Flowers to embellish the funeral repast! Flowers on the coffin of one
gone forever!
But that is nothing. No, nothing, I swear! Often and often the monument
over a sepulchre may turn into a gate that leads to a new life.
Smilowicz has come to see me.
He, too, is mentally depressed at times: which I should never have
suspected.
He edged himself into the very arm-chair in which Witold had been seated
last evening. For some time he was silent; and then: “There are days,”
he said, “when I think myself an idiot for having wasted my life over a
mere shadow. Oh, how I envy you!”
“Why, is your life wasted?” I cried in amazement.
“You have been at our lodgings—and you have seen.” ...
“Well?”
“You have seen all!”
“But your wife is a happy woman,” I said, trying to take the optimistic
side of things; though all the time I was saying to myself (and I really
don’t know why): “How is love possible between those two?”
“My wife may be so,” he said, slowly. “Sometimes I cannot.”
“They say it is a great thing to have children. Even if you do not
attain the goal you aim at, there always remains something of you.”
My remark elicited no reply from him. I could see painful and bitter
thoughts flit over his thin face, as he looked round the room.
“You have no end of flowers!” he murmured.
“These are all _flowers of farewell_. These at least you need not envy
me.”
His face darkened.
“You know how ill I am. That is what makes me so hateful. Not that I
regret life, but that I have nothing in life to regret losing.”