“The respected Pan Eustachius Zavilovski departed this life on the 25th day of July. His grief-stricken daughter invites relatives and friends to the funeral, at the parish church in Yasmen, on the 28th day of the current month.”
“The respected Pan Eustachius Zavilovski departed this life on the 25th day of July. His grief-stricken daughter invites relatives and friends to the funeral, at the parish church in Yasmen, on the 28th day of the current month.”
Then followed a moment of silence, which was broken by Pan Ignas.
“I knew him little,” said he, “and was prepossessed against him once; but now I grieve for him sincerely, for I know that at heart he was a worthy man.”
“And he loved thee sincerely,” answered Osnovski. “I have proofs of that.”
Pani Bronich, who, during this time, had recovered, declared that those proofs might appear now in their fulness, and that the heart of the deceased would very likely prove itself still greater than they imagined. “Pan Eustachius always loved Nitechka much, and such a man cannot be malicious.” At times he had reminded her—that is, Pani Bronich—of Teodor, and therefore she had become so attached to him. He was, it is true, as abrupt on occasions as Teodor was gentle at all times; but both had that honesty of spirit which the Lord God is best able to value.
Then she turned to “Nitechka,” reminding her that the least emotion would add to the sinking of her heart, and begging her to strive this time not to yield to innate sensitiveness. Pan Ignas, too, with the feeling that a common sorrow had struck him and Lineta for the first time, began to kiss her hands. This state of mind was broken by Kopovski, who said, as if in meditation on the transitory nature of human affairs,—
“I am curious to know what Panna Helena will do with the pipes left by her father.”
In fact, the old noble’s pipes were famous throughout the whole city. Through dislike for cigarettes and cigars, he had in his day made a great collection in his mansion for lovers of the pipe. Kopovski’s anxiety about the pipes was not quieted, however,—first, because at that moment they brought Pan Ignas a letter from Pan Stanislav, containing also intelligence of the old man’s decease, and an invitation to the funeral; secondly, because Osnovski began to advise with his wife about the trip to Yasmen.
It ended in this,—that all were to go at once to the city, where the ladies would set about buying various small articles of mourning, and on the second day, the day of the funeral, they would be in Yasmen. Thus did they do. Pan Ignas, immediately after their arrival, went to his lodgings to carry home things, and prepare a black suit for mourning; and then he went to the Polanyetskis, supposing that they, too, perhaps, had come in from the Bigiels. The servant informed him that his master had been there the day before, but had gone at once to Yasmen, near which place he had hired, or even bought, a house two weeks earlier.
Hearing this, he returned to Osnovski’s villa to spend the evening with his betrothed.
At the entrance, the tones of a waltz by Strauss, coming from the depth of the house, astonished him. Meeting in the next salon Panna Ratkovski, he inquired who was playing.
“Lineta is playing with Pan Kopovski,” answered she.
“Then Pan Kopovski is here?”
“He came a quarter of an hour since.”
“And Pani and Pan Osnovski?”
“They have not returned yet; Aneta is making purchases.”
Pan Ignas, for the first time in his life, felt a certain dissatisfaction with Lineta. He understood that the deceased was nothing to her; still the moment for playing a four-handed waltz with Kopovski seemed inappropriate. He hada feeling that that showed want of taste. Pani Bronich, who did not lack society keenness, divined evidently that impression on his face.
“Nitechka was moved greatly, and worn out,” said she; “and nothing calms her like music. I was much alarmed, for sinking of the heart had begun with her; and when Pan Kopovski came, I myself proposed that they play something.”
They stopped playing; and Pan Ignas’s unpleasant impression disappeared by degrees. There was for him in that villa a multitude of recent and precious remembrances. About dusk he took Lineta’s arm, and they walked through the rooms. They stopped in various places; he called to mind something every moment.
“Dost remember,” asked he, in the studio, “when painting, thou didst take me by the temple to turn my head aside, and for the first time in life I kissed thy hand; and thy words, ‘Talk with aunt’?—I lost not only consciousness, but breath. Thou, my chosen, my dearest!”
And she answered,—
“And how pale thou wert then!”
“It is difficult not to be pale when the heart is dying in one from emotion; and I loved thee beyond memory.”
Lineta raised her eyes, and said after a while,—
“How wonderful all this is!”
“What, Nitechka?”
“That it begins somehow, and begins as if it were a kind of trial, a kind of play; then one goes farther into it, and all at once the trap falls.”
Pan Ignas pressed her arm to his bosom, and said,—
“Ah, yes! it has fallen! I have my bright maiden, and I won’t let her go.”
Then, walking on, they came to the great drawing-room.
Pan Ignas pointed to the glass door, and said,—
“Our balcony, our acacia-tree.”
It grew darker and darker. Objects in the room were sunk in shade; only here and there, on golden picture frames, gleamed points of light, like eyes of some kind gazing at the young couple.
“Dost thou love me?” asked Pan Ignas.
“Thou knowest.”
“Say yes.”
“Yes.”
Then he pressed her arm more, and said with a voice changed through rising emotion,—
“Thou hast no idea, simply, how much happiness is in thee. I give thee my word; thou hast no idea. Thou knowest not how I love thee. I would give my life for thee. I would give the world for one hair of thine. Thou art my world, my life, my all. I should die without thee.”
“Let us sit down,” whispered Lineta; “I am so wearied.”
They sat down, resting against each other, hidden in the dark. A moment of silence followed.
“What is the matter? Thou art trembling all over,” whispered Lineta.
But she too, whether stirred by remembrances, or borne on by his feeling, or by nearness, began to breathe hurriedly, and, closing her eyes, was the first to put her lips forward toward his.
Meanwhile Kopovski was bored evidently in the adjoining room with Panna Ratkovski and Pani Bronich, for at that moment the tones of the waltz which he had played before with Lineta were heard.
When Pan Ignas returned to his own lodgings, the place seemed the picture of sadness and loneliness, a kind of objectless nomad dwelling, after which there will not be one memory; and he thought that that golden “Nitechka” had so wound herself around his heart that in truth he would not live without her, and could not.
The funeral, on the third day, was not numerously attended. The neighboring estates, as lying near the city belonged for the greater part to rich people, who passed the summer season abroad; hence not many of Pan Zavilovski’s acquaintances had remained in the city. But numerous throngs of villagers had assembled, who, crowding into the church, looked at the coffin as if with wonder that a man of such wealth, wading in property, in money and riches, was going into the ground like the first chance peasant who lived in a hut somewhere. Others looked with envy on the young lady to whom “so much wealth” was to fall. And such is human nature that not only peasants, but refined people, distant or near acquaintances of Pan Zavilovski, were unable even during the burial itself to refrain from thinking what that Panna Helena would do with these millions which were left her for the drying of tears. There were some too, who, supposing young Zavilovski as the last relative of that name, the heir of a considerable part of the property, gave themselves in secret the question whetherthat lucky poet, and millionnaire of the morrow, perhaps, would stop writing verses. And they thought, as if with a certain unexplained satisfaction, that he would probably.
But the chief attention was turned to Panna Helena. All wondered at the resignation with which she bore the loss,—the more painful, since after the death of her father she remained in the world all alone, without relatives nearer than the young poet, and even without friends, concerning whom she had long since ceased to busy herself. She walked after the coffin with a face over which tears were flowing, but which was calm, with that calmness usual to her, but somewhat lifeless and stony. On her return from the church, she spoke of the death of her father as if a number of months at least had passed since it happened. The ladies of Prytulov could not understand that an immense faith was speaking through her; and that in virtue of her faith, that death, in comparison with another, which she had survived, but which had rent her soul, seemed something that was sad, it is true, but at the same time a blessing, pressing out tears of sorrow, but not of despair. In fact, old Pan Zavilovski died very piously, though almost suddenly. From the time of his arrival in Yasmen, he had the habit of confessing twice a week; hence he did not lack religious consolation. He died with the rosary in his hand, in his armchair, having fallen previously into a light sleep, without any suffering; his usual pain having left him a few days before, so that he had even begun to gain the hope of a perfect return of health. Panna Helena, while speaking of this, in her low uniform voice, turned at last to Pan Ignas and said,—
“He mentioned you very often. Perhaps an hour before death he said that if you should come to Buchynek to Pan Polanyetski, to let him know, for he wished to see you without fail. Father loved and esteemed you greatly, greatly.”
“Dear lady,” said Pan Ignas, raising her hands to his lips, “I join you in mourning for him sincerely.”
There was something noble and truthful, as well in his tones as in his words, therefore Panna Helena’s eyes filled with tears; but the weeping of Pani Bronich was so loud that, had it not been for a flask of salts given her by Lineta, it would have passed into a nervous attack, very likely.
But Panna Helena, as if not hearing those sobs, thankedPan Stanislav for the aid which she had received from him,—he had occupied himself with those cares which the death of a near friend imposes, in addition to their misfortune, on those who are bereaved. He took all that on himself because of his active nature, and because at that juncture he seized every chance to occupy himself with something to deaden his thoughts, and escape from the torturing circle of his own meditations.
Marynia did not go to the grave, for her husband did not wish her exposed to crowding and fatigue, but she kept company with Panna Helena in the house, giving her consolation, as she could. Afterward she wished to take her, with the Prytulov ladies, to Buchynek, and even to keep her there a few days. Pan Stanislav supported this request; but as Panna Helena had her old governess at the mansion, she refused, assuring Marynia that in Yasmen it would not be disagreeable at all to her, and that she did not wish to leave it for the first days especially.
But the ladies from Prytulov, who, at the persuasion of Svirski, had intended to visit the Polanyetskis, went willingly with their acquaintances to Buchynek,—all the more since Pani Bronich desired to learn from Pan Stanislav nearer details touching the last moments of the deceased. Marynia, who had looked most curiously at Panna Ratkovski, took her in her carriage, and that happened which happens sometimes in society,—that the two youthful women felt at once an irrestrainable attraction to each other. In Panna Ratkovski’s pensive eyes, in her expression, in her “retiring” face, as Svirski called it, there was something of such character that Marynia divined, at the first glance almost, a nature not bold, accustomed to retire into itself, delicate and sensitive. On the other hand, Panna Ratkovski had heard so much of Marynia from Pan Ignas, and heard because other ladies in Prytulov were not willing to lend their ears to praises of their neighbors, that, seeing in her eyes interest and sympathy, to which, in her poverty and loneliness, she was not accustomed, she nestled up with her whole heart to her. In this way they arrived at Buchynek as good friends, and Svirski, who was with Pan Stanislav, Osnovski, and Kopovski, arrived right after them; it did not need any great acuteness to divine that the judgment of Marynia would be for Panna Steftsia.
But he wished to hear it. Marynia began to show theguests her new residence, which was to be her property, for Pan Stanislav had decided already to buy it. They looked specially at the garden, in which were growing uncommonly old white poplars. Svirski, taking advantage of this walk, gave his arm to Marynia; and on the way back to the house, when the party had scattered somewhat along all the paths, he asked with great precipitance,—
“Well, what is the first impression?”
“The best possible. Ah, what a good and sensitive child that must be! Try to know her.”
“I? What for? I will propose this day. You think I will not do that? Upon my word, I will, to-day—and in Buchynek! I have no time for examination and meditation. In those affairs there must be a little daring. I will make a declaration this day, as true as I am here before you.”
Marynia began to laugh, thinking that he was jesting; but he answered,—
“I am laughing, too, for there is nothing sad in this; it is no harm that this is a funeral day. I am not superstitious; or rather, I am, for I believe that nothing from your hand can be evil.”
“But it is not from my hand; I only made her acquaintance to-day.”
“It is all one to me. I have been afraid of women all my life; but of this one, somehow, I have no fear. She simply cannot be a thankless heart.”
“I think, too, that she cannot.”
“And do you see? this is my last chance. If she accepts me, I will carry her all my life, see?” (here he put his hand in the bosom of his coat); “if not, then—”
“Then what?”
“I’ll shut myself in, and for a whole week will paint from morning till night. I have said that I would go to shoot ducks—but no! This is more important than you think. I judge, however, that she ought to accept me. I know that she does not like that ladies’ butterfly, that Kopovski; she is alone in the world, an orphan; she will do me a kindness, for which I shall be grateful all my days, because, really, I am a kind man—but I fear to grow embittered.”
Marynia saw now, for the first time, that Svirski might speak seriously; and she answered,—
“You are, in truth, a kind man; hence you will never be embittered.”
“On the contrary,” answered he, with great animation, “it might end in that; I will be outspoken with you. Do you think that I am as happy as I seem? God knows that I am not. I have gained a little money and fame; that is true. But perhaps there has not been among men another who has so stretched forth his hands to a womanly ideal as I have. What is the result? I have met you, Pani Bigiel, maybe two or three others, worthy, true, sensible, pure as tears. Permit me! I do not wish to say pleasant things to you; but in what I say now I do not wish to announce a criticism, but to discover my suffering. I have seen among our women so much tinsel, so many common, frivolous natures, so much egotism, so much shallowness, so many thankless hearts, so many dolls from a picture, so many false aspirations, that from sight of them ten such men as I am might be embittered.” After a while he added: “This child seems different; quiet, mild, and very honest. God grant that it come to pass; God grant her to want me!”
At the same time Pani Bronich, taking Pan Stanislav aside openly, spoke with uplifted eyes,—
“Oh, yes! he reminded me of my years of youth; and, as you see, in spite of this—that for a long time relations between us were broken—I preserved friendship for him to the end of his life. You must have heard! but no! you could not have heard, for I have never mentioned this to any one, that it depended on me alone—to be the mother of Helena. Now there is no longer any need to keep the secret. Twice he proposed to me, and twice I refused him. I respected and loved him always; but you will understand that when one is young, something else is sought for,—that is sought for which I found in my Teodor. Oh, that is true! Once he proposed in Ischia, a second time in Warsaw. He suffered much; but what could I do? Would you have acted otherwise if in my place? Tell me sincerely.”
Pan Stanislav, not having the least desire to say, either sincerely or insincerely, how he would have acted in the position of Pani Bronich, replied,—
“Did you wish to ask me about something?”
“Yes, oh, yes! I wanted to ask you about his last moments. Helena said that he died suddenly; but you, who lived so near him, must have visited him, therefore you will remember what he said. Maybe you know whathis last intentions and thoughts were? Personally I have not the least interest in the matter. My God! would it not be difficult to act more disinterestedly? You do not know Nitechka? But Pan Zavilovski gave me his word that he would leave Pan Ignas his estates in Poznan. If he did not keep his word, or if he did not try to keep it, may the Lord God forgive him, as I forgive him! Wealth, of course, amounts to nothing. Who has given a better example than Nitechka of disregard for wealth? Were it the opposite, she would not have refused such matches as the Marquis Jao Colimaçao, or Pan Kanafaropulos. You must have heard also of Pan Ufinski,—that same who, with his famous silhouettes, bought for himself a palace in Venice. His last work was to cut out the Prince of Wales. This very year he proposed to use for Nitechka. Oh, true! if any one has sought wealth, it is not we. But I should not wish Nitechka to think that she had made a sacrifice, for still, between us, she is making a sacrifice, and if considered in society fashion, a great sacrifice.”
Pan Stanislav was an energetic man; angered by the last words of Pani Bronich, he answered,—
“I have not known either the Marquis Jao Colimaçao or Pan Kanafaropulos, but in this country they are rather fantastic names. I will suppose that Panna Castelli marries Pan Zavilovski out of love; in that case, every sacrifice is excluded. I am an outspoken man, and I say what I think. Whether Pan Ignas is a practical man is another question; but Pan Ignas does not know, and he does not want to ask, what Panna Castelli brings him. The ladies know perfectly what he brings, even from a society point of view.”
“Oh, but you have not heard that the Castellis are descended from Marino Falieri.”
“That is precisely what neither I nor any one else has heard. Let us suppose that for me and you such views have no meaning; but since you say, first, that, taking things from a society point of view, Panna Castelli is making a great sacrifice, I do not hesitate to deny that, and to say that, omitting Pan Ignas’s talents and social position, the match is equal.”
From his tone and face it was evident that if Pani Bronich would not stop at what he said, he was ready to speak more openly; but Pani Bronich, having evidently more than one arrow in her quiver, seized Pan Stanislav’s hand, and, shaking it vigorously, exclaimed,—
“Oh, how honest you are, to take the part of Ignas so earnestly, and how I love him, as my own son! Whom have I in the world if not those two? And if I inquire whether you know of any arrangement made by Pan Zavilovski, I do so only through love for Pan Ignas. I know that old people like to put off and put off, just as if death let itself be delayed by that. Oh, death will not be delayed! no, no! Helena has no use for all those millions; but Ignas—he might then spread his wings really. For me and Nitechka the question beyond all questions is his talent. But if anything should come to pass—”
“What can I tell you?” said Pan Stanislav. “That Pan Zavilovski was thinking of Ignas is for me undoubted, and I tell you why. About ten days since, he gave command to bring some old arms to show them to me; thereupon he turned to his daughter, and I heard him say to her, ‘These are not worth enumerating in the will; but after my death give them to Ignas, for you have no use for them.’ From this I infer that either he made some will in favor of Ignas, or thought of it. Further I know nothing, for I made no inquiry of him. Should there be any new will, it will be known in a couple of days, and Panna Helena of a certainty will not hide it.”
“Do you know that honest Helena well? But no, no! You do not know her as I know her, and I can be a surety for her. Never suspect her in my presence! Helena hide a will? Never, sir!”
“Let the lady be so kind as not to ascribe to me a thought which I have not, and from which I guard myself. The will can in no case be concealed, for it is made before witnesses.”
“And do you see that it is not even possible to conceal it, for it is drawn up before witnesses? I was sure that it could not be concealed; but Pan Zavilovski loved Nitechka so much that even out of regard for her, he could not forget Ignas. He carried her in his arms when she was so big, see.” Here Pani Bronich put one hand above the other, so as to give Pan Stanislav in that manner an idea of how big Lineta might have been at the time; but after a while she added, “And maybe she wasn’t even that big.”
Then they returned to the rest of the company, who, having finished a survey of the garden, were assembling for dinner. Pan Stanislav, looking at the charming face of Lineta, thought that when Pan Zavilovski carried herin his arms, she might, in fact, have been a nice and pretty child. Suddenly he remembered Litka, whom he carried in his arms also, and inquired,—
“Then are you an old acquaintance of the deceased?”
“Oh—so,” answered Lineta. “About four years. Aunt, how long is it since we became acquainted with Pan Zavilovski?”
“Of what is that dear head thinking?” exclaimed Pani Bronich. “Ah, my dear, what a happy age! and what a happy period!”
During this time Svirski, who was sitting near Panna Ratkovski, felt that it would not be so easy for him to carry out the promise given Marynia as it had seemed to him. Witnesses hindered him, and, still more, a certain alarm about the heart, joined to a loss of usual presence of mind and freedom. “To think,” said he to himself, “that I am a greater coward than I supposed.” And he did not succeed. He wanted at least to prepare the ground, and he talked of something different from what he wished; he noticed now that Panna Ratkovski had a beautiful neck, and pearl tones about her ears, and a very charming voice—but he noticed with astonishment that this made him still more timid. After lunch the whole company sat together as if through perversity. The ladies were wearied by the funeral; and when, an hour later, Pani Aneta announced that it was time to return, he felt at once a sensation of disappointment and relief.
“It is not my fault,” thought he; “I had a fixed purpose.”
But when the ladies were taking their places, the feeling of solace changed into sorrow for himself. He thought of his loneliness, and of this, that he had no one on whom to bestow his reputation or his property; he thought of his sympathy for Panna Ratkovski, of the confidence which she had roused in him, of the sincere feeling which he had conceived for her at the first glance,—and at the last moment he took courage.
Giving his arm to the young lady to conduct her to the carriage, he said,—
“Pan Osnovski has asked me to come again to Prytulov, and I will come, but with a brush and palette; I should like to have your head.”
And he stopped, trying how to pass from that which he had said to that which he wished to say, and feeling at the sametime that he needed to hurry immensely, for there was no time. But Panna Ratkovski, evidently unaccustomed to this, that any man should occupy himself with her, inquired with unfeigned astonishment,—
“Mine?”
“Permit me to be your echo,” replied Svirski, hurriedly, and in a somewhat stifled voice, “and to repeat that word.”
Panna Ratkovski looked at him as if not understanding what the question was; but at that moment Pani Aneta called her to the carriage, so Svirski had barely time to press her hand and say,—
“Till we meet again.”
The carriage moved on. Her open parasol hid the face of Panna Ratkovski quickly; the artist followed with his eyes the departing ladies, and at last gave himself the question,—
“Have I made a declaration, or not?”
He was certain, however, that Panna Ratkovski would think, during the whole drive, of what he had told her. He thought, also, that he had answered adroitly, and that he had made good use of her question. In this regard he was satisfied; but at the same time he was astonished that he felt neither great joy nor fear, and that he had a certain dull feeling that something was lacking in the whole matter. It seemed to him that, in a moment so important, he was too little moved. And he returned from the gate to the house in thoughtfulness.
Marynia, who had seen the parting from a distance, had red ears from curiosity. Though her husband was not in the room at that moment, she dared not ask first; but Svirski read so clearly in her eyes the question, “Have you proposed?” that he laughed, and answered just as if she had inquired,—
“Yes, almost. Not completely; there was no chance for further conversation, so I could not receive an answer. I do not know even whether I was understood.”
Marynia, not seeing in him that animation with which he had spoken to her before, and, ascribing this to alarm, wished to give him consolation, but the entrance of Pan Stanislav prevented her. Svirski too began to take farewell at once; but wishing evidently to satisfy her curiosity before he went away, he said, not regarding the presence of Pan Stanislav,—
“In every case I shall be in Prytulov to-morrow, or I shall write a letter; I hope that the answer will be favorable.”
Then he kissed her hands with great friendship, and, after a while, found himself alone in his droshky, in clouds of yellow dust, and in his own thoughts.
As an artist he was so accustomed to seizing in artist fashion various details which intruded themselves on his eyes that he did so even now, but mechanically, without proper consciousness, as if only at the surface of his brain. But in the depth of it he was meditating on everything that had happened.
“What the devil, Svirski!” said he to himself; “what is happening to thee? Hast thou not passed twenty-five years so as to be able to jump over this ditch? Has not that happened for which thou wert eager this morning? Where is thy transport? thy delight? Why art thou not shouting, At last! Thou art about to marry! Dost understand, old man? At last! At last!”
But that was vain urging. The internal man remained cold. He understood that what had happened ought to be happiness; but he did not respond to it. Greater and greater astonishment was seizing him. He had acted, it seems, with all knowledge and will and choice. He was not a child, nor frivolous, nor a hysterical person, who knows not what he wants. Having reasoned out, finally, that it would be well, he had not changed his opinion. Panna Ratkovski, too, was ever that same retiring, “very reliable person;” why did the thought that she would be the “little woman,” desired from of old, not warm him more vigorously? Why did hope, changed now almost into certainty, not turn into joy? And at the bottom of his soul there remained a certain feeling of disappointment.
“What I told her,” thought he, “might be adroit, but it was dry. Let a thunderbolt strike me, if it was not, and, besides, it was unfinished. Simply I have no certainty yet, and I do not feel the thing as finished.”
Here the impressions of an artist interrupted the thread of his thought. Sheep scattered on a sloping field visible from the road shaded by distance, and also bathed in the sunlight, seemed on the green background bright spots, with a strong tint of blue fringed with gold.
“Those sheep are sky blue,—impressionists are right in a small degree,” muttered Svirski; “but may the devil take them! I am going to marry!”
And he returned to his meditations. Yes! The result did not answer to his hope and expectation. There arevarious thoughts which a man does not wish to confess to himself; there are feelings also which he does not wish to turn into definite thoughts. So it was with Svirski. He did not love Panna Ratkovski, and here was the direct answer to all the questions which he put to himself. But he dodged this answer as long as he could. He did not like to confess that he took that girl only because he had a great wish to marry. He wanted to explain to himself that he did not feel the affair finished, which was an evasion. He was not in love! Others reached love through a woman; but he wanted to fit a woman to his general internal demand for loving,—that is, he went by a road the reverse of the usual one. Others, having a divinity, built for it a church; he, having a church ready, was bringing into it a divinity, not because he had worshipped the divinity with all his power previously, but because it seemed to him not badly fitted for the architecture of the temple. And now he understood why he had shown so much ardor and resolution in the morning, but was so cold at that moment. By this was explained too the immense impetus in carrying out his plan, and the want of spiritual “halleluia,” after it had been carried out.
Svirski’s astonishment began to pass into sadness. He thought that he would have done better, perhaps, if, instead of thinking so much about a woman, instead of forming theories of what a woman ought to be, he had caught up the first girl who pleased his heart and senses. He understood now that a man loves the woman whom he does love, and that he does not fit to her any preconceived ideas, for ideas of love—like children—can be born only of a woman. All this was the more felt by him since he was conscious that he could love immensely; and he saw more and more positively that he was not loving as he might love. He remembered what in his time Pan Stanislav had told him in Rome of a certain young doctor, who, trampled by a thoughtless puppet, said: “I know what she is; but I cannot tear my soul from her.” There was love strong as death; that man loved! It is unknown why Panna Castelli and Pan Ignas came at once to Svirski’s mind; he remembered also Pan Ignas’s face as he had seen it in Prytulov, lost in contemplation and, as it were, rapt into Heaven.
And again was roused in him the artist, who by whole years of custom takes the place of the man, even when theman is thinking of things the most personal. For a while he forgot himself and Panna Ratkovski, and thought of Pan Ignas’s face, and of that which formed specially its most essential expression. Was it a certain concentrated exaltation? Yes! but there was something else which was still more essential.
And suddenly he trembled.
“A wonderful thing,” thought he; “that is a tragic head.”
A few days later Pan Ignas was summoned by Pan Stanislav, and went to the city. The young man had a great desire to remain in Prytulov; but Panna Helena wished absolutely that he should be present at the opening of her father’s will. He went, therefore, with Pan Stanislav and the grand-nephew of old Pan Zavilovski,—the advocate Kononovich,—for that purpose to Yasmen. But when Pan Ignas, during the two following days, in his letters to “Nitechka,” poured forth on paper only his feelings, and made not the least reference to the will, Pani Bronich, whom such effusions had delighted up to that time, confessed now, as a secret, to Pani Aneta, that that was a stupid way of writing to a betrothed, and that there wasquelque chose de louchein a silence which was as if designed. The first of those letters was sent, it is true, from the city, the second immediately after his arrival in Yasmen; the old lady insisted, however, that in every case Pan Ignas should have mentioned his hopes, at least, for by silence he showed “Nitechka” a lack of confidence, and simply offended her.
Osnovski insisted, on the contrary, that Pan Ignas was silent concerning his hopes through delicacy toward Lineta; and on this subject it came to a little dispute between him and Pani Bronich, who on that occasion uttered a psychic principle, that men in general have too weak a conception of two things: logic and delicacy. “Oh, that is true! As to logic, it is not your fault, perhaps; but you are that way, my Yozio, all of you.” Not being able, however, to stay two days in one place, she went to the city on some plausible pretext, so as to find an informant in the question of the will.
Returning on the following day, she brought with her, first, Pani Mashko, whom she met at the Prytulov station, and who had been wishing for a long time to visit “that dear Anetka,” and second, information that no new will of Pan Zavilovski had been found, and that the only and sole heiress of his immense property was Panna Helena. This news had been received in Prytulov already, by the third letter from Pan Ignas, which Lineta had received meanwhile; still its confirmation by Pani Bronich produced an uncommon impression, so that the arrival of Pani Mashko passed unobserved, as it were. This was all very strange. Those ladies had made the acquaintance of Pan Ignas as a man without property. Lineta became his betrothed when there were no hopes of a will. The affair had been arranged first under the influence of Pani Aneta, who was “firing the boilers, since there was need to move, and move quickly;” it took place under the influence of the general enthusiasm roused by Pan Ignas’s poetry, under the influence of his fame; through the vanity of Pani Bronich and Lineta, which vanity felt not only satisfied, but borne away by this fact, that that famous and celebrated Zavilovski, who had turned all eyes to himself, was kneeling at the feet of no one else, but just “Nitechka.” It took place, finally, for the sake of public opinion, which could not but glorify a young lady who had no thought for property, but only for that mental wealth which Pan Ignas possessed. It is true that, having begun in this way, everything went farther by the force too of that elemental rush, which, when once it has seized people, bears them on, without their will, as the currents of rivers bear objects swept away by them. Be what might, Lineta became the betrothed of a man without property; and had it not been for those hopes which rose afterward, neither she nor Pani Bronich, nor any one else, could have or would have taken it ill of Pan Ignas that he had no inherited fortune. But such is human nature, that just because those hopes had risen, and by rising had made Pan Ignas an imposing match in the full measure, no one could help feeling a certain disappointment when they were blown apart now by the wind of reality. Some were grieved sincerely; others, like Kopovski and like Pani Mashko, who did not know herself why, felt a certain satisfaction at such a turn of affairs, but even such a true friend as Osnovski could not resist some feeling of disappointment.
Pan Ignas, in his last letter to Lineta, wrote among other things: “I should like to have wealth for thy sake; but what meaning has all wealth for me if compared with thee! I say sincerely that I have ceased to think of it; and I know that thou, whose feet walk not on the earth, art troubled no more than I am. And, as truly as I love thee, I am not troubled at all. These great assurances which I make are for me immensely sacred; hence thou must believe ma. Various wants and lacks threaten people in life, but Itell thee this simply, I will not give thee to any one. Thou art my golden! my one dear child, and lady.”
Lineta showed this letter to Pani Aneta, to Panna Ratkovski, and on the arrival of her aunt, to her aunt, of course. Pan Ignas had, indeed, not deceived himself as to her in this regard at least, that if in all Prytulov there was no talk of anything but old Pan Zavilovski’s will, Lineta would be silent amid those conversations and regrets. It may be that her eyes assumed to a certain degree their former dreamy expression; maybe at the very corners of her mouth, when people spoke of Pan Ignas, something like a minute wrinkle of contempt might be gathered; maybe, finally, she talked very much with “aunt” evenings, when, after the general good-night, they went to their own rooms; but like a person who “does not walk on the earth,” never did she raise her voice in this question before people.
“Koposio,” once on a time, when they were left alone for a minute, began to talk with her about it; but she put her finger first to her own lips, and then pointed from a distance toward his lips, in sign that she did not wish such conversation. What is more, even Pani Bronich spoke before her little and guardedly concerning her disappointment. But when “Nitechka” was not in the room, the old woman could not stop the flow to her mouth of that bitterness which had risen in her heart; this flow carried her a number of times so far that she lacked little of quarrelling with Osnovski.
Osnovski, casting from his soul that feeling of disappointment which he had not been able to ward off at first, tried now with all his power to decrease the significance of the catastrophe, and show that Ignas was in general an exceptional match, and even in a financial view, quite a good one.
“I do not think,” said he, “that he would have stopped writing had he been old Zavilovski’s heir; but the mere management of such an immense property would have taken so much time that his talent might have suffered. As the question is of Ignas, I remember, aunt, what Henry VIII. said, when some prince threatened Holbein: ‘I can make ten lords out of ten peasants, if the fancy comes to me; but out of ten lords I cannot make one Holbein.’ Ignas is an exceptional man. Believe me, aunt, I have always considered Lineta a charming and honest girl, and have always loved her; but she really rose in my eyes only when she appreciated Ignas. To be something in the life of aman like him, is what any woman might envy her. Is it not true, Anetka?”
“Of course,” answered Pani Osnovski; “it is pleasant for a woman to belong to a man who is something.”
Osnovski seized his wife’s hand, and, kissing it, said, half in jest, half in earnest,—
“And dost thou not think that this often torments me, that such a being as thou art should belong to such a zero as Yozio Osnovski? But it is hard to help it! The thing has happened; and, besides, the zero loves much.”
Then he turned to Pani Bronich,—
“Think, aunt,” said he, “Ignas has a number of thousands of rubles of his own; and, besides, after his father’s death he will have what old Zavilovski secured to him. Poor he will not be.”
“Oh, naturally,” answered Pani Bronich, shaking her head contemptuously; “Nitechka, in accepting Zavilovski, did not look for money, of course; if she had looked for money, it would have been enough for us to raise a hand at Pan Kanafaropulos.”
“Aunt! Mercy!” exclaimed Pani Aneta, laughing.
“But nothing has happened,” said Osnovski. “It is sure that Panna Helena will not marry, and the property will pass sometime, if not to Ignas, to his children,—that’s the whole affair.”
Seeing, however, that the face of Pani Bronich was depressed continually, he added after a while,—
“Well, aunt, more agreement with the will of God! more calmness. Ignas is not an inch less.”
“Of course,” answered she, with a tinge of anger; “of course all that changes nothing. Zavilovski in his way has talent; and every one must confess that in his way he forms a match beyond all expectations. Oh, yes; of this there cannot be two opinions. Of course nothing is to be said of the property, all the more since people tell various things of the ways by which old Pan Zavilovski increased it so greatly. May God be good to him, and pardon him for having deceived me, it is unknown why! This very day Nitechka and I prayed for his soul. It was difficult to do otherwise. Of course I should prefer that he had not had that inclination to untruth, for it may be a family trait. Nitechka and I would prefer, too, that Pan Ignas had given us less frequently to understand that he would be an heir of Pan Zavilovski.”
“I beg pardon most earnestly,” interrupted Osnovski, with vigor. “He never gave that to be understood. Aunt will permit—this is too much. He did not wish to mention it; aunt asked him in my presence.”
But Pani Bronich was in her career, and nothing could stop her; so she said, with growing irritation,—
“He did not give Yozio to understand this, but he gave me to understand it. Nitechka can testify. Besides, I said to Yozio, ‘Never mind this matter.’ Of course nothing has changed; and if we have some grief, it is at least not from this cause. Yozio has never been a mother; and as a man he can never understand how much fear we mothers feel at the last moment before giving a child into strange hands. I have learned of late, just now, that Zavilovski, with all his qualities, has a violent temper; and he has. I have always suspected him of something similar; and that being so, it would be simply death for Nitechka. Pan Polanyetski himself did not deny that he has a violent temper. Pan Polanyetski himself, though his friend, so far as men can be friends, gave to understand that his father, too, had a violent temper, and because of it fell into insanity, which may be in the family. I know that Pan Ignas seems to love Nitechka, in as far as men can love truly; but will that love last long? That he is selfish, Yozio himself will not deny; for that matter, you are all selfish. Then let Yozio not be astonished that in these recent hours terror seizes me when I think that my darling may fall into the hands of a tyrant, a madman, and an egotist.”
“No,” cried Osnovski, turning to his wife; “as I love thee, one’s ears simply wither; one may simply lose one’s head.”
But Pani Aneta seemed to amuse herself with that conversation as she would in a theatre. The quarrels of her husband with Pani Bronich always amused her; but now she was carried away more than usual, for Pani Bronich, looking at Osnovski as if with pity, continued,—
“Besides, that sphere! All those Svirskis and Polanyetskis and Bigiels! We are blinded in Zavilovski, all of us; but, to tell the truth, is that sphere fit for Nitechka? Hardly. The Lord God himself made a difference between people; and from that comes a difference in breeding. Perhaps Yozio does not give himself a clear account of this, for, in general, men are unable to give account to themselves of such matters; but I tell Yozio that there areshades and shades, which in life may become enormously important. Has Yozio forgotten who Nitechka is, and that if anything pains such a person as Nitechka, if anything wounds her, she may pay for it with her life? Let Yozio think who those people are, speaking among ourselves,—such people as the Polanyetskis, and such men as Svirski, and that whole company with which Pan Ignas associates, and with which he will force Nitechka to associate, perhaps!”
“Well, let us take things from that point of view,” interrupted Osnovski. “Very well! Let it be so. First of all, then, who was old Pan Zavilovski? That aunt knows clearly enough, even out of regard to her own relations with him. If it is a question, aunt, of the sphere, I have the honor to say that we all, in relation to such people as the Polanyetskis, are parvenus, and are taking liberties with them. I never enter into genealogies; but since aunt wants them, let aunt have them. Aunt must have heard that the Svirskis are princes. That line which settled in Great Poland dropped the title, but has the right to it; that is who they are. As to us, my grandfather was a manager in the Ukraine, and I do not think of denying that. Out of what did the Broniches grow? Aunt knows better than I do. I do not touch that matter; but, since we are alone, we can speak openly. Of the Castellis, too, aunt knows.”
“The Castellis are descended from Marino Falieri,” exclaimed Pani Bronich, with enthusiasm.
“Beloved aunt! I remind thee that we are alone.”
“But it depended on Nitechka to become the Marchioness Colimaçao.”
“La vie parisienne!” answered Osnovski. “Aunt knows that operetta. There is a Swiss admiral in it.”
Pani Aneta was amused to perfection; but it became disagreeable to Osnovski that he had raised in his own house reminiscences which were not agreeable to Pani Bronich, hence he added,—
“But why all our talk? Aunt knows how I have always loved Nitechka, and how from the core of my heart I wished her to be worthy of Ignas.”
But this was pouring oil on the flames, for Pani Bronich, hearing this blasphemy, lost the last of her cool blood, and exclaimed,—
“Nitechka worthy of Ignas? Such a—”
Happily the entrance of Pani Mashko interrupted further conversation. Aunt Bronich was silent, as if indignationhad stopped the words in her mouth; Pani Aneta began to inquire of Pani Mashko what the rest of the company were doing, and where she had left them.
“Pan Kopovski, Lineta, and Stefania remained in the conservatory,” answered Pani Mashko; “the two ladies are painting orchids, and Pan Kopovski amused us.”
“How?” asked Osnovski.
“With conversation; we laughed heartily. He told us that his acquaintance, Pan Vyj, who very likely is a great man at heraldry, told him in all seriousness that there is a family in Poland with the escutcheon, ‘Table legs.’”
“If there is one,” muttered Osnovski, humorously, “it is the family of the Kopovskis, beyond doubt.”
“And did Steftsia remain, too, in the conservatory?” asked Pani Aneta.
“Yes; they are sketching together.”
“Dost wish to go to them?”
“Let us go.”
But at that moment the servant brought letters, which Pan Osnovski looked over, and delivered. “For Anetka, for Anetka!” said he; “this little literary woman has an enormous correspondence always. For you,” added he, turning to Pani Mashko; “for aunt; and this is for Steftsia,—somehow a known hand, quite familiar. The ladies will permit me to carry her this letter.”
“Of course; go,” said Pani Aneta, with animation; “and we will read ours.”
Osnovski took the letter and went in the direction of the conservatory, looking at it, and repeating, “Whence do I know this hand?—as if—I know that I have seen this hand.”
In the conservatory he found three young people, sitting under a great arum at a yellow iron table, on which the orchid was standing. Both ladies were painting it in albums. Kopovski, a little behind them, dressed in a white-flannel costume and black stockings, was looking over the shoulders of the young ladies into the albums, smoking meanwhile a slender cigarette, which he had taken from an elegant cigarette-case lying near the flower-pot.
“Good-day!” said Osnovski. “What do you think of my orchids? Splendid, aren’t they? What peculiar flowers they are! Steftsia, here is a letter; ask the company to excuse thee, and read it, for it seems to me that I know the handwriting, but I cannot in any way remember whose it can be.”
Panna Ratkovski opened the letter, and began to read. After a while her face changed; a flame passed over her forehead, then paleness, and again a flame. Osnovski looked at her with curiosity. When she had finished reading, she showed him the signature, and said, with a voice which trembled somewhat,—
“See from whom the letter is.”
“Ah!” said Osnovski, who understood everything at once.
“May I ask thee for a moment’s talk?”
“At once, my child,” answered he, as if with a certain tenderness; “I will serve thee.”
And they went out of the conservatory.
“But they have left us alone for once even,” said Kopovski, naïvely.
Lineta did not answer; but, taking Kopovski’s white-leather cigarette-case, which was lying on the table, began to draw it across her face gently.
He looked at that beautiful face with his wonderful eyes, beneath which she simply melted. Lineta had known for a long time what to think of him; his boundless stupidity had no longer any secret from her. Still the exquisiteness and incomparable beauty of that dullard brought her plebeian blood into some uncommon movement. Every hair in his beard had a certain marvellous and irresistible charm for her.
“Have you noticed that for a long time they are watching us, like I know not whom?” continued Kopovski.
But she, feigning not to hear, continued to draw the cigarette-case across her delicate face, and, bringing it nearer and nearer to her lips, said,—
“How soft this is; how pleasant to the touch!”
Kopovski took the cigarette-case; but he put it to his lips and began to kiss lightly the part which a while before had touched Lineta’s face. Then a moment of silence rose between them.
“We must go from here,” said Lineta.
And, taking the pot of orchids, she wished to put it on steps in the conservatory; she was not able to do so, however, because of the slope of those steps.
“Permit me,” said Kopovski.
“No, no!” answered Lineta; “it would fall, and be broken; I will put it on the other side.”
Saying this, she went with the pot of orchids in herhands around to the other side of the steps, where between them and the wall was a narrow passage. Kopovski followed her. There she stepped on to a pile of bricks, and put the orchids on the highest step; but at the moment when she turned to descend, the bricks moved under her feet, and she began to totter. Just at that moment, Kopovski, who was standing behind, caught her by the waist.
For a few seconds they remained in that posture, she leaning with her shoulder against his breast, he drawing her toward him. Lineta leaned over more, so that at last her head was on his shoulder.
“What are you doing? This is wrong!” she began to whisper, with panting breast, surrounding him with her hot breath.
But he, instead of an answer, pressed his mustaches to her lips. All at once her arms embraced his neck with a passionate movement, and she began breathlessly and madly to return his kisses.
In their ecstasy, neither observed that Osnovski, in returning through the open doors of the conservatory, passed along on the soft sand beyond the entrance, and looked at them with a face changed and pale as linen from emotion.
Meanwhile Pan Ignas spent the time between Warsaw and Buchynek, going from one place to the other daily, remaining now here, now there, just as his work and business commanded. Since his marriage was to take place in the fall, immediately after the season in Scheveningen, Pan Stanislav told him that it was time to find a dwelling, and furnish it, even in some fashion. He and Bigiel promised every assistance in that affair. Pani Bigiel was to see to the part which pertained to housekeeping. Pan Ignas’s presence in Buchynek was necessary also in view of his relations with Panna Helena. Though the will of her father, bearing date a year earlier, made her the only heiress of the whole immense property, she did not hide in the least that she knew that her father did not make another will simply because either he had not foreseen a death so sudden, or had deferred the matter from day to day, in the manner of old people. She had not the least doubt, however, that her father wished to do something for a man of the same name, and a relative; and she said openly that she held it a duty to carry out her father’s wish. No one, it is true, could foresee in what measure she would decide to do that; and for her too it was difficult to answer such a question, before she had made an exact inventory of all the properties and moneys; meanwhile, however, she began to present Pan Ignas with everything which, in her opinion, male heirs should inherit. In this way, she gave him a part of the household plate, left after the deceased, as well as a considerable and valuable collection of arms, which the old man prized, and horses greatly esteemed by him,—these Polanyetski took on commission; and, finally, that collection of pipes the fate of which had concerned Kopovski so much.
Cold, and apparently indifferent to all, intimidating people by her severe and concentrated expression of face, she had for Pan Ignas alone, in her voice and look, a certain something almost motherly; just as if with the property she had inherited from her father his inclination for the young man. He was indeed the only person on earth with whomshe was connected by bonds of blood, or at least by identity of name. Learning from Pan Stanislav of the steps taken by Pan Ignas toward furnishing a house, she begged him to put in the bank for her a considerable sum in the name of “Pan Ignas,” for outlays toward that end, begging, however, not to mention the matter to him immediately.
Pan Ignas, who had a young and grateful heart, became attached to her quickly, as to an elder sister; and she felt perfectly that sympathy of two natures, who wish each other well, and feel mutual confidence. Time usually changes original sympathies of that sort into great, enduring friendship, which in evil periods of life may be of great support. But at that juncture, Pan Ignas could devote to her barely a tiny part of his soul; for he had applied soul, heart, and all his powers, with the entire exclusiveness of a fanatic in love, to the greater and greater adoration of “Nitechka.”
Meanwhile he was as busy as a fly in a pot, between Buchynek and the city, and even made new acquaintances. One of these was Professor Vaskovski; who had returned from his pilgrimage among the “youngest of the Aryans.” He had visited the shores of the Adriatic, and the entire Balkan peninsula; but the state of his health was so pitiful that Pan Stanislav took him for good to Buchynek, to save the poor man from being cheated, and to give him needful care, which in his loneliness he could not have found in another place. Pan Ignas, himself a person of lofty soul, and ready to grasp every broad idea, though it might seem absurd to common-sense fools, conceived from the first day a love for the old man, with his theory of a historical mission predestined to the youngest of the Aryans. Of this theory he had heard already more than once from Svirski and Polanyetski, and considered it a splendid dream. But it struck him and Svirski and the Polanyetskis that the professor, on returning from his journey, answered only that “No one could escape the service which Christ had preordained to him;” then he gazed forward with his mystic eyes, as if seeking something, or looking for something in infinity, and his old face took on an expression of such deep sorrow, and even of such pain, that no one had the heart to touch that particular question. The doctor called in by Polanyetski declared that the greasy kitchen of the youngest of the Aryans had given the old man a serious catarrh of the stomach, to which was addedmarasmussenilis. The professor had, in fact, a serious catarrh of the stomach; but Pan Ignas divined in him something else,—namely, a desperate struggle between doubt and that in which he believed, and to which, as a real maniac-idealist, he had devoted a lifetime. Pan Ignas alone understood the whole tragedy of such a finalergo erravi; and he was doubly moved,—first, as a man with a heart, second, as a poet, who at once saw a theme for a poem: the old man before the house, in the sun, sitting on the ruin of his life and beliefs, with the words, “vanity, vanity,” on his lips, and waiting for death, whose steps he hears now in the distance.
But with the professor it was not so bad, perhaps, as Pan Ignas had imagined. “The youngest of the Aryans” might, indeed, have disappointed him; but there remained the faith that Christianity had not uttered its last word yet, and that the coming epoch in the life of humanity would not be anything else than a spreading of the spirit of Christ, and a transfer of it from relations between individuals to general human relations. “Christ in history” did not cease to be for him a vision of the future. He believed even always that the mission of introducing love into history was predestined to the youngest of the Aryans; but from the time of his journey a deep sadness had seized him, for he understood that, before that could be realized, not only he, but whole generations, must die of catarrh of the stomach, caused by the indigestible kitchen of principalities on the Danube.
Meanwhile he shut himself up in himself, and in silence which had more the appearance of life-sorrow than it was in reality. Of his “idea,” he hardly ever spoke directly, but the idea was evident. Just as the hand of a clock, stopped at a certain hour, never indicates any hour but that, so the indicator of his thought did not desert that idea; for to various questions he answered with words which were rather connected with it than the thing touching which he was questioned. Whenever they wished to call him back to reality, it was needful to rouse him. In dress he neglected himself utterly, and seemed every day to forget more and more that buttons on a vest, for example, are there to be buttoned. With his eternal absence of mind; with his eyes both short-sighted and child-like, reflecting in some mechanical way external impressions; with a face of concern, on which pimples had become still more evident because of defective digestion; finally, with a neglectof dress, and his wonderful trousers, which, it is unknown for what reason, were twice as wide as the trousers of other men,—he roused mirth in strangers, and became frequently the object of jokes more or less malicious. It seems that he roused such feelings first of all in the “youngest of the Aryans.” In general, they considered him as a man in whose head the staves lacked a hoop; but some showed him compassion. The word “harmless” struck his ears frequently, but he feigned not to hear it. He felt, however, that at Pan Stanislav’s he was comfortable; that no one laughed at him, no one showed him the compassion shown idiots.
Finally, neither the too greasy kitchen of the “youngest of the Aryans,” nor the catarrh of the stomach, had taken away his boundless forbearance, and his kindness to people. He was always that dear old professor who fell into revery, but who recovered his senses when it was a question of others. He loved, as of old, Marynia, Pan Stanislav, Pani Emilia, Svirski, the Bigiels, even Mashko,—in a word, all those with whom life had brought him in contact. In general, he had a certain strange understanding of people; namely, that all, whether willing or unwilling, were serving some purpose, and were like pawns which the hand of God is moving for reasons which He Himself knows. Artists, like Svirski, he esteemed as envoys who “reconcile.”
He looked in the same way on Pan Ignas, whose poetry he had read before. On becoming acquainted with the author, he looked at him as curiously as at some peculiar object; but in the morning, when the poet had gone to the city, and they began to talk about him during tea, the old man raised his finger, and, turning to Marynia, said, with a look of mystery,—
“Oh, he is God’s bird! He does not know what God wrote on his head nor to what He designed him.”
Marynia told him of Pan Ignas’s approaching marriage, of his feeling for Panna Lineta, and of her, praising her goodness and beauty.
“Yes,” said the professor, when he had heard all, “you see she too has her mission, and she too is ‘chosen.’ God commanded her to watch over that flame; and since she is chosen, she should be honored for having been chosen. Do you see? Favor is upon her.” Then he grew thoughtful and added, “All this is precious for humanity in the future.”
Pan Stanislav looked at his wife, as if wishing to say that the professor was dreaming disconnectedly; but the latter blinked somewhat, and, looking before him, continued,—
“There is in the sky a Milky Way; and when God wishes, He takes dust from it and makes new worlds. And you see, I think there is likewise a spiritual Milky Way, made up of all that people have ever thought and felt. Everything is in it,—what genius has accomplished, what talent has wrought; in it are the efforts of men’s minds, the honesty of women’s hearts, human goodness, and people’s pains. Nothing perishes, though everything turns to dust, for out of that dust, by the will of God, new spiritual worlds are created for people.”
Then he began to blink, weighing what he had said; after that, as if coming to himself, he looked for the buttons of his vest, and added,—
“But that young woman must have a soul pure as a tear, since God pointed her out and designated her to be the guardian of that fire.”
Svirski’s arrival interrupted further conversation. For Marynia it was not a surprise, as the artist had promised her that either he would come himself or write to inform her what turn his affair had taken. Marynia, seeing him now through the window, was nearly certain that all had ended auspiciously; but when he had entered the room and greeted every one, he looked at her with such a strange face that she did not know what to divine from it. Evidently he wished to speak of the affair, and that immediately; but he did not like to do so before the old professor and Pan Stanislav. So the latter, to whom Marynia had told everything, came to his aid, and, pointing to his wife, said,—
“She needs a walk greatly; take her to the garden, for I know that she and you have some words to say.”
After a while they found themselves in the alley among the white poplars. They walked a time in silence, he swaying on his broad hips of an athlete, and seeking for something from which to begin, she bent somewhat forward, with her kindly face full of curiosity. Both were in a hurry to speak, but Svirski began at another point.
“Have you told all to your husband?” asked he, on a sudden.
Marynia blushed as if caught in a fault, and answered,—
“Yes; for Stas is such a friend of yours, and I do not like to have secrets from him.”
“Of course not,” said Svirski, kissing her hand. “You did well. I am not ashamed of that, just as I am not ashamed of this, that I got a refusal.”
“Impossible! You are joking,” said Marynia, halting.
“I give you my word that I am not.” And, seeing the pain which the news caused her, he began to speak as if with concern. “But don’t take it more to heart than I do. That happened which had to happen. See, I have come; I am standing before you; I have not fired into my forehead, and have no thought of doing so; but that I got a basket[12]is undoubted.”
“But why? what did she answer you?”
“Why? what did she answer me?” repeated Svirski. “You see, just in that is hidden something from which there is a bitter taste in my mouth. I confess to you sincerely that I did not love Panna Ratkovski deeply. She pleased me; they all please me. I thought that she would be an honest and grateful heart, and I made a declaration here; but more through calculation, and because it was time for me. Afterward I had even a little burning at the heart. There was even a moment when I said to myself, ‘Thy declaration in Buchynek was not precise enough: better put it forward another corner.’ I grew shamefaced. ‘What the deuce!’ thought I; ‘thou hast crossed the threshold with one foot; go over with the other.’ And I wrote her a letter, this time with perfect precision; and see what she has written as an answer.”
Then he drew a letter from his coat-pocket, and said, before he began to read it,—
“At first there are the usual commonplaces, which you know. She esteems me greatly; she would be proud and happy (but she prefers not to be); she nourishes for me sincere sympathy. (If she will nourish her husband as she does that sympathy, he will not be fat.) But at the end she says as follows:—