"
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
unrelia