After a stay of one week in Florence, Pan Stanislav received his
first letter from Bigiel concerning the business of the house, and
news so favorable that it almost surpassed his expectations. The law
prohibiting export of grain because of the famine was proclaimed.
But the firm had enormous supplies bought and exported previously;
and because prices, especially at the first moment, had risen
excessively abroad, Bigiel and Polanyetski began to do perfect
business. Speculation, planned and carried through on a great scale,
turned out so profitable that from well-to-do people, which they were
before, they had become almost rich. For that matter Pan Stanislav
had been sure of his business from the beginning, and entertained no
fears; the news, however, pleased him both with reference to profit
and his own self-love. Success intoxicates a man and strengthens his
self-confidence. So, in talking with Marynia, he was not able to
refrain from giving her to understand that he had an uncommon head,
unquestionably higher than all those around him, like a tree the
loftiest in the forest; that he is a man who always reaches the place
at which he has aimed,--in a word, a kind of phoenix in that society,
abounding in men who know not how to help themselves. In the whole
world he could not have found a listener more willing and ready to
accept everything with the deepest faith.
"Thou art a woman," said he, not without a shade of loftiness;
"therefore why tell thee the affair from the beginning, and enter into
details. To thee, as a woman, I can explain all best if I say thus:
I was not in a condition yesterday to buy the medallion with a black
pearl which I showed thee at Godoni's; to-day I am, and will buy it."
Marynia thanked him, and begged that he would not do so; but he
insisted, and said that nothing would restrain him, that that was
resolved on, and Marynia must consider herself the owner of the great
black pearl, which, on such a white neck as hers, would be beautiful.
Then he fell to kissing that neck; and when finally he had satisfied
himself, but still felt the need of a listener of some sort, he began
to walk in the room, smiling at his wife and at his own thoughts,
saying,--
"I do not mention those who do nothing: Bukatski, for instance, who is
known to be good for nothing, nor asses like Kopovski, who is known to
have a cat's head; but take even men who do something,--men of mind
seemingly. Never would Bigiel seize a chance on the wing: he would set
to thinking over it, and to putting it off; to-day he would decide, and
to-morrow be afraid, and the time would be gone. What is the point in
question? First, to have a head, and second, to sit down and calculate.
And if one decides to act, then act. It is needful, too, to be cool,
and not pose. Mashko is no fool, one might think; but see what he has
worked out! I have not gone his way, and shall not follow him."
Thus speaking, he continued to walk and to shake his thick, dark hair;
and Marynia, who, in every case, would have listened to his words with
faith, received them now as an infallible principle, all the more that
they rested on tangible success.
He stopped before her at last, and said,--
"Knowest what I think? that coolness is judgment. It is possible to
have an intelligent head, to take in knowledge as a sponge absorbs
liquid, and still not to have sound, sober judgment. Bukatski is for me
a proof of this. Do not think me vain; but if I, for instance, knew as
much about art as he does, I should have a sounder judgment concerning
it. He has read so much, and caught up so many opinions, that at
last he has none of his own. Surely, from the materials which he has
collected, I should have squeezed out something of my own."
"Oh, that is sure," said Marynia, with perfect confidence.
Pan Stanislav might have been right in a certain view. He was not a
dull man by any means, and it may be that his intelligence was firmer
and more compact than Bukatski's; but it was less flexible and less
comprehensive. This did not occur to him. He did not think, also, that
in that moment, under the influence of boastfulness, he was saying
things before Marynia which the fear of ridicule and criticism would
have restrained him from saying before strangers, sceptical persons.
But he did not restrain himself before Marynia; he judged that if he
could permit himself such little boastfulness before any one, it was
before his wife. Besides, as he himself said, "He had taken her, and
all was over." Moreover, she was his own.
In general, he had not felt so happy and satisfied at any time in
life as then. He had experienced material success, and considered the
future as guaranteed; he had married a woman, young, charming, and
clever, for whom he had become a dogma,--and the position could not
be otherwise, since her lips were not dry for whole days from his
kisses,--and whose healthy and honest heart was filled with gratitude
for his love. What could be lacking to him? What more could he wish? He
was satisfied with himself, for he ascribed in great part to his own
cleverness and merit, his success in so arranging life that everything
promised, peace and prosperity. He saw that life was bitter for other
men, but pleasant for him, and he interpreted the difference to his own
advantage. He had thought once that a man wishing peace had to regulate
his connection with himself, with mankind, with God. The first two he
looked on as regulated. He had a wife, a calling, and a future; hence
he had given and secured to himself all that he could give and secure.
As to society, he permitted himself sometimes to criticise it, but he
felt that in the bottom of his soul he loved it really; that even if
he wished, he could not do otherwise; that if in a given case it were
necessary to go into water or fire for society, he would go,--hence he
considered everything settled on that side too. His relation with God
remained. He felt that should that become clear and certain, he might
consider all life's problems settled, and say to himself definitely, "I
know why I have lived, what I wanted, and why I must die." While not a
man of science, he had touched enough on science to know the vanity of
seeking in philosophy so-called explanations or answers which are to
be sought rather in intuition, and, above all, in feeling, in so far
as the one and the other of these are simple,--otherwise they lead to
extravagance. At the same time, since he was not devoid of imagination,
he saw before him, as it were, the image of an honest, well-balanced
man, a good husband, a good father, who labors and prays, who on Sunday
takes his children to church, and lives a life wonderfully wholesome
from a moral point of view. That picture smiled at him; and in life
so much is done for pictures. He thought that a society which had a
great number of such citizens would be stronger and healthier than
a society which below was composed of boors, and above of sages,
dilettanti, decadents, and all those forbidden figures with sprained
intellects. One time, soon after his acquaintance with Marynia, he had
promised himself and Bigiel that on finishing with his own person, and
with people, he would set about this third relation seriously. Now the
time had come, or at least was approaching. Pan Stanislav understood
that this work needed more repose than is found on a bridal trip, and
among the impressions of a new life and a new country, and that hurry
of hotels and galleries in which he lived with Marynia. But, in spite
of these conditions, in the rare moments when he was with his own
thoughts, he turned at once to that problem, which for him was at that
time the main one. He was subject meanwhile to various influences,
which, small in themselves, exercised a certain action, even because
he refrained purposely from opposing them. Of these was the influence
of Marynia. Pan Stanislav was not conscious of it, and would not have
owned to its existence; still the continual presence of that calm soul,
sincerely and simply pious, extremely conscientious in relation to
God, gave him an idea of the rest and peace to be found in religion.
When he attended his wife to church, he remembered the words which
she said to him in Warsaw, "Of course; it is the service of God." And
he was drawn into it, for at first he went to church with her always
not to let her go alone, and later because it gave him also a certain
internal pleasure,--such, for example, as the examination of phenomena
gives a scientist specially interested in them. In this way, in spite
of unfavorable conditions, in spite of journeys, and a line of thought
interrupted by impressions of every sort, he advanced on the new road
continually. His thoughts had at times great energy and decisiveness
in this direction. "I feel God," said he to himself. "I felt Him at
Litka's grave; I felt Him, though I did not acknowledge it, in the
words of Vaskovski about death; I felt Him at marriage; I felt Him at
home, in the plains, and in this country, in the mountains above the
snow; and I only ask yet how I am to glorify Him, to honor and love
Him? Is it as pleases me personally, or as my wife does, and as my
mother taught me?"
In Rome, however, he ceased at first to think of these things; so
many external impressions were gathered at once in his mind that there
was no room for reflection. Moreover, he and Marynia came home in the
evening so tired that he remembered almost with terror the words of
Bukatski, who, at times, when serving them as cicerone for his own
satisfaction, said, "Ye have not seen the thousandth part of what is
worth seeing; but that is all one, for in general it is not worth while
to come here, just as it is not worth while to stay at home."
Bukatski was then in a fit of contradiction, overturning in one
statement what he had seemed to affirm in the preceding one.
Professor Vaskovski came, too, from Perugia to greet them, which
pleased Marynia so much that she met him as she would her nearest
relative. But, after satisfying her first outbursts of delight, she
observed in the professor's eyes, as it were, a kind of melancholy.
"What is the matter?" inquired she. "Do you not feel well in Italy?"
"My child," answered he, "it is pleasant in Perugia, and pleasant in
Rome--oh, how pleasant! Know this, that here, while walking on the
streets, one is treading on the dust of the world. This, as I repeat
always, is the antechamber to another life--but--"
"But what?"
"But people--you see, that is, not from a bad heart, for here, as well
as everywhere, there are more good than bad people; but sometimes I am
sad, for here, as well as at home, they look on me as a little mad."
Bukatski, who was listening to the conversation, said,--
"Then the professor has more cause for sadness here than at home."
"Yes," answered Vaskovski; "I have so many friends there, like you, who
love me--but here, no--and therefore I am homesick."
Then he turned to Pan Stanislav: "The journals here have printed an
account of my essay. Some scoff altogether. God be with them! Some
agree that a new epoch would begin through the introduction of Christ
and His spirit into history. One writer confessed that individuals
treat one another in a Christian spirit, but that nations lead a pagan
life yet. He even called the thought a great one; but he and all
others, when I affirm this to be a mission which God has predestined to
us, and other youngest of the Aryans, seize their sides from laughter.
And this pains me. They give it to be understood also that I have a
little here--"
And poor Vaskovski tapped his forehead with his finger. After a while,
however, he raised his head and said,--
"A man sows the seed in sadness and often in doubt; but the seed falls
on the field, and God grant that it spring up!"
Then he began to inquire about Pani Emilia; at last he turned to them
his eyes, which were as if wakened from sleep, and asked naïvely,--
"But it is pleasant for you to be with each other?"
Marynia, instead of answering, sprang to her husband, and, nestling her
head up to his shoulder, said,--
"Oh, see, Professor, this is how we are together,--so!"
And Pan Stanislav stroked her dark head with his hand.