“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.