The greatest pessimist instinctively avoids pain, and fights against it with all his might. He clutches at every hope and expects relief through every change. There awoke within me such a desire to make them go to Gastein as if my very life depended upon it. To make them leave Ploszow! The thought did not give me rest, and took such possession of me that I gave my whole mind to its realization. This did not present great difficulties. The ladies were almost ready to start. Kromitzki had come unexpectedly, evidently intending to give his wife a surprise. A few days later he would not have found us at Ploszow. I went to the railway office and secured places in a sleeping-car for Vienna; then sent a messenger with a letter to my aunt telling her I had bought tickets for the following day, as all the carriages were engaged for the following week, and we should have to go to-morrow. 26 June. I still linger over the last moments spent at Warsaw. These memories impressed themselves so strongly on my mind that I cannot pass them over in silence. The day following Kromitzki's arrival I had a strange sensation. It seemed to me that I did not love Aniela any longer, and yet could not live without her. It was the first time I felt this--I might call it psychical dualism. Formerly my love went through its regular course. I said to myself, "I love her, therefore I desire her,"--with the same logic as Descartes employs in the statement, "I think, therefore I exist." Now the formula is changed into, "I do not love her, but desire her still;" and both elements exist in me as if they were engraved on two separate stones. For some time I did not realize that the "I do not love her" was merely a delusion. I love her as before, but in such a sorrowing manner, with so much bitterness and venom, that the love has nothing in common with happiness. Sometimes I fancy that even if Aniela were to confess to me her love, if she were divorced or a widow, I should not be happy any more. I would buy such an hour at the price of my life, but truly I do not know whether I should be able to convert it into real happiness. Who knows whether the nerves that feel happiness be not paralyzed in me? Such a thing might happen. Really, what is life worth under such conditions? The day before our departure, I went to a gunsmith's shop. It was a quaint old man who sold me the revolver. If he were not a gunsmith he might become a professor of psychology. I told him I wanted a revolver, no matter whose make, Colt's or Smith's, provided it were good and of a large calibre. The old man picked out the weapon, which I accepted at once. "You will want cartridges, sir?" "Yes, I was going to ask you for them." "And a case, sir?" he said, looking at me keenly. "Of course, a case." "That's all right, sir; then I will give you cartridges of the same number as the revolver." It was now my turn to look attentively at him. He understood the inquiring look, and said:--