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 to my own astonishment that the offence not only rankles in my mind, but also has taken firmer root. I say to myself all that a soberly thinking man can say in mitigation thereof, and yet I cannot forgive either Aniela or her mother the Kromitzki business. Aniela could have put a stop to it with one word, and if she has not done it, she is sacrificing me to her mother's headaches. Besides, Kromitzki lowers Aniela in my eyes, stains her, and brings her down to the level of marriageable girls. I cannot even speak of it quietly. Maybe my reasoning and feeling are those of an exasperated man; maybe that love of self is too predominant in me. I know that I am able to look at and judge myself as a stranger would; but this dualism does not help me in the least. I am more and more embittered. To write about it irritates my nerves,--therefore, enough! 1 May. During the night I thought, "Perhaps to-morrow I shall be more composed." Nothing of the kind. I am simply in a rage with Aniela, Aniela's mother, my aunt, and myself. The wind ought to be tempered for the shorn lamb, and they forget that my wool is deucedly thin. After all, I am comfortable where I am. Laura is like a marble statue. Near her nothing troubles me very much, because there is nothing except beauty. I am tired of over-strained, tender souls. Let Kromitski comfort her. 2 May. I carried the letter to the post-office myself. It was not a long one: "I wish Pan Kromitzki every happiness with Panna Aniela, and Panna Aniela with Pan Kroinitzki. You wished for a decision, dear aunt, and I comply with your wish." 3 May. I was thinking whether my aunt's allusion to Kromitzki was but a piece of female diplomacy in order to bring me to book. If so, she is to be congratulated upon her skill and knowledge of human nature. 10 May. A week has passed. I have not written because I feel half suffocated, torn by doubts, sorrow, and anxiety. Aniela has never been, and is not indifferent to me. The words of Hamlet recur to me:-- "I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum." I should only have to change the outcry:-- "I loved Aniela; forty thousand Lauras could not make up my sum."