After his return to Warsaw, Pan Stanislav went first of all to Bigiel,
who told him minutely the conditions on which Kremen was sold. Those
conditions were very profitable for Mashko. He bound himself to pay at
the end of a year thirty-five thousand rubles, which were to come from
the parcelling of Magyerovka, and besides to pay three thousand yearly
till the death of Pan Plavitski. To Pan Stanislav the bargain did not
seem at first too unfavorable for Plavitski; but Bigiel was of another
opinion.
"I do not judge people too hastily," said he; "but Plavitski is an
incurable old egotist who has sacrificed the future of his child to his
own comfort, and, besides, he is frivolous. In this case the annuity is
placed as it were on Kremen; but Kremen, as a ruined estate, on which
there is need to spend money, has a fictitious value. If Mashko puts it
in order, very well; if not, in the most favorable event he will fall
behind in payment, and Plavitski may not see a copper for years. What
will he do then? He will take Kremen back. But before that time Mashko
will contract new debts, even to pay the old ones; and, in case of his
bankruptcy, God knows how many creditors will stretch their hands after
Kremen. Finally, all depends on the honesty of Mashko, who may be a
correct man, but he is carrying on business riskily; if he takes one
false step, it may ruin him. Who knows if this very purchase of Kremen
be not such a step?--for, wishing to bring the estate into order, he
must draw on his credit to the utmost. I have seen men who succeeded a
long time until they turned to buying great estates."
"The ready money for Magyerovka will remain with the Plavitskis
always," said Pan Stanislav, as if wishing to quiet his own fears for
their future.
"If old Plavitski does not eat it up, or play it away, or waste it."
"I must think of something. I caused the sale; I must help."
"Thou?" asked Bigiel, with astonishment. "I thought that thy relations
were broken forever."
"I shall try to renew them. I will visit the Plavitskis to-morrow."
"I do not know that they will be glad to see thee."
"And I myself do not know."
"Dost wish I will go with thee? For it is a question of breaking the
ice. They may not receive thee alone. It is a pity that my wife is
not here. I sit by myself whole evenings and play on the violoncello.
During the day I have time enough too; I can go with thee."
Pan Stanislav, however, refused, and next day he dressed himself with
great care and went alone. He knew that he was a presentable man; and
though usually he did not think much of this, he resolved now to omit
nothing which might speak in his favor. On the way he had his head full
of thoughts as to what he should say, what he should do in this case or
that one, and he tried to foresee how they would receive him.
"I will be as simple and outspoken as possible," said he to himself;
"that is the best method absolutely."
And, before he noted it, he found himself at the Hotel Rome. His heart
began to beat then more quickly.
"It would not be bad," thought he, "if I should not find them at home.
I could leave a card and see later on if Plavitski would acknowledge my
visit."
But straightway he said to himself, "Don't be a coward," and went
forward. Learning from the servant that Plavitski was at home, he sent
in his card, and after a while was invited to enter.
Plavitski was sitting at a table writing letters, drawing at intervals
smoke from a pipe with a great amber mouthpiece. At sight of Pan
Stanislav he raised his head, and, looking at him through gold-rimmed
glasses, said,--
"I beg, I beg!"
"I learned from Bigiel that you and Panna Plavitski were in Warsaw,"
said Pan Stanislav, "and I came to pay my respects."
"That was very pretty on thy part," answered Plavitski, "and, to tell
the truth, I did not expect it. We parted in a bitter manner and
through thy fault. But since thou hast felt it thy duty to visit me, I,
as the older, open my arms to thee a second time."
The opening of the arms, however, was confined to reaching across the
table a hand, which Pan Stanislav pressed, saying in his own mind,--
"May the Evil One take me, if I come here to thee, and if I feel toward
thee any obligation!" After a while he asked, "You and your daughter
are coming to live in Warsaw?"
"Yes. I am an old man of the country, accustomed to rise with the sun
and to work in the fields; it will be grievous for me in your Warsaw.
But it was not right to imprison my child; hence I made one sacrifice
more for her."
Pan Stanislav, who had spent two nights in Kremen, remembered that
Plavitski rose about eleven in the forenoon, and that he labored
specially about the business of Kremen, not its fields; he passed this,
however, in silence, for he had a head occupied with something else at
that moment. From the chamber which Plavitski occupied, an open door
led to another, which must be Marynia's. It occurred to Pan Stanislav,
who was looking in the direction of that door from the time of his
entrance, that perhaps she did not wish to come out; therefore he
inquired,--
"But shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Panna Marynia?"
"Marynia has gone to look at lodgings which I found this morning.
She will come directly, for they are only a couple of steps distant.
Imagine to thyself a plaything, not lodgings. I shall have a cabinet
and a sleeping-room; Marynia also a very nice little chamber,--the
dining-room is a trifle dark, it is true; but the drawing-room is a
candy-box."
Here Plavitski passed into a narrative concerning his lodgings, with
the volubility of a child amused by something, or of an old lover of
comfort, who smiles at every improvement. At last he said,--
"I had barely looked around when I found myself at home. Dear Warsaw is
my old friend; I know her well."
But at that moment some one entered the adjoining room.
"That is Marynia, surely," said Plavitski. "Marynia, art thou there?"
called he.
"I am," answered a youthful voice.
"Come here; we have a guest."
Marynia appeared in the door. At sight of Pan Stanislav, astonishment
shone on her face. He, rising, bowed; and when she approached the
table, he stretched out his hand in greeting. She gave him her own with
as much coldness as politeness. Then she turned to her father, as if no
one else were present in the room,--
"I have seen the lodgings; they are neat and comfortable, but I am not
sure that the street is not too noisy."
"All streets are noisy," answered Plavitski. "Warsaw is not a village."
"Pardon me; I will go to remove my hat," said Marynia. And, returning
to her room, she did not appear for some time.
"She will not show herself again," thought Pan Stanislav.
But evidently she was only arranging her hair before the mirror, after
removing her hat; she entered a second time, and asked,--
"Am I interrupting?"
"No," said Plavitski, "we have no business now, for which, speaking
in parenthesis, I am very glad. Pan Polanyetski has come only through
politeness."
Pan Stanislav blushed a little, and, wishing to change the subject,
said,--
"I am returning from Reichenhall; I bring you greetings from Pani
Emilia and Litka, and that is one reason why I made bold to come."
For a moment the cool self-possession on Marynia's face vanished.
"Emilia wrote to me of Litka's heart attack," said she. "How is she
now?"
"There has not been a second attack."
"I expect another letter, and it may have come; but I have not received
it, for Emilia addressed it very likely to Kremen."
"They will send it," said Plavitski; "I gave directions to send all the
mail here."
"You will not go back to the country, then?" asked Pan Stanislav.
"No; we will not," answered Marynia, whose eyes recovered their
expression of cool self-possession.
A moment of silence followed. Pan Stanislav looked at the young lady,
and seemed to be struggling with himself. Her face attracted him with
new power. He felt now more clearly that in such a person precisely
he would find most to please him, that he could love such a one, that
she is the type of his chosen woman, and all the more her coldness
became unendurable. He would give now, God knows what, to find again
in those features the expression which he saw in Kremen, the interest
in his words, and the attention, the transparency in those eyes full
of smiles and roused curiosity. He would give, God knows what, to have
all this return, and he knew not by what method to make it return, by a
slow or a quick one; for this cause he hesitated. He chose at last that
which agreed best with his nature.
"I knew," said he, suddenly, "how you loved Kremen, and in spite of
that, perhaps, it is I who caused its sale. If that be the case, I tell
you openly that I regret the act acutely, and shall never cease to
regret it. In my defence I cannot even say that I did it while excited,
and without intent. Nay, I had an intent; only it was malicious and
irrational. All the greater is my fault, and all the more do I entreat
your forgiveness."
When he had said this, he rose. His cheeks were flushed, and from
his eyes shone truth and sincerity; but his words remained without
effect. Pan Stanislav went by a false road. He knew women in general
too slightly to render account to himself of how far their judgments,
especially their judgments touching men, are dependent on their
feelings, both transient and permanent. In virtue of these feelings,
anything may be taken as good or bad money; anything interpreted for
evil or good, recognized as true or false; stupidity may be counted
reason, reason stupidity, egotism devotion, devotion egotism, rudeness
sincerity, sincerity lack of delicacy. The man who in a given moment
rouses dislike, cannot be right with a woman, cannot be sincere,
cannot be just, cannot be well-bred. So Marynia, feeling deep aversion
and resentment toward Pan Stanislav from the time of Mashko's coming
to Kremen, took sincerity simply ill of him. Her first thought was:
"What kind of man is this who recognizes as unreasonable and bad that
which a few days ago he did with calculation?" Then Kremen, the sale
of the place, Mashko's visit and the meaning of that visit, which she
divined, were for her like a wound festering more and more. And now it
seemed to her that Pan Stanislav was opening that wound with all the
unsparingness of a man of rough nature and rude nerves.
He rose, and with eyes fixed on her face, waited to see if a friendly
and forgiving hand would not be extended to him, with a clear feeling
that one such stretching forth of a hand might decide his fate; but her
eyes grew dark for a moment, as if from pain and anger, and her face
became still colder.
"Let not that annoy you," said she, with icy politeness. "On the
contrary, papa is very much satisfied with the bargain and with the
whole arrangement with Pan Mashko."
She rose then, as if understanding that Pan Stanislav wished to take
leave. He stood a moment stricken, disappointed, full of resentment and
suppressed anger, full of that feeling of mortification which a man has
when he is rejected.
"If that is true, I desire nothing more."
"It is, it is! I did a good business," concluded Plavitski.
Pan Stanislav went out, and, descending a number of steps at a time
with hat pressed down on his head, he repeated mentally,--
"A foot of mine will not be in your house again."
He felt, however, that, if he were to go home, anger would stifle him;
he walked on, therefore, not thinking whither his feet were bearing
him. It seemed to him at that moment that he did not love Marynia,
that he even hated her; but still he thought about her, and if he had
thought more calmly he would have told himself that the mere sight
of her had affected him deeply. He had seen her now a second time,
had looked on her, had compared that image of her which he had borne
in his memory with the reality; the image became thereby still more
definite, more really attractive, and acted the more powerfully on him.
And, in spite of the anger, in the depth of his soul an immense liking
for her raised its head, and a delight in the woman. There existed,
as it were, for him two Marynias,--one the mild, friendly Marynia of
Kremen, listening and ready to love; the other that icy young lady of
Warsaw, who had rejected him. A woman often becomes dual in this way
in the heart of a man, which is then most frequently ready to forgive
this unfriendly one for the sake of that loved one. Pan Stanislav did
not even admit that Marynia could be such as she had shown herself
that day; hence there was in his anger a certain surprise. Knowing his
own undeniable worth, and being conceited enough, he carried within
him a conviction, which he would not acknowledge to himself, that it
was enough for him to extend his hand to have it seized. This time it
turned out differently. That mild Marynia appeared suddenly, not only
in the rôle of a judge, who utters sentences and condemns, but also in
the rôle, as it were, of a queen, with whom it is possible to be in
favor or disfavor. Pan Stanislav could not accustom himself to this
thought, and he struggled with it; but such is human nature that, when
he learned that for that lady he was not so much desired as he had
thought, that she not only did not over-value him, but esteemed him
lower than herself, in spite of his displeasure, offence, and anger,
her value increased in his eyes. His self-love was wounded; but, on
the other hand, his will, in reality strong, was ready to rush to the
struggle with difficulties, and crush them. All these thoughts were
circling chaotically in his head, or, instead of thoughts, they were
rather feelings torn and tearing themselves. He repeated a hundred
times to himself that he would drop the whole matter, that he must
and wished to do so; and at the same time he was so weak and small
that somewhere in the most secret corner of his soul he was counting
that very moment on the arrival of Pani Emilia, and on the aid which
her arrival would bring him. Sunk in this mental struggle, he did not
recollect himself till he was halfway on the Zyazd, when he asked, "Why
the misery have I gone to Praga?" He halted. The day was fine and was
inclining toward evening. Lower down, the Vistula was flowing in the
gleam of the sun; and beyond it and beyond the nearer clumps of green,
a broad country was visible, covered on the horizon with a rosy and
blue haze. Far away, beyond that haze, was Kremen, which Marynia had
loved and which she had lost. Pan Stanislav, fixing his eyes on the
haze, said to himself,--
"I am curious to know what she would have done had I given Kremen to
her."
He could not imagine that to himself definitely; but he thought
that the loss of that land was for her a great bitterness really,
and he regretted it. In this sorrow his anger began to scatter and
vanish as mist. His conscience whispered that he had received what he
earned. Returning, he said to himself, "But I am thinking of all this
continually."
And really he was. Never had he experienced, in the most important
money questions, even half the disquiet, never had he been absorbed so
deeply. And again he remembered what Vaskovski had said of himself,
that his nature, like Pan Stanislav's, could not fix its whole power
on the acquisition of money. Never had he felt with such clearness
that there might be questions more important than those of wealth, and
simply more positive. For the second time a certain astonishment seized
him.
It was nearly nine when he went to Bigiel's. Bigiel was sitting in a
spacious, empty house with doors opening on the garden veranda; he was
playing on a violoncello in such fashion that everything through the
house was quivering. When he saw Pan Stanislav he broke off a certain
tremolo and inquired,--
"Hast thou been at the Plavitskis' to-day?"
"Yes."
"How was the young lady?"
"Like a decanter of chilled water. On such a hot day that is agreeable.
They are polite people, however."
"I foresaw this."
"Play on."
Bigiel began to play "Träumerei," and while playing closed his eyes,
or turned them to the moon. In the stillness the music seemed to fill
with sweetness the house, the garden, and the night itself. When he had
finished, he was silent for a time, and then said,--
"Knowest what? When Pani Emilia comes, my wife will ask her to the
country, and with her Marynia. Maybe those ices will thaw then between
you."
"Play the 'Träumerei' once more."
The sounds were given out a second time, with calmness and imagination.
Pan Stanislav was too young not to be somewhat of a dreamer; hence he
imagined that Marynia was listening with him to the "Träumerei," with
her hand in his hands, with her head on his bosom, loving much, and
beloved above all in the world.