another playwright, you think? Not at all; it is the
engineer, the bank clerk, the teacher, the physician, the railway
official,--in short, people who never wrote a play in their
lives,--that envy you. All these in their intercourse will show that
they do not think much of you, will speak slightingly of you behind
your back, and belittle you on purpose, so as to add an inch or two to
their own height. 'Sniatynski? who is he? Yes, I remember; he dresses
at the same tailor as I.' Such is fame, my dear fellow."

"But if must be worth something, since people risk their lives for
it?"

Sniatynski grew thoughtful, and replied with a certain gravity:--

"In private life it is worth something; you can make a footstool of it
for the woman you love."

"You will gain a new fame by this definition."

Sniatynski rushed at me with lively impetuosity.

"Yes, yes; put all your laurels into a cushion, go to the dear one,
and say to her: 'This for which people risk their lives; this which
they consider supreme happiness, appreciate more than wealth,--I have
got it, striven for it; and now put your dear feet on it at once.' If
you do this, you will be loved all your life. You wanted to know what
fame is good for, and there you are."

Further discussions were cut short by the entrance of Pani Sniatynska
and Aniela. They were dressed for going out to the hot-houses. What an
imp of mischief lurks in that little woman. She came up to her husband
to ask his permission to go out, which he granted, insisting only that
she should wrap herself up warm; she turned to me and said with a
roguish smile,--

"You will let Aniela go, will you not?"

That Aniela should blush furiously was only natural, but that I,
an old stager, a razor sharpened against the strops of so many
experiences, should have betrayed so much confusion, I cannot forgive
myself. But, putting on a semblance of self-possession, I went up to
Aniela, and raising her hand to my lips, said:--

"It is Aniela who gives orders at Ploszow, and I am her humble
subject."

I should have liked to take Sniatynski with me and join the excursion,
but refrained. I felt a want to speak about Aniela, my future
marriage, and I knew that sooner or later Sniatynski himself would
broach the question. I gave him an opening after the ladies had left
us by saying:--

"And do you still believe as firmly as ever in your life-dogmas?"

"More than ever, or rather, the same as ever. There is no expression
more worn to tatters than the word 'love;' one scarcely likes to use
it; but between ourselves, I tell you; love in the general meaning,
love in the individual sense does not permit of criticism. It is one
of the canons of life. My philosophy consists in not philosophizing
about it at all,--and the deuce take me if for the matter of that, I
consider myself more foolish than other people. With love, life is
worth something; without, it is not worth a bag of chaff."

"Let us see what you have to say about individual love,--or better
still, put in its place woman."

"Very well, let it be woman."

"My good friend, do you not perceive on what brittle foundation you
are building human happiness?"

"On about as brittle a foundation as life,--no more nor less!"

I did not want to drift into a discussion of life and death, and
pulled Sniatynski up.

"For mercy's sake, do not generalize about individual happiness. You
chanced to find the right woman, another might not."

He would not even listen to that. According to his view, ninety out of
a hundred were successful. Women were better, purer, and nobler than
men.

"We are rascals all, in comparison with them!" he shouted, waving his
arms and snaking his leonine mane. "Nothing but rascals! It is I who
say it,--I, who study mankind closely, if only for the reason that I
am a playwright."

He was sitting astride on his chair, attacking me, as it were, with
the chairback, and went on with his usual impetuosity:--

"There are, as Dumas says, apes from the land of Nod, who know neither
curb nor bridle; but what are eyes given for but to see that you do
not take to wife an ape from Nod? Generally speaking a woman does not
betray her husband nor deceive him, unless he himself corrupts her
heart, tramples on her feelings, or repulses and estranges her by his
meanness, his selfishness, narrowness, and his miserable, worthless
nature. You must love her! Let her feel that she is not only your
female, but the crown of your head, as precious as your child and
friend; wear her close to your heart, let her feel the warmth of it,
and you may rest in peace; year after year she will cling closer to
you, until you two are like Siamese twins. If you do not give her all
that, you pervert her, estrange her by your worthlessness,--and she
will leave you. She will leave you as soon as she sees nobler hands
stretched out for her; she is forced to do it, as this warmth, this
appreciation, are as necessary to her life as the air she breathes."

He charged me with the chairback as with a battering ram. I retreated
before him until we had come close to the window; there he jumped up.

"How blind you are! In presence of such social drought, such utter
absence of general happiness as stamps our time, not to grasp this
felicity that is within reach! Shiver on the forum, and not light a
fire at home! Idiotism can go no farther! I tell you plainly, go and
get married."

He pointed through the window at Aniela, who with his wife was coming
back from the hot-houses, and added: "There is your happiness. There
it patters in fur boots on the frozen snow. Take her by weight of
gold, by weight in carats rather! You simply have no home, not only in
a physical sense, but in a moral, intellectual meaning; you have no
basis, no point of rest, and she will give you all that. But do not
philosophize her away as you have philosophized away your abilities
and your thirty-five years of life!"

He could not have told me anything better, nobler, or what chimed in
more with my own desires. I pressed his hands and replied:--

"No, I will not philosophize her away, because I love her."

Upon this the ladies entered, and Pani Sniatynska observed:--

"We heard some disputes when we were leaving, but I see peace is
restored. May I ask what you have been discussing?"

"Woman, madame," I said.

"And what was the result?"

"As you see, a treaty of peace sealed by a grasp of the hand, and
something further may come of it in the course of time."

The sledge was already waiting at the door. The short day was drawing
to its close, and they had to go back; but as the weather was calm,
and the snow on the drive as smooth as a parquetted floor, we
resolved, Aniela and I, to accompany them as far as the high-road.

And so we did. After having said good-by to our charming visitors, we
went slowly homeward. It was already dusk; in the dim light I could
still see Aniela's face. She seemed moved, perhaps had opened her
heart to Pani Sniatynska, and even now hoped for the long deferred
word. It was almost burning on my tongue; but, oh, wonder! I who never
yet had lost all my self-possession, I who was used to play upon
heartstrings, who at a fencing match of that kind, if not cleverly, at
least with perfect composure guarded myself against the most masterly
strokes, I was as deeply moved as a lad in his teens. What a
difference from former sentiments. I was afraid I could not find words
to express myself,--and remained silent.

Thus in silence we approached the veranda. The snow was slippery;
I offered her my arm, and when she leaned on it I felt how all my
desires were centred in her. The feeling grew so intense that it
thrilled my nerves like electric sparks. We entered the hall. There
was nobody there; not even the lamps were lit, the only light came in
fitful gleams from the open stoves. In this half-light and in silence
I began to relieve Aniela of her furs, when suddenly the warmth
emanating from her body seemed to enter into my veins; I put my arm
around her, and drawing her close to me I pressed my lips on her brow.

It was done almost unconsciously, and Aniela must have been greatly
startled, for she made not the slightest resistance. Presently a
footstep became audible; it was the servant with the lamps. She went
upstairs, and I, deeply moved, entered the dining-room.

To every man who is ever so little enterprising, similar events occur
in the course of life. I am no exception, but, as a rule, I always
kept the mastery over myself. Now it was different. Thoughts and
sensations whirled across my brain like leaves before a gale.
Fortunately the dining-room was empty; my aunt and Aniela's mother
were in the drawing-room, where I joined them after a while. My
thoughts were so far away that I scarcely heard what they were saying
to me. I felt restless. I seemed to see Aniela sitting in her room,
pressing her hands to her temples, trying to realize what it all
meant. Soon Aniela herself came down. I felt relieved, as I had feared
she might not come down again for the evening. She had two burning
spots on either side of her face, and eyes bright as if from recent
slumber. She had tried to cool her face with powder; I saw the traces
on her left temple. The sight of her moved me; I felt that I loved her
deeply.

Presently she stooped over some needlework. I saw that her breath came
and went irregularly, and once or twice I intercepted a quick glance
full of unsettled questions and trouble.

In order to set her mind at rest I thrust myself into the conversation
of the elder ladies, who were speaking about Sniatynski, and said:--

"Sniatynski considers me a kind of Hamlet, and says I philosophize too
much; but I am going to show him that he is mistaken, and that not
later than to-morrow."

I laid some stress on the "to-morrow," and Aniela caught the meaning,
for she gave me a long look; but my aunt, all unconscious, asked:--

"Are you going to see him to-morrow?"

"We ought to go and see his play, and if Aniela agrees we will all go
to-morrow."

The dear girl looked at me shyly but trustingly, and said, with
indescribable sweetness:--

"I will go with great pleasure."

There was a moment when I could scarcely contain myself, and felt
I ought to speak there and then; but I had said "to-morrow," and
refrained.

I feel like a man who shuts his eyes and ears before taking the final
plunge. But I really think it is a costly pearl I shall find at the
bottom of the deep.


CASA OSORIA, 6 March.

Yesterday I arrived at Rome. My father is not quite so bad as I
had feared. His left arm and the left side of his body are almost
paralyzed, but the doctor tells me his heart is not threatened, and
that he may live for years.


7 March.

I left Aniela in doubt, expectation, and suspense. But I could not do
otherwise. The day following the Sniatynskis' visit, the very day I
was going to ask Aniela to be my wife, I received a letter from my
father telling me about his illness.

"Make haste, dear boy," he wrote, "for I should like to see you before
I die, and I feel my bark very close to the shore."

After the receipt of such a letter I took the first train, and never
stopped until I reached Rome. When leaving Ploszow I had very little
hope to find my father alive. In vain my aunt tried to comfort me,
saying if things were so bad he would surely have sent a telegram
instead of a letter.

I know my father's little oddities, among which is a rooted dislike to
telegrams. But my aunt's composure was only put on, at the bottom she
felt as frightened as myself.

In the hurry, the sudden shock, and under the horror of my father's
likely death, I could not speak of love and marriage. It seemed
against nature, almost a brutal thing, to whisper words of love, not
knowing whether at the same time my father might not be breathing his
last. They all understood that, and especially Aniela.

"I will write to you from Rome," I said before starting; to which she
replied: "May God comfort you first."

She trusts me altogether. Rightly or wrongly, I have the reputation
of fickleness in regard to women, and Aniela must have heard remarks
about it; maybe it is for that very reason the dear girl shows such
unbounded confidence in me. I understand, and can almost hear the
pure soul saying: "They wrong you,--you are not fickle; and those who
accuse you of fickleness do not know what love means, and did not love
you as truly and deeply as I love you."

Perhaps I am a little fickle by nature, and this disposition,
developed under the influence of the barren, empty, worthless
sentiments I met with in the world,--this might have dried up my heart
and corrupted it altogether; in which case Aniela would have to pay
for the sins of others. But I believe the case is not hopeless, and
the blessed physician has not come too late. Who knows whether it be
ever too late, and that the pure, honest love of a woman does not
possess the power to raise the dead? Perhaps, too, the masculine heart
has a greater power of recuperation. There is a legend about the rose
of Jericho, which, though dry to the core, revives and brings forth
leaves when touched by a drop of dew. I have noticed that the male
nature has more elasticity than the female. A man steeped in such
utter corruption that half of its venom would cover the woman with
moral leprosy is able to throw off the contagion, and recover easily
not only his moral freshness, but even a certain virginity of heart.
It is the same with the affections. I have known women whose hearts
were so used up that they lost every capacity of loving, even of
respecting anything or anybody. I have never known men like that.
Decidedly, love cleanses our hearts. Definitions like these sound
strange from a sceptic's pen; but in the first place I have no more
belief in my doubts than I have in any other kind of assertions,
axioms, and observations which serve general humanity as a basis of
life. I am ready to admit at any moment that my doubts are as far
removed from the essence of things as are these axioms. Secondly, I
am writing now under the influence of my love for Aniela, who, maybe,
does not know herself how wisely she is acting, and how by that very
trust in me she has secured a powerful hold on my affections. Lastly,
whenever I speak of love, or any other principle of life, I speak and
write of it as it appears to me in the present. What my opinion about
it will be to-morrow, I do not know. Ah, if I but knew that whatever
view I take or principle I confess would withstand the blasting
scepticism of to-morrow or the days following, I would make it my
canon of life, and float along with sails unfurled, like Sniatynski,
in the light, instead of groping my way in darkness and solitude.

But I do not intend to go back now to my inner tragedy. As to love in
general, from the standpoint of a sceptic in regard to the world and
its manifestations, I might say with Solomon, "Vanitas vanitatum;"
but I should be utterly blind did I not perceive that of all active
principles this is the most powerful,--so powerful indeed that
whenever I think of it or my eyes roam over the everlasting ocean
of all-life, I am simply struck with amazement at its almightiness.
Though these are known things, as much known as the rising of the sun
and the tides of the ocean, nevertheless they are always wonderful.

After Empedocles, who divined that Eros evolved the worlds from Chaos,
metaphysics have not advanced one step. Only death is a power equally
absolute; yet in the eternal struggle between the two, love is the
stronger; love conquers death by night and day, conquers it every
spring, follows death step by step, throwing fresh grain into the gulf
it creates. People occupied with every-day affairs forget or do not
wish to remember that they are love's servants. It is strange when we
come to think of it that the warrior, the chancellor of state, the
cultivator of the soil, the merchant, the banker, in all their
efforts, which apparently have nothing to do with love, are merely
furthering its ends; that is, they serve the law of nature which bids
the man to stretch out his arms for the woman. A mad paradox it would
seem to a Bismarck if he were told that the final and only aim of all
his endeavors is to further the love of Hermann and Dorothea. It seems
even to me a paradox; and yet Bismarck's aim is the consolidation of
the German empire, and this can be achieved only through Hermann and
Dorothea. What else, then, has a Bismarck to do but to create by
the help of politics and bayonets such conditions that Hermann and
Dorothea may love each other in peace, unite in happiness, and bring
up new generations?

When at the university I read an Arabian ghazel in which the poet
compares the power of love to that of infernal torments. I forget the
name of the poet, but the idea remained in my memory. Truly, love is
the one power that lasts for all times, holds the world together, and
creates new worlds.


10 March.

To-day I tore up three or four letters to Aniela. After dinner, I went
into my father's room to talk with him about my aunt's plans. I found
him looking through a lens at some epilichnions with the earth still
adhering to them, he had received from the Peloponnesus. How splendid
he looked in that light coming through stained windows in the large
room full of Etruscan vases, statues more or less mutilated, and all
kinds of Greek and Roman treasures. Among these surroundings his face
reminded me of a divine Plato or of some other Greek sage. When I
entered he interrupted his work, listened attentively to what I had to
say, and then asked, "Do you hesitate?"

"No, I do not hesitate, but I am reflecting. I want to know why I want
it."

"Then I will tell you this; I was once like you, inclined to analyze
not only my own feelings but all manifestations of life. When I came
to know your mother I lost that faculty at once. I knew one thing
only, that I wanted her, and did not care to know anything else.
Therefore if you have a like powerful desire, marry. I express myself
wrongly, for if you wish it very much you will do it without anybody's
help or advice, and be as happy as I was until your mother died."

We remained silent for some time. If I were to apply my father's words
closely to my own case, I should feel small comfort. I love Aniela,
there is no doubt; but I have not arrived yet at a state that
precludes all reflection. But I do not consider this as a bad sign;
it simply means that I belong to a generation that has gone a step
farther on the way to knowledge.

There are always two persons within me,--the actor, and the spectator.
Often the spectator is dissatisfied with the actor, but at present
they both agree.

My father was the first to interrupt the silence.

"Tell me what she is like."

Since a description is an unsatisfactory way of painting a portrait, I
showed my father a large and really excellent photograph of Aniela, at
which he looked with the keenest interest. I was no less interested in
the study of his face, in which I saw not only the roused artist,
but also the refined connoisseur of female beauty, the old Leon
_l'Invincible_. Resting the photograph on the poor hand half
paralyzed, he put on his eyeglass with the right, and then holding the
likeness at a longer or shorter distance he began to say: "But for
certain details, the face is like one of those Ary-Schaeffer liked to
paint. How lovely she would look with tears in her eyes. Some people
dislike angelic faces in women, but I think that to teach an angel
how to become a woman is the very height of victory. She is very
beautiful, very uncommon looking. 'Enfin, tout ce qu'il y a de plus
beau au monde--c'est la femme.'"

Here he fumbled with his eyeglass, and then added: "Judging by the
face, or rather by the photograph (sometimes one makes mistakes, but I
have had some practice), hers is a thoroughly loyal nature. Women of
this type are in love with the whiteness of their plumage. God bless
you, my boy! I like her very much, this Aniela of yours. I used to be
afraid you might end by marrying a foreigner--let it be Aniela."

I came up close to him and he put his arm round my neck.

"I should like to see my future daughter before I die."

I assured him that he would certainly see her shortly. Then I unfolded
my plans of bringing Aniela and her mother over to Rome. After a
betrothal by letter I might expect as much, and the ladies would not
refuse, if only out of consideration for my father. In this case the
marriage ceremony would take place at Rome, and that very soon.

My father was delighted with the plan; old and sick people like to see
around them life and motion. I knew that Aniela would be pleased with
this turn of affairs, and let my thoughts dwell upon it with more and
more pleasure. Within a few weeks everything would be settled. Such
quick decision would be against my nature, but the very idea that I
could exert myself if I wished raised my spirits. I already saw myself
escorting Aniela about Rome. Only those who live there understand
what a delight it is to show to anybody the endless treasures of that
city,--a much greater delight when the somebody is the beloved woman.

Our conversation was interrupted by a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Davis,
who come every day to see my father. He is an English Jew, and she
an Italian nobleman's daughter who married him for the sake of his
wealth. Mr. Davis himself is a valetudinarian, who took out of his
life twice as much as his poor organization could bear. He is ill,
threatened with softening of the brain, indifferent to everything that
goes on around him,--one of those specimens of mankind one meets at
hydropathic establishments. Mrs. Davis looks like a Juno; her eyebrows
meet on her forehead, and she has the figure of a Greek statue. I do
not like her; she reminds me of the leaning tower at Pisa,--leans but
does not fall. A year ago I paid her some attentions; she flirted with
me outrageously, that was all. My father has a singular weakness for
her; I thought at times he was in love with her. At any rate, he
admires her from a thinker and artist's point of view; for beautiful
she is,--there can be no two opinions as to that,--and of more than
average intelligence. Their conversations, which my father calls
"causeries Romaines," are endless, and they never seem to get tired of
them; maybe these discussions about life's problems with a beautiful
woman appear Italian to him, poetical, and worthy of the times of the
Renaissance. I very seldom take part in these conversations because
I do not believe in Mrs. Davis' sincerity. It seems to me that her
intellect is merely a matter of brain, and not of soul, and that in
reality she does not care for anything except her beauty and the
comforts of life. I have often met women who seem full of lofty
aspiration; upon closer acquaintance it seems that religion,
philosophy, art, and literature, are only so many items of their
toilet. They dress themselves in either as it suits their style of
beauty. I suppose it is the same with Mrs. Davis; she drapes herself
in problems of life, sometimes in Greek and Roman antiquities, in the
Divina Commedia, or the Renaissance, the churches, museums, and so
forth. I can understand a powerful intellectual organism making itself
the centre of the universe; but in a woman, and one who is bent upon
futile things, it is mere laughable egoism and vanity.

I ask myself what makes Mrs. Davis so fond of my father; and I fancy
I know the reason. My father, with his fine head of a patrician
philosopher, and his manners reminding one of the eighteenth
century, is for her a kind of _objet d'art_, and still more, a grand
intelligent mirror, in which she can admire her own beauty and
cleverness; besides, she feels grateful that he never criticises her,
and likes her very much. Upon this basis has sprung up a friendship,
or rather a kind of affection for my father which gradually has become
a necessity of her life. Moreover, Mrs. Davis has the reputation of a
coquette, and coming here to see my father every day, she says to
the world: "It is not true; this old man is seventy, and nobody can
suspect me of flirting with him, and yet I show him more attentions
than to any one else." Finally, though she herself comes from an old
family, Mr. Davis, in spite of his wealth, is a mere nobody, and their
friendship with my father strengthens their position in society. There
was a time when I asked myself whether these daily visits were not
partly for my sake--and who knows? At any rate, it is not my qualities
which attract her, nor any real feeling on her part. But she feels
that I do not believe in her, and this irritates her. I should not
wonder if she hated me, and yet would like to see me at her feet. I
might have been, for she is a splendid specimen of the human species;
I would have been, if only for the sake of the meeting eyebrows and
the Juno shoulders,--but at a price she does not feel inclined to pay.

Soon after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Davis my father began a
philosophical discussion, which, going from one question to another,
concluded with an analysis of human feelings. Mrs. Davis made
several very shrewd remarks. From the studio we went to the terrace
overlooking our gardens. It is only the tenth of March, and here
spring is at its best. This year everything is much advanced,--fierce
heat in the daytime, the magnolias covered with snow-white blossoms,
and the nights as warm as in July. What a different world from that of
Ploszow. I breathe here with all my lungs.

Mrs. Davis on the terrace with the moon shining upon her was
beautiful as a Greek dream. I saw she was under the influence of that
indescribable Roman night. Her voice was softer, even, and more mellow
than usual. Perhaps even now she only thinks of herself, is impressed
because it is herself who feels it, dresses herself in moonbeams,
restfulness, and magnolia scent as in a new shawl or bonnet. But all
the same the dress suits her splendidly. Were it not that my heart is
full of Aniela, I should fall under the spell of the picture. Besides
this, she said things which not many could have conceived.

All the same, whenever I am present at these _causeries Romaines_
I have always a feeling that my father, I, such as Mrs. Davis, and
generally speaking, all the people of the so-called upper classes do
not live a true, real life. Below us something is always going
on, something always happens; there is the struggle for life, for
bread,--a life full of diligent work, animal necessities, appetites,
passions, every-day efforts,--a palpable life, which roars, leaps, and
tumbles like ocean waves; and we are sitting eternally on terraces,
discussing art, literature, love, woman, strangers to that other
life far removed from it, obliterating, out of the seven, the six
work-days. Without being conscious of it, our inclinations,
nerves, and soul are fit only for holidays. Immersed into blissful
dilettantism as in a warm bath, we are half awake, half dreaming.
Consuming leisurely our wealth, and our inherited supply of nerves and
muscles, we gradually lose our foothold upon the soil. We are as the
down, carried away by the wind. Scarcely do we touch ground, when the
real life pushes us back, and we draw aside; for we have no power of
resistance.

When I think of it I see nothing but contradictions in us. We consider
ourselves the outcome and highest rung of civilization, and yet have
lost faith in ourselves; only the most foolish believe in our _raison
d'être._ We look out instinctively for places of enjoyment, gayety,
and happiness, and yet we do not believe in happiness. Though our
pessimism be wan and ephemeral as the clouds from our Havanas, it
obscures our view of wider horizons. Amidst these clouds and mists
we create for ourselves a separate world, a world torn off from the
immensity of all life, shut up within itself, a little empty and
somnolent. If this merely concerned the aristocracy, whether by
descent or wealth, the portent would be less weighty. But to this
isolated world belong more or less all those who boast of a higher
culture,--men of science, literature, and art. This world does not
dwell within the very marrow of life, but parting from it creates a
separate circle; in consequence withers within itself and does not
help in softening down the animalism of those millions which writhe
and surge below.

I do not speak as a reformer, because I lack the strength. Besides,
what matters it to me? Who can avoid the inevitable? But at times I
have the dim presentiment of a terrible danger which threatens the
cultured world. The great wave which will wash us from off the surface
of the earth will carry off more than that one which washed away
hairpowder and shirtfrills. It is true that to those who perished then
it seemed that with them the whole civilization was perishing.

In the mean while it is pleasant to sit on moonlit terraces and talk
in subdued tones about art, love, and woman, and look at the divine
profile of such a woman as Mrs. Davis.


10 March.

Mountains, towers, rocks, the further they recede from our view,
appear as a mere outline through a veil of blue haze. There is a kind
of psychical blue haze that enfolds those who are removed from us.
Death itself is a removal, but the chasm is so wide that the beloved
ones who have crossed it disappear within the haze and become as
beloved shadows. The Greek genius understood this when he peopled the
Elysian fields with shadows.

But I will not enlarge upon these mournful comparisons, especially
when I want to write about Aniela. I am quite certain my feelings
towards her have not changed, but I seem to see her a long distance
off, shrouded in a blue haze and less real than at Ploszow. I do not
feel her through my senses. When I compare my present feelings with
those I had at Ploszow, she is more of a beloved spirit than a desired
woman. From a certain point of view it is better, as a desired woman
might be even such a woman as Mrs. Davis; but on the other hand this
is not one of the reasons that have prevented me from writing to
Aniela. Doubtless that profile of Mrs. Davis which I still see before
me is a mere passing impression. When I compare these two women my
feeling for the other becomes very tender; and yet I leave her in
cruel suspense and uncertainty.

To-day my father wrote to my aunt, setting her mind at rest as to his
health, and I added a postscript from myself, sending kind regards
to Aniela and her mother. I could not say much in a few lines, but I
might have promised them a longer letter. Such a promise would have
comforted Aniela and the elder ladies. I did not do it because I could
not. To-day my spirits are at a very low ebb. My wish for another
life, and my trust in the future have retreated into the farthest
distance; I can see them no more, see only the barren, sandy
wilderness. I cannot get rid of the idea that I can only marry Aniela
if I can conscientiously believe that our union would lead to mutual
happiness. I cannot represent it otherwise to Aniela without uttering
a lie; for I have none of that belief, and instead of it an utter
hopelessness almost a dislike of life. She is ill at ease with longing
and uncertainty, but I am worse, all the more so because I love her.


11 March.

Mrs. Davis, to whom, during our _causerie_ on the moonlit terrace, I
unfolded my view as to the all-powerfulness of love, more or less as I
have written it down, called me Anacreon, and advised me to crown my
head with vine leaves, and then said more soberly, "If such be your
opinions, why play the part of pessimist? Belief in such a deity ought
to make any man happy."

Why? I did not tell her, but I know why. Love conquers death, but
saves from it only the species. What matters it to me that the species
be preserved, when I, the individual, am sentenced to a merciless,
unavoidable death? Is it not rather a refined cruelty that the very
affections, which can be felt only by the individual, should serve the
future of the species only? To feel the throbbing of an eternal power,
and yet to die,--that is the height of misery. In reality there
exists only the individual; the species is an abstract idea, and in
comparison to the individual, an utter Nirvana. I understand the love
for a son, a grandson, a great grandson,--for the individual, in fact,
that is sentenced to perish,--but to profess love for one's species
one needs be insincere, or a fanatical sectarian. I can understand now
how centuries after Empedocles there came Schopenhauer and Hartmann.

My brain feels as sore as the back of the laborer who carries burdens
beyond his strength. But the laborer stooping to his work earns his
daily bread and is at peace.

I still seem to hear Sniatynski's words: "Do not philosophize
her away, as you have philosophized away your abilities and your
thirty-five years of life." I know it leads to nothing, I know it is
wrong, but I do not know how not to think.


13 March.

My father died this morning. He was ill only a few hours.


PELI, VILLA LAURA, 22 March.

Death is such a gulf, and though we know that all have to go thither,
yet when it swallows up one of our dear ones, we who remain on the
brink are torn with fear, sorrow, and despair. On that brink all
reasoning leaves us, and we only cry out for help which cannot come
from anywhere. The only solace and comfort lies in faith, but he who
is deprived of that light gets well-nigh maddened by the impenetrable
darkness. Ten times a day it seems to me impossible, too horrible,
that death should be the end of everything,--and then again, a dozen
times I feel that such is the case.


23 March.

When I arrived from Ploszow I found my father so much better that it
never even entered my mind that the end could be so near. What strange
twists there are in the human mind. God knows how sincerely I rejoiced
when I found my father so much better than I had thought, and yet
because throughout that anxious journey I had fancied him sick unto
death, and already saw myself kneeling at his coffin, I was sorry
for my wasted anxieties. Now the memory of this fills me with keen
remorse.

How thoroughly unhappy is the individual whose heart and soul have
lost their simplicity. Thus not less bitter, not less of a reproach is
the remembrance that at my father's deathbed there were two persons in
me: one of them the son full of anguish, who gnawed his hands to keep
back his sobs; the other the philosopher, who studied the psychology
of death. I am unutterably unhappy because my nature is an unhappy
one.

My father died with full consciousness. Saturday evening he felt a
little worse. I sent for the doctor, that he might be at hand in case
we should want him. The doctor prescribed some physic, and my father,
according to his habit, disputed the point, demonstrating that the
physic would bring on a stroke. The doctor calmed my fears, and said
though there was always fear of another stroke, he saw no immediate
danger, and that my father most likely would live for many years to
come. He repeated the same to the patient, who, hearing of the many
years to come, incredulously shook his head and said: "We will see."
As he has always been in the habit of contradicting his doctors, and
proving to them that they know nothing, I did not take his words
seriously. Towards ten at night, when taking his tea, he suddenly rose
and called out:--

"Leon, come here, quick!"

A quarter of an hour later he was in his bed, and within an hour he
was dying.


24 March.

I am convinced that people preserve their idiosyncracies and
originality to the last minute of their life. Thus my father, in the
solemn dignity of thoughts at the approaching end, still showed a
gratified vanity that he, and not the doctor, had been right, and that
his unbelief in medicine was well founded. I listened to what he said,
and besides, read his thoughts in his face. He was deeply impressed
with the importance of the moment; there was also curiosity as to the
future life,--not a shadow of doubt as to its existence, but rather a
certain uneasiness about how he would be received, joined to an almost
unconscious, unsophisticated belief that he would not be treated as a
mere nobody in particular. I shall never die like this, because I have
no basis to uphold me in the hour of death. My father parted with his
life in absolute faith and the deep contrition of a true Christian. At
the moment when he received the last sacraments he was so venerable,
so purely saintly, that his image will remain with me always.

How futile, how miserable, appears to me my scepticism in presence of
that immense power of faith that, stronger even than love, triumphs
over death at the very moment when it extinguishes life. After having
received the last sacraments, a great tenderness took possession of
him. He grasped my hand strongly, almost convulsively, and did not let
it go again, as if through me he wanted to hold fast to life. And yet
it was neither fear nor despair that moved him, he was not in the
least afraid. Presently I saw the eyes riveted upon my face grow dim
and fixed, his forehead became moist, as if covered by a gentle dew;
he opened his mouth several times as if to catch his breath,--sighed
deeply once more,--and died.

I was not present at the embalming of the body,--I had not the
strength; but after that I did not leave the dear remains for a
minute, out of fear they might treat him as a thing of no consequence.
How truly awful are those last rites of death,--the whole funereal
paraphernalia, the candles, the misericordia, with the covered faces
of the singers. It still clings to my ears, the "Anima ejus," and
"Requiem aeternam." There breathes from it all the gloomy, awful
spirit of Death. We carried the remains to Santa Maria Maggiore, and
there I looked for the last time at the dear, grand face. The Campo
Santo looks already like a green isle. Spring is very early this
year. The trees are in bloom and the white marble monuments bathed in
sunshine. What an awful contrast, the young, nascent life, the budding
trees, the birds in full song,--and a funeral. Crowds of people filled
the cemetery, for my father was known for his benevolence in Rome as
much as my aunt is at Warsaw. All these people so full of life, as
if reflecting the joys of spring, jarred upon my feelings. Crowds,
especially in Italy, consider everything as a spectacle got up
for their special benefit, and even now their faces betrayed more
curiosity to see a grand funeral than any sympathy. Human selfishness
knows no limit, and I am convinced that even people morally and
intellectually educated, when following a funeral, feel a kind of
unconscious satisfaction that this has happened to somebody else, and
it is not they who are to be interred.

My aunt arrived, as I had summoned her by telegram. She, from the
standpoint of faith, looks upon death as a change essentially for the
better; therefore received the blow with far more calmness than I.
This did not prevent her from, shedding bitter tears at her brother's
coffin.

Afterwards she spoke to me long and tenderly,--a conversation full
of exceeding goodness, I took much amiss at the time, for which I am
sorry now. She did not mention Aniela's name,--spoke only of my future
loneliness, and insisted upon my coming to Ploszow; where, surrounded
by tender hearts, especially the one old heart which loved me beyond
everything on earth, I would feel less sad. I saw in all this only
her desire to continue her matchmaking; and in presence of my recent
bereavement this seemed to me improper, and irritated me very much. I
felt not inclined to think of the life before me, nor of love-speeches
or weddings, with the shadow of death across my path. I refused
peremptorily, even curtly; told my aunt I was going away,--most likely
to Corfu, then would come back to Rome in order to arrange my father's
affairs, and after that would come to Ploszow.

She did not insist upon having her own way. Feeling deeply for me, she
was even more gentle than usual, and left Rome three days after the
funeral. I did not go to Corfu; instead of that, Mr. and Mrs. Davis
carried me off to their villa at Peli, where I have been now for
several days. Whether Mrs. Davis is sincere or not I do not know, and
will not even enter upon that now; I know only that no sister could
have shown more sympathy and solicitude. With a nature poisoned by
scepticism, I am always prone to suspect and misjudge those around me;
but if it should be proved that I misjudged this woman, I should feel
truly guilty,--because her goodness to me is quite extraordinary.


26 March.

My windows look out upon the vast blueness of the Mediterranean,
encompassed by bands of a darker blue on the far horizon. Close to the
villa, the crisped waves glitter like fiery scales; in the distance,
the sea is glassy and still, as if lulled to sleep in its blue veil.
White lateen sails flash in the sun, and once a day a steamer from
Marseilles for Genoa passes hence, dragging in her wake woolly coils
of smoke that hang over the sea like a dark cloud, until it
gradually dissolves and disappears. The restfulness of the place is
indescribable. Thoughts dissolve like yonder black cloud between the
blue sky and azure sea, and life is a blissful vegetation.

I felt very tired yesterday, but to-day I inhale with eager lungs the
fresh sea-breezes, that leave a salty taste on my lips. Say what they
like, the Riviera is one of the gems of God's creation. I fancy to
myself how the wind whistles at Ploszow; the sudden changes from mild
spring weather to wintry blasts; the darkness, sleet, and hail, with
intermittent gleams of sunshine. Here the sky is transparent and
serene; the soft breeze which even now caresses my face comes through
the open window together with the scent of heliotropes, roses, and
mignonette. It is the enchanted land, where the orange blossoms, and
also an enchanted palace; because everything that millions can buy,
combined with the exquisite taste of Mrs. Davis, is to be found in
this villa. I am surrounded by masterworks of art,--statues, pictures,
matchless specimens of ceramics, chased works by Benvenuto. Eyes
feast on nature, feast on art, and do not know where to dwell
longest,--unless it be on the splendid pagan, the mistress of all
these splendors, and whose only religion is beauty.

But is it quite just to call her a pagan? because, I say again,
whether sincere or not, she shares my sorrows and tries to soothe
them. We talk for hours about my father, and I have often seen tears
in her eyes. Since she found out that music acts soothingly upon my
mind, she plays for hours, and often until late at night. Sometimes
I sit in my room in the dark, look absently at the sea riddled by a
silver network, and listen to the sounds of her music mingling with
the splashing of the waves. I listen until I feel half distracted,
half sleepy,--until in sleep I forget the real life, with all its
sorrows.


29 March.

I do not even feel inclined to write every day. We are reading
together the Divina Commedia,--or rather, its last part. There was
a time when I felt more attracted by the awful plasticity of the
Inferno. Now I like to plunge into the luminous mist, peopled with
still more luminous spirits, of the Dantesque heaven. At times it
seems as if amid all that radiance I see the dear, familiar features,
and my sorrow becomes almost sweet to me. I never before understood
the exceeding beauty of heaven. Never has human mind taken such a
lofty flight, encompassed such greatness, or borrowed such a slice
from infinity as in this sublime, immortal poem. The day before
yesterday and the two days following, we read it together in the boat.
We usually go out a long distance, and when the sea is quite still I
furl the sail; and we read, rocked by the waves,--or rather, she reads
and I listen. Surrounded by the glories of the sunset, far from the
shore, with the most beautiful woman reading to me Dante, I was under
a delusion, that I had been transferred to another world.


30 March.

At times the sorrow that seemed to be lulled to sleep wakes up with
renewed force. I feel then as if I wanted to fly hence.


VILLA LAURA, 31 March.

To-day I thought a great deal about Aniela. I have a strange feeling,
as if lands and seas divided us. It seems to me as if Ploszow were a
Hyperborean island somewhere at the confines of the world. We have
delusions of that kind when personal impression takes the place of
tangible reality. It is not Aniela who is far from me, it is I who go
farther and farther away from the Leon whose heart and thoughts were
once so full of her. This does not mean that my feelings for her have
vanished. By close analysis I find they have only changed in their
active character. Some weeks ago, I loved her and wanted something; I
love her still, but want nothing. My father's death has scattered the
concentration of the feelings. It would be the same, for instance, had
I begun some literary work, and some unfortunate accident interrupted
the even flow of my thoughts. But that is not all. Not long ago, all
the faculties of my mind were strung to their highest pitch; now,
under the influence of a heavy sorrow, a soft atmosphere, and the
gently rocking sea, they have relaxed. I live, as I said before, the
life of a plant; I rest as one rests after a long fatigue, and as if
immersed in a warm bath. Never did I feel less inclined to any kind of
exertion; the very thought of it gives me pain. If I had to choose a
watchword, it would be, "Do not wake me." What will happen when I wake
up, I do not know. I am sad now, but not unhappy; therefore I do not
want to wake up, and do not consider it my duty. It is even difficult
to me to recall the image of the Ploszowski who fancied himself bound
to Aniela. Bound,--why? by what reason? What has happened between us?

A slight, almost imperceptible kiss on the forehead,--a caress which,
among near relations, can be put down to brotherly affection. These
are ridiculous scruples. I have broken ties far different from these
without the slightest twinge of conscience. Were she not a relation,
it would be a different matter. It is true, she understood it in a
different way, and so did I at the time,--but let it pass. One prick
of conscience more or less, what does it matter? We do worse things
continually, to which the disappointment I caused Aniela is mere
childishness. Conscience that can occupy itself with such peccadilloes
must have nothing else to do. There is about the same proportion of
such kinds of crime to real ones as our conversations on the terrace
to real life.

Upon the whole, I do foresee what will happen; but I want to be left
in peace at present and not think of anything. "Do not wake me."
To-day it was determined that we ought to leave Peli as soon as the
hot weather sets in,--perhaps in the middle of April,--and go to
Switzerland. Even that terrifies me. I fancy Mrs. Davis will have to
place her husband under restraint; he shows symptoms of insanity. He
says not a word for whole days, but sits staring either at the floor
or at his finger-nails; he is afraid they will come off. These are
with him the consequences of a wild life and narcotics.

I leave off writing as it is our time for sailing.


2 April.

Yesterday there was a thunderstorm. A strong southern wind drove the
clouds along as a herd of wild horses. It pulled and tore, chased
and scattered them, then got them under and threw them with a mighty
effort upon the sea, which darkened instantly as man in wrath, and
began in its turn to send its foam aloft,--a veritable battle of two
furies, which, battering each other, produce thunder and lightning
flashes. But all this lasted only a short time. We did not go out to
sea, as the waves were too rough. Instead of it we looked at the storm
from the glazed balcony, and sometimes looked at each other. It is no
use deluding myself any longer; there is something going on between
us,--a subtle change in our relations to each other. Neither of us has
said a word or overstepped the boundary line of friendship; neither
has confessed to anything, and yet speaking to each other we feel that
our words serve only to disguise our thoughts. It is the same when we
are in the boat, reading together, or when I listen to her music.
All our acts seem mere shadows,--an outward form that hides the real
essence of things, with its face still veiled, but following us
wherever we go. Neither of us has given it a name; but we both feel
its presence. Manifestations like these take place probably every time
man and woman begin to influence each other. I could not tell
exactly when it began; but I confess it did not come upon me quite
unexpectedly.

I accepted their hospitality because Mrs. Davis was my father's
friend; and it was she who, after his death, showed me more sympathy
than any one else in Rome. I have so much consciousness of self, am so
able to divide myself, that soon after my arrival here, in spite of
my heavy sorrow I had the presentiment that our mutual relation would
undergo a change. I hated myself that so soon after my father's death
I should harbor thoughts like these; but they were there. I find now
that my presentiments were right. If I said that the changed relation
has still its face veiled, I meant to say that I do not know exactly
when the veil will be torn asunder, and I am under the spell of
expectation. I should be unsophisticated indeed, if I supposed she
were less conscious of all this than I. She is probably more so.
Most likely she is guiding all these changes; and everything that is
happening happens according to her wishes and cool reflection. Diana
the Huntress is spreading her net for the game! But what does it
matter to me? what is there for me to lose? As nearly every man, I am
that kind of game which allows itself to be hunted for the purpose of
turning at a given moment against the hunter. In such circumstances
we all have energy enough. In a hand-to-hand fight, like this, the
victory rests always with us. I know perfectly well that Mrs. Davis
does not love me, any more than I love her. We simply react upon each
other through our pagan nature, our sensuous and artistic instincts.

With her it is also a question of vanity,--the worse for her, as it
may lead her whither love leads. I shall not go too far. In my feeling
for her there is neither affection nor tenderness,--nothing but
rapture at the sight of nature's masterwork, and the attraction
natural in a man when that masterwork is a woman. My father said that
the height of victory would be to change an angel into a woman; I
maintain that it is no less a triumph to feel around one's neck the
arms, palpitating with life, of a Florentine Venus.

As far as beauty goes she is the highest expression of whatever the
most exalted imagination is able to conceive. She is a Phryne. It
would turn most men's heads to see her in a tight-fitting riding-habit
that shows the outline of her figure as beautiful as that of a statue.
In the boat, reading Dante, she looked like a Sybil, and one could
understand a Nero's sacrilegious passion. Hers is an almost baleful
beauty. Only the joining eyebrows make her appear a woman of our
times, and this makes her all the more irritating. She has a certain
habit of pushing back her hair by putting both hands at the back of
her head; then her shoulders are raised; the whole shape acquires a
certain curve, and the breast stands firmly out,--and one feels a
desire to carry her off in one's arms from everybody's eyes.

In each of us there is a hidden Satyr. As to myself, as I said
already, I am highly impressionable; therefore, when I think of it,
that there is something going on between me and this live statue of
a Juno, that some mysterious power pushes us towards each other,--my
head is in a whirl, and I ask myself what would I wish for more
perfect than this.


3 April.

As much as ever woman can show kindness and sympathy to a friend
in trouble, she has shown to me. And yet, strange to say, all this
kindness has upon me the effect of moonlight,--radiance without
warmth; she possesses perfection of form, but there is no soul; with
her all is premeditation, but not nature. There speaks again the
sceptic; but I shall never be so intoxicated as to lose my capacity
of observation. If this divinity were kind, she would be kind to
everybody. Thus, for instance, the way she treats her husband is
enough to destroy any illusion as to her heart. The unfortunate Davis
is such a bloodless creature that he feels chilly in the hottest
sunshine, and oh! so chilly at her side. I never noticed in her the
slightest sign of compassion for his misery. He simply does not exist,
for her. This millionnaire, in the midst of all his wealth, is so poor
that it would rouse any one's pity. He is apparently indifferent
to everything; and yet the human being, with ever so little
consciousness, feels kindness. The best proof of it is that Davis
feels grateful to me because I speak to him now and then about his
health.

Perhaps it is the instinctive attraction of the weaker towards the
stronger organism. When I look at that face as white as chalk, no
bigger than my fist, those feet like walking-sticks, and that shrunken
figure, wrapped up in a plaid during the hottest of weathers, I am
truly sorry for him. But I will not make myself out better than I am.
I may pity the man; but compassion will not stand in my way. It has
often struck me that, when woman is in question, man becomes pitiless;
it is still a remnant of the animal instinct that fights to the
uttermost for the female. In such a fight between human beings,
whatever shape it takes, the weaker goes to the wall. Even honor is no
curb; it is only religion that condemns it absolutely.


12 April.

I have not written for nearly ten days. The veil was rent a week ago.
I always suspected the sea would help us to an understanding. Women
like Laura never forget the fitting background. If they do charitable
deeds because it enhances their beauty, the more they want beauty when
they fall. Joined to this is their passion for anything out of the
common, which does not spring from the poetical faculties of their
mind, but from a desire to adorn themselves. I have not so lost my
head as not to be able to judge Laura, though really I do not know
whether she has not the right to be what she is, and to think the sun
and stars are made on purpose for her adornment. Absolute beauty,
in the nature of things, must be essentially egotistic, and subject
everything to its rule. Laura is the very incarnation of beauty, and
nobody has the right to ask anything else from her than to be always
and everywhere beautiful; at least, I do not ask for more.

Thanks to my skill in seamanship, we can be alone on our excursions.
A week ago, on a sultry day, Laura expressed a wish to go out in the
boat. Like a Hecate, she exults in heat. A gentle breeze drove us a
long distance from the shore, and then the wind fell. The lateen sail
hung motionless from the mast. The rays of the sun, reflected from the
glassy surface of the water, increased the heat, although it was late
in the afternoon. Laura threw herself on the Indian matting, and
resting her head against the cushions, remained motionless, all in
a red glow, from the sun filtering through the awning. A strange
laziness had taken possession of me, and at the same time the sight
of this woman with her Greek form that showed through the clinging
drapery sent a thrill of admiration through my veins. Her eyes were
veiled, the lips slightly parted; her whole presence expressed
powerlessness, and seemed to say, "I am weak."

We came back late to the villa, and the return will remain for a long
time in my memory. After a sunset in which sky and earth seemed to be
wedded in a splendor without limit and without division, there came a
night of such beauty as I had never seen on the Riviera. From the vast
deep rose the immense red orb of the moon, which filled the air with a
mellow light, and at the same time made a broad, luminous path on the
sea, on which we glided towards the shore. There was a gentle swell on
the water, like a heaving sigh. From the little harbor the voices
of the Ligurian fishermen, singing a chorus, came up to us. A light
breeze from the shore wafted towards us the scent of orange-blossoms.
Although not prone to let myself be carried away by my sensations, I
was under the spell of this unutterable sweetness that floated over
land and sea, and clung like dew to soul and body.

From time to time my eyes rested upon the Helen-like woman whose white
draperies glistened in the moonlight, and I fancied myself living in
ancient Greece, and that we were floating somewhere, maybe towards the
sacred olive groves where the Eleusinian mysteries were enacted. Our
rapture did not seem any more a rapture of the senses, but a cult, a
mystic alliance with that night, that spring, and all nature.


15 April.

The time fixed for our departure has arrived, but we do not depart. My
Hecate does not fear the sun, Mr. Davis likes it, and as far as I am
concerned, whether here or in Switzerland is a matter of indifference.

A strange thought has taken hold of me; I almost shrink from it, but
nevertheless will confess: It seems to me that a Christian soul,
though the spring of faith be dried up therein, cannot live altogether
on the mere beauty of form. This means more sorrow in store for me;
if the thought proves true the whole basis of my life falls to the
ground. We are beings of a different culture. Our souls are full of
Gothic arches, pinnacles, twisted traceries we cannot shake off, and
of which Greek minds knew nothing. Our minds shoot upward; theirs,
full of repose and simplicity, rested nearer the earth. Those of us in
whom the spirit of Hellas beats more powerfully consider the beautiful
a necessity of life, and search after it eagerly, but instinctively
demand that Aspasia should have the eyes of Dante's Beatrice. A
similar longing is planted within me. When I think of it, that a
beautiful human animal like Laura belongs to me and will belong as
long as I wish it, a twofold joy gets hold of me,--the joy of the man
and the delight of the artist; and yet there is a want and something
missing. On the altar of my Greek temple there is a marble goddess;
but my Gothic shrine is empty. I admit that in her I have found
something bordering upon the perfect, and I defend myself from a
suspicion that this perfection throws a big shadow. I thought once
that Goethe's words, "You shall be like unto gods and beasts,"
embraced all life and were the highest expression of his wisdom; now,
when I follow the commandment, I feel that he omitted the angel.


17 April.

Mr. Davis came into the room when I was sitting at Laura's feet, my
head leaning against her knees. His bloodless face and dim eyes
showed no feeling beyond indifferent sullenness. In his soft slippers
embroidered with Indian suns, he shuffled across the room, and
into the library. Laura looked magnificent, her eyes flashing with
unrestrained wrath. I rose and awaited what would happen. A thought
crossed my mind that Mr. Davis might come back, a revolver in his
hand. In such a case I should have pitched him through the window,
revolver, plaid, and Indian slippers. But he did not come back; I
waited a long time in vain. I do not know what he was doing there;
whether he was thinking over his misery, weeping, or perfectly
indifferent. We all three met again at lunch, and he was sitting there
as if nothing unusual had happened. Perhaps it was my fancy that
made me think that Laura looked menacingly at him, and also that his
apathetic expression was even more mournful than usual. I confess that
such a tame ending of the business is the most painful to me. I am not
one to provoke a quarrel, but ready to answer for my deeds; finally, I
would rather the man were not so defenceless, such a small, miserable
creature. I have a nasty feeling, as if I had knocked down a cripple,
and never yet felt so disgusted with myself.

We went out in the boat as usual. I did not want Laura to think I was
afraid of Davis; but there we had our first quarrel. I confessed to
her my scruples and she laughed at them. I said to her plainly,--

"The laughter does not become you; and remember, you may do most
things, but not what is not becoming."

There was a deep frown on the meeting eyebrows, and she replied
bitterly,--

"After what has passed between us, you may insult me even with more
impunity than you could Davis."

After such a reproach there remained nothing else but to ask her
forgiveness; and presently, harmony being restored, Laura began
to talk about herself. I had another instance of her cleverness.
Generally the women I have known intimately showed a desire to tell me
their life. I do not blame them for it; it shows that they feel the
need to justify themselves in their own eyes and ours. We men do
not. Yet I never met a woman either so clever as not to overstep the
artistic proportions in her confession, or so sincere as not to tell
lies in order to justify herself. I call to witness all men who when
the occasion occurs may verify how wonderfully similar all these cases
of going astray are, and consequently how tedious. Laura, too, began
to talk about herself with a certain eager satisfaction, but only in
this respect did she follow the beaten track of other fallen angels.
In what she told me there was a certain posing for originality, but
she was certainly not posing as a victim. Knowing she had to deal with
a sceptic, she did not want to call forth a smile of incredulity. Her
sincerity was skirting upon the bold, almost the cynical, one
might say, were it not that to her it is a system of life in which
aestheticism has taken the place of ethics. She prefers simply a life
in the shape of an Apollo to that of humpbacked Pulcinello; that is
her philosophy. She had married Davis not so much for his wealth
as for the purpose of making her life as beautiful as lay in human
power,--beautiful not in the common meaning of the word, but in the
highest artistic sense. Besides she did not consider she had any
duties toward her husband, as she had never even pretended to love
him; she had for him as much pity as repugnance, and as he was
indifferent to everything, he was of no more account than if he were
dead. She added that she did not take account of anything that was
contrary to her ideas of a purely beautiful and artistic life. Regard
for society she had very little, and who thought otherwise of her
would be utterly wrong. She had felt friendship for my father, not
because of his social position, but because she had looked upon him
as a masterwork of nature. As to myself, she had loved me for a long
time. She understood perfectly that I would have prized her more had
the victory been less easy, but she did not care to bargain when her
happiness was at stake.

This kind of principles, announced by that perfect mouth in a soft
voice full of metallic vibrations, gave me a strange sensation. While
speaking to me she drew her draperies close to her as if to make room
for me at her side. At times her eyes followed the motions of the
sea-gulls circling above our heads, then again they rested keenly upon
my face as if she wanted to read the impression her words had made
upon me. I listened to her words with a certain satisfaction, as they
proved to me that I had judged her pretty correctly. Yet there was
something in them quite new to me. I had always rendered her justice
as to her cleverness, but I thought her acts were the instinctive
outcome of her nature. I had never supposed her capable of inventing
a whole system in order to support and justify the impulses of her
nature. This showed her in a somewhat nobler light, as it proved that
where I had suspected her of more or less mean calculation, she only
acted according to her own principles,--maybe bad, even terrible, but
always principles. For instance, I had suspected her of wanting to
marry me after Davis's death,--she proved me utterly in the wrong. She
herself began to talk about it. She confessed that if I were to ask
her for her hand she might not be able to refuse me, as she loved me
more than I believed (here as I am a living man I saw a warm blush
mounting to her neck and brow), but she knew this would never happen;
sooner or later I would leave her with a light heart,--but what of
that? If she dipped her hand into the water and felt the refreshing
coolness, should she refuse herself this delight because the sun would
suck the cool moisture?

Saying this she bent over the gunwale, which showed her figure in
all its immaculate perfection, and after plunging her hands into the
water, she stretched them out to me moist and pink and gleaming in
the sunshine. I took hold of the hands, and she, as if echoing my
sensations, said in a caressing voice, "Come."


20 April.

I did not see Laura the whole of yesterday, as she was not well.
She had caught a chill sitting out late on the balcony, and it had
affected her teeth. What a nuisance! Fortunately the day before
yesterday a doctor arrived who is to remain in attendance upon Mr.
Davis; otherwise I should not have a soul to speak to. He is a young
Italian, small of stature, very dark, with an enormous head and very
sharp eyes. He seems very intelligent. It is evident that from the
very first he has grasped the situation, and found it very natural,
for without hesitation he addressed me as the master of the house. I
could not help laughing when he came this morning and asked me whether
he could see the countess so that he might prescribe for her. They
have some very quaint notions in this country. Usually, when a married
woman is suspected to belong to somebody else, the world is in arms to
hunt and run her down, often with thoughtless cruelty. Here, on the
contrary, they worship at the altar of love, and one and all take
sides with and plot for the lover. I told the doctor I would see
whether the countess would see him. I penetrated into Laura's sanctum.
She received me unwillingly, because her face is a little swollen, and
she did not wish me to see her in that state. And in truth her face
reminded me of my old drawing lessons. I noticed even then that with
a modern face one may commit inaccuracies, change this or that, and
provided the expression, the idea of the face remain intact, the
likeness will not suffer. It is quite a different thing drawing from
the antique; the slightest inaccuracy, the least deviation, destroys
the harmony of the face and makes it different altogether. I had an
example in Laura. The swelling was very slight,--I scarcely noticed it
as she obstinately turned the sound part of her face to me; but as her
eyes were a little reddened, the eyelids heavier than usual, it was
not the same face, perfect in its harmony and beauty. Of course I did
not let her see this, but she received my greeting half-disturbed,
as if troubled with a bad conscience. Evidently according to her
principles toothache is a mortal sin.

Queer principles these, anyway! I too have the soul of an ancient
Greek, but beyond the Pagan there is something else in me. Laura will
be sometime very unhappy with her philosophy. I can understand that
one may make a religion of beauty in a general sense, but to make
a religion of one's own beauty is to prepare great unhappiness for
ourselves. What kind of religion is that which a simple toothache
undermines, and a pimple on the nose shatters into ruin?


25 April.

We shall have to leave for Switzerland, for the heat is almost
unbearable. Besides the heat, there is the Sirocco, that comes now and
then like a hot breath from Africa. The sea-breezes somewhat mitigate
the fierceness of this visitor from the desert, but it is none the
less very disagreeable.

The Sirocco acts injuriously on Mr. Davis. The doctor watches him
closely lest he should take opium, and consequently become either very
irritable or else quite stupefied. I notice that in his greatest
fits of anger he is afraid of Laura and myself. Who knows whether a
homicidal mania is not already germinating in the half-insane brain?
or maybe he is afraid we are going to kill him. Generally speaking,
my relation with him is one of the darkest sides of the part I am
enacting. I say one of the darkest, because I am fully aware that
there is more than one. I should not be my own self if I did not
perceive that my soul not only is stagnating, but is getting swiftly
corrupted in the arms of that woman. I cannot even express what
loathing, what bitterness and pangs of conscience, it caused me at
first that I should have plunged myself into the depth of sensuous
raptures so soon after the death of my father. It was not only my
conscience, but also the delicacy of feelings which I undoubtedly
possess, that revolted against it. I felt this so deeply that I could
not write about it. I have grown more callous since. I still reproach
myself from time to time, and seriously reflect, but the feeling has
lost its poignancy.

As to Aniela, I try to forget her, because the memory is troublesome,
or rather I cannot arrive at a clear understanding as to the whole
Ploszow episode. At times I feel inclined to think that I was not
worthy of her; at others, that I made an ass of myself over a girl
like dozens of others. This irritates my vanity, and makes me feel
angry with Aniela. One moment I feel an unsavory consciousness of
guilt in regard to her, in another the offence appears to me futile
and childish. Taken altogether, I do not approve of the part I played
at Ploszow, nor do I approve of the part I am playing here. The
division between right and wrong is becoming more and more indistinct
within me, and what is more I do not care to make it clearer. This is
the result of a certain apathy of mind, which again acts as a sleeping
draught; for when the inward struggle tires me out I say to myself:
"Suppose you are worse than you were--what of that? Why should you
trouble about anything?"

Then I see another change in myself. Gradually I have got used to what
at first chafed my honor,--the insulting of the crippled man. I notice
that I permit myself hundreds of things I would not do if Davis,
instead of being physically and mentally afflicted, were an
able-bodied man capable of defending his own honor. We do not even
take the trouble of going out to sea. I never even imagined that my
sensitiveness could become so blunted. It is very easy to say to
myself: "What does the wretched Eastern matter to you?" But verily I
cannot get rid of the thought that my black-haired Juno is no Juno at
all,--that her name is Circe, and her touch changes men (as one might
say in correct mythological language) into nurslings of Eumaeus.

And when I ask myself as to the cause, the answer shatters many of my
former opinions. It is this: our love is a love of the senses, but
not of the soul. The thought again comes back that we, the outcome of
modern culture, cannot be satisfied with it. Laura and I were like
unto gods and beasts with humanity left out. In a proper sense our
feelings cannot be called love; we are desirable to each other, but
not dear. If we both were different from what we are, we might be a
hundred times more unhappy, but I should not have the consciousness
that I am drawing near the shelter of Eumaeus. I understand that love
merely spiritual remains a shadow, but love without spiritualism
becomes utter degradation. It is another matter that some people
touched by Circe's wand may find contentment in their degradation. It
seems a sad thing and very strange that I, a man of the Hellenic type,
should write thus. Scepticism even here steps in, and in regard to
Hellenism I begin to have my doubts whether life be possible with
those worn-out forms; and as I am always sincere, I write what I
think.


30 April.

Yesterday I received a letter from my aunt. It was sent after me from
Rome and dated two weeks back. I cannot understand why they kept it so
long at Casa Osoria. My aunt was sure I had gone to Corfu, but thought
I might have returned by this, and writes thus:--

"We have been expecting to hear from you for some time, and are
looking out with great longing for a letter. I, an old woman, am too
deeply rooted in the soil to be easily shaken, but it tells upon
Aniela. She evidently expected to hear from you, and when no letter
came either from Vienna or Rome, I saw she felt uneasy. Then came your
father's death. I said then, in her presence, that you could not think
now of anything but your loss; by and by you would shake off your
trouble and return to your old life. I saw at once that my words
comforted her. But afterwards, when week passed after week and you did
not send us a single line, she grew very troubled, mostly about your
health, but I fancy because she thought you had forgotten her. I, too,
began to feel uneasy, and wrote 'poste restante' to Corfu, as we had
agreed. Not getting any reply, I am sending another letter to your
house at Rome, because the thought that you may be ill makes us all
very unhappy. Write, if only a few lines; and, Leon, dear, pull
yourself together, shake off that apathy, and be yourself again.
I will be quite open with you. In addition to Aniela's troubles,
somebody has told her mother that you are known everywhere for your
love affairs. Fancy my indignation! Celina was so put out that she
repeated it to her daughter, and now the one has continual headaches,
and the other, poor child, looks so pale and listless that it makes
my heart bleed. And she is such a dear girl, and as good as gold. She
tries to look cheerful so as not to grieve her mother; but I am not so
easily deceived, and feel deeply for her. My dearest boy, I did not
say much to you at Rome, because I respected your affliction; but a
sorrow like that is sent by God, and we have to submit to His will and
not allow it to spoil our life. Could you not write a few words to
give us some comfort,--if not to me, at least to the poor child? I
never disguised it from you that my greatest wish was to see you two
happily married if it were in a year or two, as Aniela is a woman in a
thousand. But if you think otherwise it would be better to let me know
it in some way. You know I never exaggerate things, but I am really
afraid for Aniela's health. And then there is her future to be thought
of. Kromitzki calls very frequently upon the ladies, evidently with
some intentions. I wanted to dismiss him without ceremony, especially
as I have my suspicions that it was he who spread those tales about
you; but Celina solemnly entreated me not to do this. She is quite
distracted, and does not believe in your affection for Aniela. What
could I do? Suppose her motherly instinct is right, after all? Write
at once, my dear Leon, and accept the love and blessing of the old
woman who has only you now in the world. Aniela wanted to write to you
a letter of condolence after your father's death, but Celina did not
let her, and we had a quarrel over this. Celina is the best of women,
but very provoking at times. Kind greetings and love from us all.
Young Chwastowski is establishing a brewery on the estate. He had some
money of his own, and the rest I lent him."

At first I thought the letter had not made any impression upon me; but
presently, when walking up and down the room, I found that I had been
mistaken. The impression increased every minute, and became very
strong indeed. After an hour I said to myself with amazement: "The
deuce is in it! I cannot think of anything else but that." Strange how
quick my thoughts travel, chasing each other like clouds driven by the
wind. What a creature of nerves I am! First, a great tenderness for
Aniela woke up within me. All that I had felt for her not long ago,
and that had lain dormant in odd nooks of my soul, stirred into life.
To go at once, soothe her, make her happy, was the first impulse of my
heart,--not clearly defined, perhaps, but very strong all the same.
When I imagined to myself the tearful eyes, her hands resting within
mine, the old feeling for her woke up with renewed strength. Then the
idea crossed my mind to compare her to Laura,--with a fatal result for
Laura. I felt sick of the life I was leading; felt the want of a purer
atmosphere than I was breathing here,--of restfulness, gentleness, and
above all, rectitude of feeling. At the same time a great joy filled
my heart, that nothing was lost yet, everything could be made right;
it depended only upon my will. Suddenly I bethought myself of
Kromitzki, and of Aniela's mother, who, not trusting me, is evidently
on his side. A dull anger rose within me, which, gradually increasing,
smothered all other feelings. The more my reason acknowledged that
Pani Celina was right in mistrusting me, the more I felt offended that
she should harbor that mistrust. I worked myself up into a terrible
rage against everybody, including myself. What I thought and felt can
be expressed in a few words: "Very well, let it be as they wish!"

The letter came yesterday; to-day, analyzing myself more quietly, I
find 

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