Thinking thus, he felt that the cap was burning on his head; and he reached home with a feeling of alarm. At home he did not find Pani Mashko; but Marynia gave him a card from Panna Helena, asking him to come after dinner to see her.
“I fear that Ignas is worse,” said Marynia.
“No; I ran in there for a moment in the morning. Panna Helena was at some conference with the attorney, Kononovich; but I saw Panna Ratkovski and Pan Ignas. He was perfectly well, and spoke to me joyously.”
At dinner Pan Stanislav resolved to tell Marynia of the news which he had heard, for he knew that it could not be concealed from her anyhow, and he did not wish that it should be brought to her too suddenly and incautiously.
When she asked what was to be heard in the counting-house and the city, he said,—
“Nothing new in the counting-house; but in the city they are talking about certain misunderstandings between the Osnovskis.”
“Between the Osnovskis?”
“Yes; something has happened in Ostend. Likely the cause of all is Kopovski.”
Marynia flushed from curiosity, and asked,—
“What dost thou say, Stas?”
“I say what I heard. Thou wilt remember my remarks on the evening of Pan Ignas’s betrothal? It seems that I was right; I will say, in brief, that there was a certain history, and, in general, that it was bad.”
“But thou hast said that Kopovski is the betrothed of Panna Castelli.”
“He has been, but he is not now. Everything may be broken in their case.”
The news made a great impression on Marynia; she wanted to inquire further, but when Pan Stanislav told her that he knew nothing more, and that in all likelihood more detailed news would come in some days, she fell to lamenting the fate of Osnovski, whom she had always liked much, and was indignant at Pani Aneta.
“I thought,” said she, “that he would change her, and attract her by his love; but she is not worthy of him, and Pan Svirski is right in what he says about women.”
The conversation was interrupted by Plavitski, who, after an early dinner at the restaurant, had come to tell the “great news,” which he had just heard, for all the city was talking of it. Pan Stanislav thought then that he had done well to prepare Marynia, for in Plavitski’s narrative the affair took on colors which were too glaring. Plavitski mentioned, it is true, in the course of his story, “principles and matrons” of the old time; but apparently he was satisfied that something of such rousing interest had happened, and evidently he took the affair, too, from the comic side, for at the end he said,—
“But she is a mettlesome woman! she is a frolicker! Whoever was before her was an opponent! She let no man pass, no man! Poor Osnosio! but she letno manpass.”
Here he raised his brows, and looked at Marynia and Pan Stanislav, as if wishing to see whether they understood what “no man” meant. But on Marynia’s face disgust was depicted.
“Fe! Stas,” said she, “how all that is not only dishonorable, but disgusting!”
After dinner Pan Stanislav went to Panna Helena’s. Pan Ignas wore a black bandage on his forehead yet, with a wider plaster in the centre, covering a wound; he stuttered, and, when looking, squinted somewhat; but, in general, he was coming to himself more and more, and looked on himself as recovered already. The doctor asserted that those marks which remained from the wound yet were disappearing without a trace. When Pan Stanislav entered, the young man was sitting at a table in a deep armchair, in which old Pan Zavilovski used to sit formerly, and was listening with closed eyes to verses which Panna Ratkovski was reading. But she closed the book at sight of a visitor.
“Good-evening,” said Pan Stanislav to her. “How art thou, Ignas? I see that I have interrupted a reading. In what are you so interested?”
Panna Ratkovski turned her closely-clipped head to the book,—her hair had been luxuriant before, but she cut it so as not to occupy time needed for the sick man,—and answered,—
“This is Pan Zavilovski’s poetry.”
“Thou art listening to thy own poetry?” said Pan Stanislav, laughing. “Well, how does it please thee?”
“I hear it as if it were not my own,” replied Pan Ignas. After a while he added, speaking slowly, and stuttering a little, “But I shall write again as soon as I recover.”
It was evident that this thought occupied him greatly, and that he must have mentioned it more than once; for Panna Ratkovski, as if wishing to give him pleasure, said,—
“And the same kind of beautiful verses, and not too long.”
He smiled at her with gratitude, and was silent. But at that moment Panna Helena entered the room, and pressing Pan Stanislav’s hand, said,—
“How well it is that you have come! I wanted to take counsel with you.”
“I am at your service.”
“I beg you to come to my room.”
She conducted him to the adjoining room, indicated a chair to him, then, sitting down opposite, was silent, as if collecting her thoughts.
Pan Stanislav, looking at her under the lamp, noticed, for the first time, a number of silvery threads in her bright hair, and remembered that that woman was not thirty yet.
She began to speak in her cool and decisive voice,—
“I do not request counsel precisely, but assistance for my relative. I know that you are a real friend of his, and, besides, you have shown me so much kindness at the death of my father that I shall be grateful the rest of my life for it; and now I will speak more openly with you than with any one else. For personal reasons, which I will not touch, and of which I can only say that they are very painful, I have decided to create for myself other conditions of life,—conditions for me more endurable. I should have done so long since, but while my father was living I could not. Then Ignas’s misfortune came. It seemed to me my duty not to desert the last relative bearing our name, for whom, besides, I have a heartfelt and real friendship. But now, thanks be to God! he is saved. The doctors answer for his life; and if God has given him exceptional capacities and predestined him to great things, nothing stands in the way of his activity.”
Here she stopped, as if she had fallen to thinking suddenly of something in the future, after which, when she had roused herself, she spoke on,—
“But by his recovery my last task is finished, and I am permitted to return to my original plan. There remains only the property of which my father left a considerable amount, and which would be altogether useless to me in my coming mode of life. If I could consider this property my own personally, I might dispose of it otherwise, perhaps; but since it is family property, I consider that I have no right to devote it to foreign objects while any one of the family is alive who bears the name. I do not conceal from you that attachment to my cousin moves me; but I judge that I do above all that which conscience commands, and besides carry out the wish of my father, who did not succeed in writing his will, but who—I know with all certainty—wished to leave a part of his property to Ignas. I have provided for myself not in the degree which my father thought of doing, but still I take more than I need. Ignas inherits the rest. The act of conveyance has been writtenby Pan Kononovich according to all legal rules. It includes this house, Yasmen, the property in Kutno, the estates in Poznan and the moneys with the exception of that portion which I have retained for myself, and a small part which I have reserved for Panna Ratkovski. It is a question now only of delivering this document to Ignas. I have asked two doctors if it is not too early, and if the excitement might not harm him. They assure me that it is not too early, and that every agreeable news may only act on his health beneficially. This being the case, I wish to finish the matter at once, for I am in a hurry.”
Here she smiled faintly. Pan Stanislav, pressing her hand, asked, with unfeigned emotion,—
“Dear lady, I do not inquire through curiosity, What do you intend?”
Not wishing evidently to give an explicit answer, she said,—
“A person has the right always to take refuge under the care of God. As to Ignas, he has an honest heart and a noble character, which will not be injured by wealth; but the property is very considerable, and he is young, inexperienced; he will begin life in conditions changed altogether,—hence I wish to ask you, as a man of honor and his friend, to have guardianship over him. Care for him, keep him from evil people, but above all remind him that his duty is to write and work further. For me it was a question, not only of saving his life, but his gifts. Let him write; let him pay society, not for himself only, but for those too whom God created for His own glory and the assistance of men, but who destroyed both themselves and their gifts.”
Here her lips became pale on a sudden, her hands closed, and the voice stopped in her throat. It might seem that the despair accumulated in her soul would break all bounds immediately; but she mastered herself after a while, and only her clinched hands testified what the effort was which that action had cost her.
Pan Stanislav, seeing her suffering, judged that it would be better to turn her thought in another direction, toward practical and current affairs; hence he said,—
“Evidently this will be an unheard of change in the life of Ignas; but I too hope that it will result only in good. Knowing him, it is difficult to admit another issue. But could you not defer the act for a year, or at least half a year?”
“Why?”
“For reasons which do not lie in Ignas himself, but which might have connection with him. I do not know whether the news has reached you that the marriage of Panna Castelli to Kopovski is broken, and that the position of those ladies is tremendously awkward in consequence. Through breaking with Ignas, they have made public opinion indignant, and now their names are on people’s tongues again. It would be for them a perfect escape to return to Ignas; and it is possible to suppose that when they learn of your gift, they will surely attempt this, and it is unknown whether Ignas, especially after so short an interval, and weakened as he is, might not let himself be involved by them.”
Panna Helena looked at Pan Stanislav with brows contracted from attention, and, dwelling on what he said, she answered,—
“No. I judge that Ignas will choose otherwise.”
“I divine your thought,” said Pan Stanislav; “but think,—he was attached to that other one beyond every estimate, to such a degree that he did not wish to outlive the loss of her.”
Here something happened which Pan Stanislav had not expected, for Panna Helena, who had always such control of herself and was almost stern, opened her thin arms in helplessness, and said,—
“Ah, if that were true,—if there were not for him any other happiness save in her! Oh, Pan Polanyetski, I knew that he ought not to do that; but there are things stronger than man, and they are things which he needs for life absolutely—and besides—”
Pan Stanislav looked at her with astonishment; after a while she added,—
“Besides, while one lives, one may enter on a better road any moment.”
“I did not suppose that I should hear anything like this from her,” thought Pan Stanislav. And he said aloud,—
“Then let us go to Ignas.”
Pan Ignas received the news first with amazement, and then with delight; but that delight was as if external. It might be supposed that, by the aid of his brain, he understood that something immensely favorable had met him, and that he had told himself that he must be pleased with it, but that he did not feel it with his heart. His heartdeclared itself only in the care and interest with which he asked Panna Helena what she intended to do with herself, and what would become of her. She was not willing to answer him, and stated, in general terms, that she would withdraw from the world, and that her resolve was unchangeable. She implored of him this, which clearly concerned her most, not to waste his powers and disappoint people who were attached to him. She spoke as a mother, and he, repeating, “I will write again the moment I recover,” kissed her hands and had tears in his eyes. It was not known, however, whether those tears meant sympathy for her, or the regret of a child abandoned by a good and kind nurse; for Panna Helena told him that from that moment she considered herself a guest in his house, and in two days would withdraw. Pan Ignas would not agree to this, and extorted the promise from her to remain a week longer. She yielded at last, through fear of exciting him and injuring his health. Then he grew calm, and was as gladsome as a little boy whose prayer has been granted. Toward the end of the evening, however, he grew thoughtful, as if remembering something, looked around with astonished eyes on those present, and said,—
“It is wonderful, but it seems to me as if all this had happened before some time.”
Pan Stanislav, wishing to give a more cheerful tone to the conversation, asked, laughing,—
“Was it during previous existences on other planets? It was, was it not?”
“In that way everything might have happened some other time,” said Pan Ignas.
“And you have written the very same verses already—on the moon?”
He took up a book lying on the table, looked at it, grew thoughtful, and said at last,—
“I will write again, but when I recover completely.”
Pan Stanislav took farewell and went out. That evening Panna Ratkovski removed to her little chamber at Pani Melnitski’s.
The separation of the Osnovskis, who in social life occupied a position rather prominent, and the great fortune which fell on a sudden to Pan Ignas, were the items of news with which the whole city was occupied. People who supposed that Panna Helena had taken the young man to her house to marry him were stunned from amazement. New gossip and new suppositions rose. People began to whisper that Pan Ignas was a son of old Zavilovski; that he had threatened his sister with a law-suit for concealing the will; that she chose to renounce all and go abroad rather than be exposed to a scandalous law-suit. Others declared that the cause of her departure was Panna Ratkovski; that between those two young ladies scenes had taken place unparalleled,—scenes to arouse indignation. In consequence of this, self-respecting houses would not permit Panna Ratkovski to cross their thresholds. There were others, too, who, appearing in the name of public good, refused simply to Panna Helena the right of disposing of property in that fashion, giving at the same time to understand that they would have acted more in accord with public benefit.
In a word, everything was said that gossip and meddling and frivolity and low malice could invent. Soon new food for public curiosity arrived under the form of news of a duel between Osnovski and Kopovski, in which Osnovski was wounded. Kopovski returned to Warsaw soon after with the fame of a hero of uncommon adventures in love and arms,—stupider than ever, but also more beautiful, and in general so charming that at sight of him hearts young and old began to beat with quickened throb.
Osnovski, wounded rather slightly, was under treatment in Brussels. Svirski received from him a brief announcement soon after the duel, that he was well, that in the middle of winter he would go to Egypt, but, before that, would return to Prytulov. The artist came to Pan Stanislav with this news, expressing at the same time the fear that Osnovski was returning only to avenge his wrongs afresh on Kopovski.
“For I am sure,” said he, “that if he is wounded, it is because he permitted it. According to me, he wished to die simply. I have shot with him more than once at Brufini’s, and know how he shoots. I have seen him hit matches, and am convinced that had he wished to blow out Koposio, we shouldn’t see him to-day.”
“Perhaps not,” answered Pan Stanislav; “but since he talks of going to Egypt, ’t is clear that he does not intend to let himself be killed. Let him go, and let him take Pan Ignas.”
“It is true that Pan Ignas ought to see the world a little. I should like to go from here to see him. How is he?”
“I will go with you, for I have not seen him to-day. He is well, but somehow strange. You remember what a proud soul he was, shut up in himself. Now he is in good health, as it were, but has become a little child; at the least trouble there are tears in his eyes.”
After a while the two went out together.
“Is Panna Helena with Pan Ignas yet?” inquired Svirski.
“She is. He takes her departure to heart so much that she has pity on him. She was to go away in a week; now, as you see, the second week has passed.”
“What does she wish specially to do with herself?”
“She says nothing precise on this point. Probably she will enter some religious order and pray all her life for Ploshovski.”
“But Panna Ratkovski?”
“Panna Ratkovski is with Pani Melnitski.”
“Did Pan Ignas feel her absence much?”
“For the first days. Afterward he seemed to forget her.”
“If he does not marry her in a year, I will repeat my proposal. As I love God, I will. Such a woman, when she becomes a wife, grows attached to her husband.”
“I know that in her soul Panna Helena wishes Ignas to marry Panna Ratkovski. But who knows how it will turn out?”
“I am sure that he will marry her; what I say is the imagining of a weak head. I shall not marry.”
“My wife said that you told her that yesterday; but she laughed at the threat.”
“It is not a threat; it is only this, that I have no happiness.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the coming of acarriage, in which were Pani Kraslavski and Pani Mashko. Those ladies were going in the direction of the Alley, wishing evidently to take the air. The day was clear, but cold; and Pani Mashko was so occupied with drawing a warm cloak on her mother that she did not see them, and did not return their salutation.
“I called on them the day before yesterday,” said Svirski. “She is a kindly sort of woman.”
“I hear that she is a very good daughter,” answered Pan Stanislav.
“I noticed that when I was there; but, as is usual with an old sceptic, it occurred to me at once that she finds pleasure also in the rôle of a careful daughter. Do you not see women often doing good of some special sort because they think that it becomes them?”
And Svirski was not mistaken. In fact, Pani Mashko found pleasure in the rôle of a self-sacrificing daughter. But that itself was very much, since such a satisfaction flowed still from real attachment to her mother, and because at sight of her misfortune something was roused in the woman, something quivered. At the same time Svirski did not wish, or did not know how, to draw this further conclusion from his thoughts: that as in the domain of the toilet a woman in addition to a new hat needs a new cloak, a new dress, new gloves, so in the domain of good deeds once she has taken up something she wants to be fitted out anew from head to foot. In this way the rebirth of a woman is never quite impossible.
Meanwhile they arrived at Pan Ignas’s, who received them with delight; because, for some time past, the sight of people gave him pleasure, as it does usually to patients returning to life. When he had learned from Svirski that the latter would go soon to Italy, he began to insist that he should take him.
“Ah, ha!” thought Svirski; “then somehow Panna Ratkovski is not in thy head?”
Pan Ignas declared that he had been thinking long of Italy; that nowhere else would he write as there, under those impressions of art, and those centuries crumbling into ruins entwined with ivy. He was carried away and pleased by that thought; hence the honest Svirski agreed without difficulty.
“But,” said he, “I cannot stay long there this time, for I have a number of portraits to paint in this city; and,besides, I promised Pan Stanislav to return to the christening.” Then he turned to Pan Stanislav,—
“Well, what is it finally, the christening of a son or a daughter?”
“Let it be what it likes,” answered Pan Stanislav, “if only, with God’s will, in good health.”
And while the other two began to plan the journey, he took farewell, and went to his counting-house. He had a whole mail from the previous day to look over, so, shutting himself in, he began to read letters, and dictate to a writer in short-hand those which touched affairs needing immediate transaction. After a while, however, a newly hired servant interrupted his labor by announcing that some lady wished to see him.
Pan Stanislav was disturbed. It seemed to him, it is unknown why, that this could be no other than Pani Mashko; and, foreseeing certain explanations and scenes, his heart began to beat unquietly.
Meanwhile the laughing and glad face of Marynia appeared in the door most unexpectedly.
“Ah, well, haven’t I given a surprise?” inquired she.
Pan Stanislav sprang up at sight of her, with a feeling of sudden and immense delight, and, seizing her hands, began to kiss them, one after the other.
“But, my dear, this is really a surprise!” said he. “Whence did it come to thy head to look in here?”
And thus speaking, he pushed an armchair toward her, and seated her as a dear and honored guest; from his radiant face it was evident what pleasure her presence was giving him.
“I have something curious to show thee,” said Marynia; “and because I must walk a good deal, anyhow, I came in. And thou, what didst thou think? Whom didst thou look for? Own up, right away!”
Thus speaking, she began to threaten him while laughing; but he answered,—
“So much business is done here, in every case I didn’t think it was thou. What hast thou to show?”
“See what a letter I have!”
Dear and Beloved Lady,—It will astonish you perhaps that I turn to you; but you, who are to become a mother soon, are the only person on earth who will understand what must take place in the heart of a mother—even if she is only an aunt—who sees her child’sunhappiness. Believe me it is a question for me of nothing else than bringing even temporary relief to an unhappy child; and it interests me the more, that in all this that has happened I myself am to blame chiefly. Perhaps these words too will astonish you, but it is the case. I am to blame. If a bad and spoilt man, at the moment when Nitechka was tottering and losing her balance, dared to touch her with his unworthy lips, I should not have lost my head and sacrificed the child. Indeed, Yozio Osnovski is to blame too: he put the question of marriage on a sharp knife; he suspected something and wanted to rid his house of Kopovski. May God forgive him, for it is not proper to defend one’s self at the cost of another’s happiness and life. My dear lady! it seemed to me at the first moment that the only issue was marriage with the unworthy Kopovski, and that Nitechka had no longer the right to become the wife of Ignas. I wrote even purposely to Ignas that she followed the impulse of her heart, and that she would give her hand to Kopovski with attachment; and I thought that in this way Ignas would bear the loss of her more easily, and I wanted to decrease his pain. Nitechka for Kopovski! The merciful God did not permit that; and when I too saw that that union would have been death for Nitechka, we were thinking only of this, how to be free of those bonds. It is no longer a question for me of returning to former relations, for Nitechka too has lost faith in people and in life, so that probably she would never be willing to agree to a return. She does not even know that I am writing this letter. If the beloved lady had seen how Nitechka has paid for all this with her health, and how terribly she felt the act of Pan Ignas, she would have pitied her. Pan Ignas should not have done what he has done, even out of regard for Nitechka; alas! men in such cases count only with their own wishes. She is as much to blame in all this as a newly born infant; but I see how she melts before my eyes, and how from morning till evening she is grieving because she was the unconscious cause of his misfortune, and might have broken his life. Yesterday, with tears in her eyes, she begged me in case of her death to be a mother to Ignas, and to watch over him as over my own son. Every day she says that maybe he is cursing her, and my heart is breaking, for the doctor says that he answers for nothing if her condition continues. O God of mercy! but come to the aid of a despairing mother; let me know even from time to time something about Ignas, or rather write to me that he is well, that he is calm, that he has forgotten her, that he is not cursing her, so that I might show her that letter and bring her even a little relief from her torture. I feel that I am writing only in half consciousness, but you will understand what is taking place in me, when I look on that unhappy sacrifice. God will reward you and I will pray every day that your daughter, if God gives you a daughter, be happier than my poor Nitechka.
Dear and Beloved Lady,—It will astonish you perhaps that I turn to you; but you, who are to become a mother soon, are the only person on earth who will understand what must take place in the heart of a mother—even if she is only an aunt—who sees her child’sunhappiness. Believe me it is a question for me of nothing else than bringing even temporary relief to an unhappy child; and it interests me the more, that in all this that has happened I myself am to blame chiefly. Perhaps these words too will astonish you, but it is the case. I am to blame. If a bad and spoilt man, at the moment when Nitechka was tottering and losing her balance, dared to touch her with his unworthy lips, I should not have lost my head and sacrificed the child. Indeed, Yozio Osnovski is to blame too: he put the question of marriage on a sharp knife; he suspected something and wanted to rid his house of Kopovski. May God forgive him, for it is not proper to defend one’s self at the cost of another’s happiness and life. My dear lady! it seemed to me at the first moment that the only issue was marriage with the unworthy Kopovski, and that Nitechka had no longer the right to become the wife of Ignas. I wrote even purposely to Ignas that she followed the impulse of her heart, and that she would give her hand to Kopovski with attachment; and I thought that in this way Ignas would bear the loss of her more easily, and I wanted to decrease his pain. Nitechka for Kopovski! The merciful God did not permit that; and when I too saw that that union would have been death for Nitechka, we were thinking only of this, how to be free of those bonds. It is no longer a question for me of returning to former relations, for Nitechka too has lost faith in people and in life, so that probably she would never be willing to agree to a return. She does not even know that I am writing this letter. If the beloved lady had seen how Nitechka has paid for all this with her health, and how terribly she felt the act of Pan Ignas, she would have pitied her. Pan Ignas should not have done what he has done, even out of regard for Nitechka; alas! men in such cases count only with their own wishes. She is as much to blame in all this as a newly born infant; but I see how she melts before my eyes, and how from morning till evening she is grieving because she was the unconscious cause of his misfortune, and might have broken his life. Yesterday, with tears in her eyes, she begged me in case of her death to be a mother to Ignas, and to watch over him as over my own son. Every day she says that maybe he is cursing her, and my heart is breaking, for the doctor says that he answers for nothing if her condition continues. O God of mercy! but come to the aid of a despairing mother; let me know even from time to time something about Ignas, or rather write to me that he is well, that he is calm, that he has forgotten her, that he is not cursing her, so that I might show her that letter and bring her even a little relief from her torture. I feel that I am writing only in half consciousness, but you will understand what is taking place in me, when I look on that unhappy sacrifice. God will reward you and I will pray every day that your daughter, if God gives you a daughter, be happier than my poor Nitechka.
“What is thy thought about that?” inquired Marynia.
“I think,” said Pan Stanislav, “that news of the changein Pan Ignas’s fortune has spread rather widely; and second, I think that this letter, sent to your address, is directed really to Ignas.”
“That may be. It is not an honest letter; but still they may be very unhappy.”
“It is certain that their position cannot be pleasant. Osnovski was right when he wrote that there is even for Pani Bronich an immense disappointment in all this, and that she is trying vainly to deceive herself. As for Panna Castelli, you know what Svirski told me? I do not repeat to thee his words literally; but he said that now only a fool, or a man without moral value, would marry her. They understand this themselves, and certainly it is not pleasant for them. Perhaps, too, conscience is speaking; but still, see how many dodges there are in that letter. Do not show it to Ignas.”
“No, I will not,” answered Marynia, whose warmest wishes were on the side of Panna Ratkovski.
And Pan Stanislav, following the thought which was digging into him for some time past, repeated to her, word for word almost, what he had repeated to himself,—
“There is a certain logic which punishes, and they are harvesting what they sowed. Evil, like a wave, is thrown back from the shore and returns.”
Hereupon Marynia began to draw figures on the floor with her parasol, as if meditating on something; then, raising her clear eyes to her husband, she said,—
“It is true, my Stas, that evil returns; but it may return, too, as remorse and sorrow. In that case the Lord God is satisfied with such penance, and punishes no further.”
If Marynia had known what was troubling him, and wanted to soften his suffering, and console the man, she could not have found anything better than those few simple words. For some time Pan Stanislav had been oppressed by a foreboding that some misfortune must meet him, and he was in ceaseless fear of it. From her only did he learn that his sorrow and remorse might be that returning wave. Yes, he had had no little remorse, and sorrow had not been wanting in him; he felt, too, that if suffering might and could be a satisfaction, he would be ready to suffer twice as grievously. Now a desire took him to seize in his arms that woman full of simplicity and honesty, from whom so much good came to him; and if he did not do so, it was only from fear of emotions for her, and out of regard forher condition, and that indecision which fettered him in his relations with her. But he raised her hand to his lips, and said,—
“Thou art right, and art very kind.”
She, pleased with the praise, smiled at him, and began to prepare for home.
When she had gone, Pan Stanislav went to the window, and followed her with his eyes. From afar he saw her curved form advancing with heavy step, her dark hair peeping from under her hat; and in that moment he felt with new force, greater than ever, that she was the dearest person in the world to him, and that he loved her only, and would love her till his death.
Two days later Pan Stanislav received a note from Mashko, containing a few words of farewell.
“I go to-day,” wrote he. “I shall try absolutely to run in once more to thee; but in every case I bid thee farewell, and thank thee for all proofs of friendship which thou hast shown me. May the Lord God prosper thee better than He has prospered me so far! I should like to see thee, even for a moment; and if I can, I shall run in about four o’clock. Meanwhile I repeat the request to remember my wife, and protect her a little when people drop her. I pray thee also to defend me before her against people’s tongues. I am going to Berlin at nine in the evening, and quite openly. Till we meet again I and in every case, be well,—and once more, thanks for everything.“Mashko.”
“I go to-day,” wrote he. “I shall try absolutely to run in once more to thee; but in every case I bid thee farewell, and thank thee for all proofs of friendship which thou hast shown me. May the Lord God prosper thee better than He has prospered me so far! I should like to see thee, even for a moment; and if I can, I shall run in about four o’clock. Meanwhile I repeat the request to remember my wife, and protect her a little when people drop her. I pray thee also to defend me before her against people’s tongues. I am going to Berlin at nine in the evening, and quite openly. Till we meet again I and in every case, be well,—and once more, thanks for everything.
“Mashko.”
Pan Stanislav went to the counting-house about four, but he waited beyond an hour in vain. “He will not come,” thought he, at last; “so much the better.” And he went home with the feeling of satisfaction that he had succeeded in avoiding a disagreeable meeting. But in the evening a species of pity for Mashko began to move him: he thought that the man had gone by a bad and feverish road, it is true; but he had had his fill of torment and tearing, and in the end had paid dearly; that all which had happened was to be foreseen long before; and if those who foresaw it had associated with him, and received him at their houses, they ought not to show him contempt in the day of his downfall. He knew, too, that he should give Mashko pleasure by his appearance at the station; and after a moment of hesitation he went.
On the road he remembered that likely he should find Pani Mashko, too, at the station; but he knew that in any event he must meet her, and he judged that to withdraw because of her would be a kind of vain cowardice. With these thoughts he went to the station.
In the hall of the first class, which is not large, there were several persons, and on the tables whole piles of travelling-cases, but nowhere could he see Mashko; and only after he had looked around carefully did he recognizein a young veiled lady, sitting in one corner of the hall, Pani Mashko.
“Good-evening,” said he, approaching her. “I have come to say good-by to your husband. Where is he?”
She bowed slightly, and answered, with the thin, cold voice usual to her,—
“My husband is buying tickets.”
“How tickets? Are you going with him?”
“No; my husband is buying a ticket.”
Further conversation under these conditions seemed rather difficult; but, after a while, Mashko appeared in company with a railway servant, to whom he gave the ticket and money, with the order to check the baggage. Wearing a long travelling overcoat and a soft silk cap, he looked, with his side whiskers and gold glasses, like some travelling diplomat. Pan Stanislav deceived himself, too, in thinking that Mashko would show uncommon delight at his coming. Mashko, when he saw him, said, it is true, “Oh, how thankful I am that thou hast come!” but, as it were, with a kind of indifference, and with the hurry usual to people who are going on a journey.
“Everything is checked,” said he, looking around the hall. “But where are my hand packages? Ah, here they are! Good!”
Then he turned to Pan Stanislav, and said,—
“I thank thee for having come. But do me still one kindness, and conduct my wife home; or, at least, go out with her, and help her to find a carriage. Terenia, Pan Polanyetski will take thee home. My dear friend, come one moment; I have something more to say to thee.”
And, taking Pan Stanislav aside, he began to speak feverishly,—
“Take her home without fail. I have given a plausible form to my journey; but do thou say to her, so, in passing, that thou art surprised that I am going such a short time before the calling of the will case, for if any event should detain me, the case must be lost. I wanted to go to thy house just to ask this of thee; but, as thou knowest, on the day of a journey—The case will come up in a week. I shall fall ill; my place will be taken by my assistant, a young advocate, a beginner, and of course he will lose. But the affair will be plausible through my illness. I have secured my wife; everything is in her name, and they will not take one glass from her. I have a plan which I shall laybefore a shipbuilding company in Antwerp. If I make a contract, timber will rise in price throughout this whole country; but who knows, in that case, if I shall not return, for the whole affair of Ploshov is a trifle in comparison with this business? I cannot speak more in detail. Were it not for the grievous moments which my wife must pass, I should keep regret away; but that just throttles me.”
Here he touched his throat with his hand, and then spoke still more hurriedly,—
“Misfortune fell on me; but misfortune may fall on any man. For that matter, it is too late to speak of this. What has been, has been; but I did what I could, and I shall do yet what I can. And this, too, is a relief to me,—that thou wilt get thy own even from Kremen. If I had time to tell thee what I have in mind, thou couldst see that it would not come to the head of every man. Maybe I shall have business even with thy firm. I do not give up, as thou seest—I have secured my wife perfectly. Well, it’s over, it’s over! Another in my place might have ended worse. Might he not? But let us return to my wife now.”
Pan Stanislav listened to Mashko’s words with a certain pain. He wondered, it is true, at his mental fertility; but at the same time he felt that in him there was lacking that balance which makes the difference between a man of enterprise and an enterprising adventurer. It seemed to him, too, that there was in Mashko already something of the future worn-out trickster, who will struggle for a long time yet, but who, with his plans, will be falling lower and lower till he ends, with boots worn on one side, in a second-rate coffee-house, telling, in a circle of the same kind of “broken men,” of his former greatness. He thought, also, that the cause of all this was a life resting to begin with on untruth; and that Mashko, with all his intelligence, can never work himself out of the fetters of falsehood.
See, he pretends yet, and even before his wife. He had to do so; but when the hall began to fill with people, some acquaintances stepped up to greet the two men, and exchange a couple of such hurried phrases as are used at railroads. Mashko answered them with such a tinge of loftiness and favor that anger seized Pan Stanislav. “And to think,” said he, “that he is fleeing from his creditors! What would happen were that man to reach fortune?”
But now the bell sounded, and beyond the window was heard the hurried breath of the engine. People began to move about and hasten.
“I am curious to know what is going on in him now?” thought Pan Stanislav.
But even at that moment Mashko could not free himself from the bonds of lying. Maybe his heart was straitened by an evil foreboding: maybe he had a gleam of second sight, that that wife whom he loved he should never see again; that he was going to want, to contempt, to fall; but it was not permitted him to show what he felt, or even to say farewell to his wife as he wished.
The second bell sounded. They went out on the platform, and Mashko stood still a wile before the sleeping-car. The gleam of the lamp fell directly on his face, on which two small wrinkles appeared near the month. But he spoke calmly, with the tone of a man whom business constrains to a few days’ absence, but who is sure that he will return.
“Well, till we meet again, Terenia! Kiss mamma’a hands for me, and be well. Till we meet, till we meet!”
Thus speaking, he raised her hand, which, moreover he kept long at his lips. Pan Stanislav, going aside a little by design, thought,—
“They see each other now for the last time. In some half year a separation in form will follow.”
And the peculiar lot of those two women struck him, the same for mother and daughter. Both married with great appearances of brilliancy; and the husbands of both had to run away from their domestic hearths, leaving only shame to their wives.
But now the bell sounded the third time. Mashko entered. For a while, in the wide pane of the sleeping-car, his side whiskers were visible, and his gold-rimmed eye-glasses; then the train pushed out into darkness.
“I am at your service,” said Pan Stanislav to Pani Mashko.
He was almost certain that she would thank him dryly for his society, and reject it; he was even angry, for the reason that he had determined to tell her not only something about her husband, but something from himself. But she inclined her head in agreement; she, too, had her plan. So much bitter dislike for Pan Stanislav and such a feeling of offence had been rising in her heart for a longtime, that, thinking him likely to take advantage again of a moment which they were to pass together, she determined to give him a slap which he would remember for many a day.
But she was mistaken altogether. First, through her he had been crushed as ice is crushed against a cliff, and therefore for some time he had felt for her not only dislike, but even hatred. Second, if later, through a feeling of conviction that the fault was on his side exclusively, that hatred had passed, then he had changed so much that he had become almost entirely another man. His mercantile reckoning with himself had taught him that such transgressions are paid for too dearly; he was in a phase of immense desire for a life without deceit; and finally remorse and sorrow had eaten up desire in him as rust eats up iron. When assisting her into the carriage, and when he touched her shoulder, he remained calm; and when he had taken his seat, he began at once to speak of Mashko, for he judged that through a feeling of humanity alone he ought to prepare her for the coming catastrophe, and soften its significance.
“I wonder at the daring of your husband,” said he. “Let one bridge fall on the road during his stay in Berlin, he will not be able to return to the will case, on which, as you know, of course, all his fate depends. He must have gone for important reasons; but it is always hazardous to act thus.”
“The bridges are strong,” answered Pani Mashko.
But he, unconquered by that not over-encouraging answer, spoke on, drawing aside before her gradually the curtain of the future; and he spoke so long that while he was talking they arrived before the Mashko dwelling. Then she, not understanding the meaning of his words evidently, and angry, perhaps, that she had not had the chance to give him the intended blow, said, when she had stepped out of the carriage,—
“Had you any personal object in disquieting me?”
“No,” answered Pan Stanislav, who saw that the moment had come to tell her that which he had resolved to say from himself. “In relation to you, I have only one object,—to declare that, with reference to you, I have offended unworthily, and that from my whole soul I beg your pardon.”
But the young woman went into her house withoutanswering a single word. Pan Stanislav, to the end of his life, did not know whether that was the silence of hatred or forgiveness.
Still he returned home with a certain encouragement, for it seemed to him that he ought to have acted thus. In his eyes that was a small act of penitence; it was all one to him how Pani Mashko understood him. “Maybe she judged,” said he to himself, “that I begged pardon of her for my subsequent treatment; in every case I shall be able to look her more boldly in the eyes now.”
And in that thought of his there was undoubtedly some selfishness; but there was also the will to escape from the toils.
Panna Helena, also, before her departure, received a letter from Pani Bronich, in the style of that which Marynia had received, and, like Marynia, she did not show it to Pan Ignas. Besides, Pan Ignas went away with Svirski a week later without visiting any acquaintance except Panna Ratkovski. Svirski, in person, kept him from all visits; and Pan Stanislav, in conversations with his wife, declared that he had acted rightly. “At present,” said he, “it would be disagreeable both for Ignas, and for us. Those who saw him every day are different, for they are used to him; but no one else could refrain from looking at the scar which is left on his forehead. Besides, Ignas has changed very much. During the journey he will recover perfectly; on his return we shall receive him as if nothing had happened; and strangers will see in him, above all, a wealthy young lord.”
And it might have been so in reality. But meanwhile, there was loneliness around the Polanyetskis, because of that departure. Their circle of acquaintances had scattered on all sides. Osnovski remained still in Brussels; where Pani Aneta had gone no one knew. Pani Bronich and Panna Castelli were in Paris; there was no one at Yasmen. Pani Kraslavski and her daughter shut themselves in, and lived only for each other; and finally sickness had confined to her bed poor Pani Emilia, once and forever.
There remained only the Bigiels and the professor. But he was sick, too, and, moreover, he had become so peculiar that strangers considered him a lunatic. Some said with a certain irony that a man who thinks that the spirit of Christianity will penetrate into politics as it has into private life, must be indeed of sound mind. He began himself to think about death, and to make preparations for it. Frequently he repeated to Pan Stanislav his desire to die “in the ante-chamber to the other world,” and in view of that was preparing for Rome. But since he loved Marynia greatly, he wished to wait till after her sickness.
In this way time passed in great seclusion for the Polanyetskis. It was for that matter necessary for Marynia, who in recent days had felt very ill, and necessary for her state of feeling. Pan Stanislav worked over business in the counting-house, and over himself; he was working out in himself a new man, and watching over his wife. She, too, was preparing herself for a new epoch in life; and she was preparing herself gladly, for it seemed to her that what she did would act upon both of them. Pan Stanislav became daily less absolute in some way, more condescending in his judgments of people, and milder, not only in relation to her, but in relation to all persons with whom life brought him into contact. He surrounded her with exceptional, with thoughtful care; and though she supposed that this care had in view not so much her person as the child, she recognized this as proper, and was grateful. She was astonished at times by a kind of timidity and, as it were, hesitation in his treatment of her; but not being able to divine that he was simply curbing his feeling for her, she ascribed such exhibitions to “Stas’s” fear as to whether all would end well in her case.
Whole weeks passed in this manner. Their monotony was broken sometimes by a letter from Svirski, who, when he could seize a free moment, reported what he could of himself and Pan Ignas. In one of those letters he inquired in Pan Ignas’s name if Pani Polanyetski would permit him to send a description of his impressions in the form of letters to her. “I spoke with him of this in detail,” wrote Svirski. “He contends first that it might be agreeable to the lady to have echoes from a land which has left her so many pleasant memories; and second, that it would lighten his work greatly were he to write as if privately. He is well; he walks, eats, and sleeps perfectly. Every evening I see too that he sits at his desk and prepares to write. I concluded that he was trying poetry, also. Somehow it does not succeed, for he has not written anything yet, so far as I know. I suppose, however, that all will come out by degrees, and in season. Meanwhile the form of letters would lighten his work, perhaps, really. I will add in conclusion that he mentions Panna Helena with immense gratitude; and at every mention of Panna Ratkovski, his eyes become bright. I speak of her to him frequently, for what can I, poor man, do? When anything is not predestined, there is no help in the case; and whenit is written down to a man that he must remain like a stake in a hedge, he will not put forth leaves in spring even.”
In the middle of November a letter came from Rome, which roused much thought in the Polanyetskis. Svirski wrote as follows:—