Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/237

Rh prefer death to what is called shame, would she not?

And I also possess this involuntary and automatic tendency, instinctive yet purposeful; and in me it is only very partially blunted by the force of sober reason. But this explains well why my bias towards emancipation has its source and finds its scope chiefly in the intellectual sphere.

Last evening I spent some time in Gina's studio. I was glad she had asked me to come, for last night there was something or other on at Witold's club, and I do not like to pass my evenings alone now. I fear my own thoughts, which are never so profound as in solitude and by night. This activity of my mind sometimes exceeds my limited strength to bear it. And when I note that there is in this some resemblance between myself and Martha, I again hear her prediction of vengeance ringing in my ears.—There are moments when, oh, how weak, how very weak I feel!

Although I have known Gina for a long time, our relations are always on a strictly formal footing. When we meet at a common friend's, her behaviour is almost distant;