"I do not ask if thou art happy," said Bigiel to Pan Stanislav after
his return to Warsaw; "with such a person as thy wife it is not
possible to be unhappy."
"True," answered Pan Stanislav; "Marynia is such an honest little woman
that it would be hard to find a better." Then, turning to Pani Bigiel,
he said,--
"We are both happy, and it cannot be otherwise. You remember, dear
lady, our former conversations about love and marriage? You remember
how I feared to meet a woman who would try to hide the world from her
husband with herself, to occupy all his thoughts, all his feelings, to
be the single object of his life? You remember how I proved to you and
Pani Emilia that love for a woman could not and should not in any case
be for a man everything; that beyond it there are other questions in
the world?"
"Yes; but I remember also how I told you that domestic occupations do
not hinder me in any way from loving my children; for I know in some
fashion, as it seems to me, that these things are not like boxes, for
example, of which, when you have put a certain number on a table, there
is no room for others."
"My wife is right now," said Bigiel. "I have noticed that people often
deceive themselves when they transfer feelings or ideas into material
conditions. When it is a question of feelings or ideas, space is not to
be considered."
"Oh, stop! Thou art conquered to the country," said Pan Stanislav,
humorously.
"But if the position is pleasant for me?" said Bigiel, promptly.
"Moreover, thou, too, wilt be conquered."
"I?"
"Yes; with honesty, kindness, and heart."
"That is something different. It is possible to be conquered, and not
be a slipper. Do not hinder me in praising Marynia; I have succeeded in
a way that could not be improved, and specially for this reason,--that
she is satisfied with the feeling which I have for her, and has no
wish to be my exclusive idol. For this I love her. God has guarded me
from a wife demanding devotion of the whole soul, whole mind, whole
existence; and I thank Him sincerely, since I could not endure such a
woman. I understand more easily that all may be given of free will, and
when not demanded."
"Believe me, Pan Stanislav," answered Pani Bigiel, "that in this regard
we are all equally demanding; but at first we take frequently that part
for the whole which they give us, and then--"
"And then what?" interrupted Pan Stanislav, rather jokingly.
"Then those who have real honesty in their hearts attain to something
which for you is a word without meaning, but for us is often life's
basis."
"What kind of talisman is that?"
"Resignation."
Pan Stanislav laughed, and added, "The late Bukatski used to say that
women put on resignation frequently, as they do a hat, because it
becomes them. A resignation hat, a veil of light melancholy,--are they
ugly?"
"No, not ugly. Say what you please; they may be a dress, but in such a
dress it is easier to reach heaven than in another."
"Then my Marynia is condemned to hell, for she will never wear that
dress, I think. But you will see her in a moment, for she promised to
come here after office hours. She is late, the loiterer; she ought to
be here now."
"Her father is detaining her, I suppose. But you will stay to dine with
us, will you not?"
"We will stay to dine. Agreed."
"And some one else has promised us to-day, so the society will only be
increased. I will go now to tell them to prepare places for you."
Pani Bigiel went out; but Pan Stanislav asked Bigiel,--
"Whom hast thou at dinner?"
"Zavilovski, the future letter-writer of our house."
"Who is he?"
"That poet already famous."
"From Parnassus to the desk? How is that?"
"I do not remember, now, who said that society keeps its geniuses on
diet. People say that this man is immensely capable, but he cannot earn
bread with verses. Our Tsiskovski went to the insurance company; his
place was left vacant, and Zavilovski applied. I had some scruples,
but he told me that for him this place was a question of bread, and
the chance of working. Besides, he pleased me, for he told me at
once that he writes in three languages, but speaks well in none of
them; and second, that he has not the least conception of mercantile
correspondence."
"Oh, that is nonsense," answered Pan Stanislav; "he will learn in a
week. But will he keep the place long, and will not the correspondence
be neglected? Business with a poet!"
"If he is not right, we will part. But when he applied, I chose to
give the place to him. In three days he is to begin. Meanwhile, I have
advanced a month's salary; he needed it."
"Was he destitute?"
"It seems so. There is an old Zavilovski,--that one who has a daughter,
a very wealthy man. I asked our Zavilovski if that was a relative of
his; he said not, but blushed, so I think that the old man is his
relative. But how it is with us? A balance in nothing. Some deny
relationship because they are poor; others, because they are rich.
All through some fancy, and because of that rascally pride. But he'll
please thee; he pleased my wife."
"Who pleased thy wife?" asked Pani Bigiel, coming in.
"Zavilovski."
"For I read his beautiful verses entitled, 'On the Threshold.' At the
same time he looks as if he were hiding something from people."
"He is hiding poverty, or rather, poverty was hiding him."
"No; he looks as if he had passed through some severe disappointment."
"Thou wert able to see in him a romance, and to tell me that he had
suffered much. Thou wert offended when I put forth the hypothesis
that it might be from worms in childhood, or scald-head. That was not
poetical enough for her."
Pan Stanislav looked at his watch, and was a little impatient.
"Marynia is not coming," said he; "what a loiterer!"
But the "loiterer" came at that moment, or rather, drove up. The
greeting was not effusive, for she had seen the Bigiels at the railway.
Pan Stanislav told his wife that they would stay to dine, to which she
agreed willingly, and fell to greeting the children, who rushed into
the room in a swarm.
Now came Zavilovski, whom Bigiel presented to Pan Stanislav and
Marynia. He was a man still young,--about seven or eight and twenty.
Pan Stanislav, looking at him, considered that in every case his mien
was not that of a man who had suffered much; he was merely ill at
ease in a society with which he was more than half unacquainted. He
had a nervous face, and a chin projecting prominently, like Wagner's,
gladsome gray eyes, and a very delicate forehead, whiter than the rest
of his face; on his forehead large veins formed the letter _Y_. He was,
besides, rather tall and somewhat awkward.
"I have heard," said Pan Stanislav to him, "that in three days you will
be our associate."
"Yes, Pan Principal," answered the young man; "or rather, I shall serve
in the office."
"But give peace to the 'principal,'" said Pan Stanislav, laughing.
"With us it is not the custom to use the words 'grace,' or 'principal'
unless perchance such a title would please my wife by giving her
importance in her own eyes. But listen, Pani Principal_ess_," said he,
turning to Marynia, "would it please thee to be called principal_ess_?
It would be a new amusement."
Zavilovski was confused; but he laughed too, when Marynia answered,--
"No; for it seems to me that a principal_ess_ ought to wear an enormous
cap like this" (here she showed with her hands how big), "and I cannot
endure caps."
It grew pleasanter for Zavilovski in the joyous kindness of those
people; but he was confused again when Marynia said,--
"You are an old acquaintance of mine. I have read nothing of late, for
we have just returned home; has anything appeared while we were gone?"
"No, Pani," answered he; "I occupy myself with that as Pan Bigiel does
with music,--in free moments, and for my own amusement."
"I do not believe this," said Marynia.
And she was right not to believe, for it was not true at all.
Zavilovksi's reply was lacking also in candor, for he wished to let it
be known that he desired beyond all to pass as the correspondent of
a commercial house, and to be considered an employee, not a poet. He
gave a title to Bigiel and Pan Stanislav, not through any feeling of
inferiority, but to show that when he had undertaken office work he
considered it as good as any other, that he accommodated himself to
his position, and would do so in the future. There was in this also
something else. Zavilovski, though young, had observed how ridiculous
people are, who, when they have written one or two little poems, pose
as seers, and insist on being considered such. His great self-esteem
trembled before the fear of the ridiculous; hence he fell into the
opposite extreme, and was almost ashamed of his poetry. Recently, when
suffering great want, this feeling became almost a deformity, and the
least reference by any one to the fact that he was a poet brought him
to suppressed anger.
But meanwhile he felt that he was illogical, since for him the simplest
thing would have been not to write and publish poems; but he could not
refrain. His head was not surrounded with an aureole yet, but a few
gleams had touched it; these illuminated his forehead at one moment,
and then died, in proportion as he created, or neglected. After each
new poem the gleam began again to quiver; and Zavilovski, as capable
as he was ambitious, valued in his heart those reflections of glory
more than aught else on earth. But he wanted people to talk of him
only among themselves, and not to his eyes. When he felt that they
were beginning to forget him, he suffered secretly. There was in him,
as it were, a dualism of self-love, which wanted glory, and at the
same time rejected it through a certain shyness and pride, lest some
one might say that too much had been given. And many contradictions
besides inhered in him, as a man young and impressionable, who takes
in and feels exceptionally, and who, amidst his feelings, is not able
frequently to distinguish his own personal _I_. For this reason it is
that artists in general seem often unnatural.
Now came dinner, during which conversation turned on Italy, and people
whom the Polanyetskis had met there. Pan Stanislav spoke of Bukatski
and his last moments, and also of the dead man's will, by which he
became the heir to a fairly large sum of money. By far the greater
part was to be used for public objects, and touching this he had to
confer with Bigiel. They loved Bukatski, and remembered him with
sympathy. Pani Bigiel had even tears in her eyes when Marynia stated
that before death he had confessed; and that he died like a Christian.
But this sympathy was of the kind that one might eat dinner with; and
if Bukatski had, in truth, sighed sometimes for Nirvana, he had what
he wanted at present, since he had become for people, even those near
him, and who loved him, a memory as slight as it was unenduring. A week
longer, a month, or a year, and his name would be a sound without an
echo. He had not earned, in fact, the deep love of any one, and had not
received it; his life flowed away from him in such fashion that after
even a child like Litka, there remained not only a hundred times more
sorrow, but also love and memorable traces. His life roused at first
the curiosity of Zavilovski, who had not known him; but when he had
heard all that Pan Stanislav narrated, he said, after thinking a while,
"An additional copy." Bukatski, who joked at everything, would have
been pained by such an epitaph.
Marynia, wishing to give a more cheerful turn to conversation, began to
tell of the excursions they had made in Rome and the environs, either
alone, with Svirski, or the Osnovskis. Bigiel, who was a classmate of
Osnovski, and who from time to time saw him yet, said,--
"He has one love,--his wife; and one hatred,--his corpulence, or
rather, his inclination to it. As to other things, he is the best man
on earth."
"But he seems quite slender," said Marynia.
"Two years ago he was almost fat; but since he began to use a bicycle,
fence, follow the Banting system, drink Karlsbad in summer, and go
in winter to Italy or Egypt to perspire, he has made himself slender
again. But I have not said truly that he has a hatred for corpulence;
it is his wife who has, and he does this through regard for her. He
dances whole nights, too, at balls, for the same reason."
"He is a _sclavus saltans_," said Pan Stanislav. "Svirski has told us
of this already."
"I understand that it is possible to love a wife," said Bigiel; "it is
possible to consider her, according to the saying, as the apple of the
eye. Very well! But, as I love God, I have heard that he writes verses
to his wife; that he opens books with his eyes closed, marks a verse
with his finger, and divines to himself from what he reads whether he
is loved. If it comes out badly, he falls into melancholy. He is in
love like a student,--counts all her glances, strives to divine what
this or that word is to mean, kisses not only her feet and hands, but
when he thinks that no one is looking, he kisses her gloves. God knows
what it is like! and that for whole years."
"How much in love!" said Marynia.
"Would it be to thy liking were I such?" asked Pan Stanislav.
She thought a while, and answered, "No; for in that case thou wouldst
be another man."
"Oh, that is a Machiavelli," said Bigiel. "It would be worth while to
write down such an answer, for that is at once a praise, and somewhat
of a criticism,--a testimony that as it is, is best, and that it
would be possible to wish for something still better. Manage this for
thyself, man."
"I take it for praise," said Pan Stanislav, "though you" (here he
turned to Pani Bigiel), "will say surely that it is resignation."
"The outside is love," answered Pani Bigiel, laughing; "resignation may
come in time, as lining, if cold comes."
Zavilovski looked on Marynia with curiosity; she seemed to him comely,
sympathetic, and her answer arrested his attention. He thought,
however, that only a woman could speak so who was greatly in love, and
one for whom there was never enough of feeling. He began to look at Pan
Stanislav with a certain jealousy; and because he was a great hermit,
the words of the song came at once to his head, "My neighbor has a
darling wife."
Meanwhile, since he had been silent a whole hour, or had spoken a
couple of words merely, it seemed to him that he ought to engage in
the conversation somehow. But timidity restrained him, and, besides, a
toothache, which, when the sharpest pain had passed, was felt yet at
moments acutely enough. This pain had taken all his courage; but he
rallied finally, and asked,--
"But Pani Osnovski?"
"Pani Osnovski," said Pan Stanislav, "has a husband who loves for two;
therefore she has no need to fatigue herself, so Svirski, at least,
insists. She has Chinese eyes; she is Aneta by name; has filling in
her upper teeth, which is visible when she laughs much, therefore she
prefers to smile; in general, she is like a turtle-dove,--she turns in
a circle, and cries, 'Sugar! sugar!'"
"That is a malicious man," said Marynia. "She is beautiful, lively,
witty; and Pan Svirski cannot know how much she loves her husband,
for surely he hasn't mentioned the matter to her. All these are simply
suppositions."
Pan Stanislav thought two things: first, that they were not
suppositions; and second, that he had a wife who was as naïve as she
was honest.
But Zavilovski said,--
"I am curious to know what would happen were she as much in love with
him as he is with her."
"It would be the greatest double egotism that the world has ever
witnessed," said Pan Stanislav. "They would be so occupied with each
other that they would see no other thing or person on earth."
Zavilovski smiled, and said, "Light does not prevent heat; it produces
it."
"Taking matters strictly, that is rather a poetical than a physical
comparison," said Pan Stanislav.
But Zavilovski's answer pleased the two ladies, so both supported him
ardently; and when Bigiel joined them, Pan Stanislav was outvoted.
After that they talked of Mashko and his wife. Bigiel said that Mashko
had taken up an immense case against Panna Ploshovski's million-ruble
will, in which a number of rather distant heirs appeared. Pan Plavitski
had written of this to Marynia while she was in Italy; but, considering
the whole affair such an illusion as were aforetime the millions
resting on the marl of Kremen, she barely mentioned it to her husband,
who waved his hand on the whole question at once. Now, as Mashko had
taken up the affair, it seemed more important. Bigiel supposed that
there must be some informality in the will, and declared that if Mashko
won, he might stand on his feet right away, for he had stipulated
an immense fee for himself. The whole affair roused Pan Stanislav's
curiosity greatly.
"But Mashko has the elasticity of a cat," said he; "he always falls on
his feet."
"And this time thou shouldst pray that he may not break his back,"
answered Bigiel; "for it is a question of no small amount, both for
thee and thy father-in-law. Ploshov alone with all its farms is valued
at seven hundred thousand rubles; and, besides, there is much ready
money."
"That would be wonderful, such unexpected gain!" said Pan Stanislav.
But Marynia heard with pain that her father had indeed appeared among
the other heirs in the suit against the will. "Stas" was for her a rich
man, and she had blind faith that he could make millions if he wished;
her father had an income, and, besides, she had given him the life
annuity from Magyerovka; hence poverty threatened no one. It would have
been pleasant indeed for her to be able to buy Kremen, and take "Stas"
there in summer, but not for money got in this way.
"I am only pained by this," said she, with great animation. "That money
was bequeathed so honestly. It is not right to change the will of the
dead; it is not right to take bread from the poor, or schools. Panna
Ploshovski's brother's son shot himself; it may have been for her a
question of saving his soul, of gaining God's mercy. This breaking of
the will is not right. People should think and feel differently."
She grew even flushed somewhat.
"How determined she is!" said Pan Stanislav.
But she pushed forward her somewhat too wide mouth, and called out with
the expression of a pouting child,--
"But say that I am right, Stas; say that I am right. 'T is thy duty to
say so."
"Without doubt," answered Pan Stanislav; "but Mashko may win the case."
"I wish him to lose it."
"How determined she is!" repeated Pan Stanislav.
"And how honest, what a noble nature!" thought Zavilovski, framing in
his plastic mind conceptions of goodness and nobility in the form of a
woman with dark hair, blue eyes, a lithe form, and mouth a trifle too
wide.
After dinner Bigiel and Pan Stanislav went for a cigar and black
coffee to the office, where they had to hold meanwhile the first
consultation concerning the objects for which Bukatski's property had
been bequeathed. Zavilovski, as a non-smoker, remained with the ladies
in the drawing-roam. Then Marynia, who, as lady principal_ess_, felt
it her duty to give courage to the future employee of the "house,"
approached him, and said,--
"I, as well as Pani Bigiel, wish that we should all consider one
another as members of one great family; therefore I hope that you will
count us too as your good acquaintances."
"With the greatest readiness, if you permit me," answered Zavilovski.
"As it is, I would have testified my respect."
"I made the acquaintance of all the gentlemen in the office only at my
wedding. We went abroad immediately after; but now it will come to a
nearer acquaintance. My husband told me that he should like to have us
meet one week at Pan Bigiel's, and the next week at our house. This is
a very good plan, but I make one condition."
"What is that?" asked Pani Bigiel.
"Not to speak of any mercantile matter at those meetings. There will
be a little music, for I hope that Pan Bigiel will attend to that;
sometimes we'll read something, like 'On the Threshold.'"
"Not in my presence," said Zavilovski, with a forced smile.
"Why not?" inquired she, looking at him with her usual simplicity.
"We have spoken of you more than once in presence of people really
friendly, and thought of you before it came to an acquaintance; and why
should we not all the more now?"
Zavilovski felt wonderfully disarmed. It seemed to him that he had
fallen among exceptional persons, or at least that Pani Polanyetski
was an exceptional woman. The fear, which burned him like fire, that
he might appear ridiculous with his poetry, his over-long neck, and
his pointed elbows, began to decrease. He felt in a manner free in
her presence. He felt that she said nothing for the mere purpose
of talking, or for social reasons, but only that which flowed from
her kindness and sensitiveness. At the same time her face and form
delighted him, as they had delighted Svirski in Venice. And since he
was accustomed to seek forms for all his impressions, he began to seek
them for her too; and he felt that they ought to be not only sincere,
but exquisite, charming, and complete, just as her own beauty was
exquisite and complete. He recognized that he had a theme, and the
artist within him was roused.
She began now to ask with great friendliness about his family
relations; fortunately the appearance of Bigiel and Pan Stanislav in
the drawing-room freed him from more positive answers, which would have
been disagreeable. His father had been a noted gambler and roisterer on
a time, and for a number of years had been suffering in an institution
for the insane.
Music was to interrupt that dangerous conversation. Pan Stanislav had
finished the discussion with Bigiel, who said,--
"That seems to me a perfect project, but it is necessary to think the
matter over yet."
Then, leaning on his violin, he began to meditate really, and said at
last,--
"A wonderful thing! When I play, it is as if there were nothing else in
my head, but that is not true. A certain part of my brain is occupied
with other things; and it is exactly then that the best thoughts come
to me."
Saying this, he sat down, took the violoncello between his knees,
closed his eyes, and began the "Spring Song."
Zavilovski went home that day enchanted with the people and their
simplicity, with the "Spring Song," and especially with Pani
Polanyetski.
She did not even suspect that in time she might enrich poetry with a
new thrill.