In a week, when probability had become certainty, Pan Stanislav gave
the news to the Bigiels. Pani Bigiel flew the same day to Marynia, who
fell to weeping with gladness on her honest shoulders.
"It seems to me," said she, "that Stas will love me more now."
"How more?"
"I wished to say still more," answered Marynia. "Seest thou, for that
matter, I have never enough."
"He would have to settle with me if there were not enough."
The tears dried on Marynia's sweet face, and only a smile remained.
After a time she clasped her hands, as if in prayer, and said,--
"Oh, my God, if it is only a daughter! for Stas wants a daughter."
"And what wouldst thou like?"
"I--but don't tell Stas--I should like a son; but let it be a daughter."
Then she grew thoughtful, and asked,--
"But there is no help, is there?"
"There is not," answered Pani Bigiel, laughing; "for that they have not
found yet any remedy."
Bigiel, on his part, gave the news to every one whom he met; and in the
counting-house he said, in Pan Stanislav's presence, with a certain
unction in his voice,--
"Well, gentlemen, it seems that the house will be increased by one
member."
The employees turned inquiring glances on him; he added,--
"Thanks to Pan and Pani Polanyetski."
Then all hurried to Pan Stanislav with good wishes, excepting
Zavilovski, who, bending over his desk, began to look diligently at
columns of figures; and only after a while, when he felt that his
conduct might arrest attention, did he turn with a changed face to
Pan Stanislav, and, pressing his hand, repeat, "I congratulate, I
congratulate!"
It seemed to him then that he was ridiculous, that something had fallen
on his head; that he felt empty, boundlessly stupid; and that the whole
world was fabulously trivial. The worst, however, was the feeling
of his own ridiculousness; for the affair was so natural and easily
foreseen that even such a man as Kopovski might foresee it. At the same
time, he, an intelligent man, writing poetry, pervaded with enthusiasm,
grasping everything which happened around, slipped into such an
illusion that it seemed to him then as if a thunderbolt had struck him.
What overpowering ridiculousness! But he had made the acquaintance of
Marynia as Pani Polanyetski, and imagined to himself unconsciously that
she had always been, and would be, Pani Polanyetski in the future as
she was in the present, and simply it had not occurred to him that any
change might supervene. And behold, observing lily tones once on her
face, he called her Lily, and wrote lily verses to her. And now that
lost sense, which to vexation adds something of ridicule, whispered
in his ear, "Ah, a pretty lily!" And Zavilovski felt more and more
crushed, more and more ridiculous; he wrote verses, but Pan Stanislav
did not write any. In that apposition there was a gnawing bitterness,
and something idiotic; he took deep draughts from that cup, so as not
to lose one drop in the drinking. If his feelings had been betrayed; if
he had made them known to Marynia; if she had repulsed him with utter
contempt, and Pan Stanislav had thrown him downstairs,--there would
have been something in that like a drama. But such an ending,--"such
flatness!" He had a nature feeling everything ten times more keenly
than common men; hence the position seemed to him simply unendurable,
and those office hours, which he had to sit out yet, a torture. His
feeling for Marynia had not sunk in his heart deeply; but it occupied
his imagination altogether. Reality now struck its palm on his head
without mercy; the blow seemed to him not only painful and heavy, but
also given sneeringly. The desperate thought came to his head to seize
his cap, go out, and never come back again. Fortunately, the usual hour
for ending work came at last, and all began to separate.
Zavilovski, while passing through the corridor, where, at a hat-rack, a
mirror was fixed, saw his projecting chin and tall form in it, and said
to himself, "Thus looks an idiot." He did not go to dine that day with
the second book-keeper, as usual; he would have been even glad to flee
from his own person. Meanwhile he shut himself in at home, and with
the exaggeration of a genuine artist, heightened to impossible limits
his misfortune and ridiculous position. After some days he grew calm,
however; he felt only a strange void in his heart,--precisely as if it
were a dwelling vacated by some one. He did not show himself at Pan
Stanislav's for a fortnight; but at the end of that time he saw Marynia
at the Bigiels', and was astonished.
She seemed to him almost ugly. That was by no means his prejudice,
for, though it was difficult to notice a change in her form, still
she had changed greatly. Her lips were swollen; there were pimples
on her forehead; and she had lost freshness of color. She was calm,
however, but somewhat melancholy, as if some disappointment had met
her. Zavilovski, who, in truth, had a good heart, was moved greatly by
her ugliness. Before, it seemed to him that he would disregard her; now
that seemed to him stupid.
But her face only had changed, not her kindness or good-will. Nay,
feeling safe now from superfluous enthusiasms on his part, she showed
him more cordiality than ever. She asked with great interest about
Lineta; and when she found that a subject on which he, too, spoke
willingly, she began to laugh with her former laughter, full of
indescribable sweetness, and said almost joyously,--
"Well, well! People wonder there why you have not visited them for so
long a time; and do you know what Aneta and Pani Bronich told me? They
told me--"
But here she stopped, and after a while said,--
"No; I cannot tell this aloud. Let us walk in the garden a little."
And she rose, but not with sufficient care, so that, stumbling at the
first step, she almost fell.
"Be careful!" cried Pan Stanislav, impatiently.
She looked at him with submission, almost with fear.
"Stas," said she, blushing, "as I love thee, that was inadvertent."
"But do not frighten her so," said Pani Bigiel, quickly.
It was so evident that Pan Stanislav cared more at that moment for the
coming child than Marynia, that even Zavilovski understood it.
As to Marynia, this was known to her long before that day; she had
passed through a whole mental battle with herself just because of
it. Of that battle she had not spoken to any one; and it was the more
difficult, the more the state of her health advised against excitement,
unquiet, and an inclination to gloomy brooding. She had passed through
grievous hours before she said to herself, "It must be as it is."
Pan Stanislav would have been simply astonished had any one told him
that he did not love, and especially that he did not value, his wife as
duty demanded. He loved her in his own way, and judged at once that, if
ever, it was then that the child should be for both a question beyond
every other. Vivacious and impulsive by nature, he pushed this care at
moments too far, but he did not account this to himself as a fault;
he did not even stop to think of what might take place in the soul of
Marynia. It seemed to him that among other duties of hers one of the
first was the duty of giving him children; that it was a simple thing,
therefore, that she should accomplish this. Hence he was thankful to
her, and imagined that, being careful of a child, he was by that very
act careful of her, and careful in a degree that few husbands are.
If he had considered it proper to call himself to account touching
his treatment of her, he would have considered it a thing perfectly
natural also that her charm, purely feminine, attracted him now less
than it had hitherto. With each day she became uglier, and offended his
æsthetic sense sometimes; he fancied that, concealing this from her,
and trying to show her sympathy, he was as delicate as a man could well
be to a woman.
She, on her part, had the impression that the hope on which she had
counted most had deceived her; she felt that she had descended to the
second place, that she would descend more and more. And in spite of all
her affection for her husband, in spite of the treasures of tenderness
which were collecting in her for the future child, rebellion and regret
seized her soul at the first moment. But this did not last long; she
battled with these feelings also, and conquered. She said to herself
that here it was no one's fault; life is such that this issues from the
natural condition of things, which, again, is a result of God's will.
Then she began to accuse herself of selfishness, and crush herself
with the weight of this thought: Has she a right to think of herself,
not of "Stas," and not of her future child? What can she bring against
"Stas"? What is there wonderful in this, that he, who had loved even a
strange child so much, has his soul occupied now, above all, with his
own; that his heart beats first for it? Is there not an offence against
God in this,--that she permits herself to bring forward first of all
rights of her own, happiness of her own, she, who has offended so much?
Who is she, and what right has she to an exceptional fate? And she was
ready to beat her breast. The rebellion passed; there remained only
somewhere in the very depths of her heart a little regret that life
is so strange, and that every new feeling, instead of strengthening a
previous one, pushes it into the depths. But when that sorrow went from
her heart to her eyes, under the form of tears, or began to quiver on
her lips, she did not let it have such an escape.
"I shall be calm in a moment," thought she, in her soul. "Such it is,
such it will be, and such is right; for such is life, and such is God's
will, with which we must be reconciled." And at last she was reconciled.
By degrees she found repose even, not giving an account to herself that
the basis of this was resignation and sadness. It was sadness, however,
which smiled. Being young, it was almost bitter at times to her, when
all at once, in the eyes of her husband, or of even some stranger, she
read clearly, "Oh, how ugly thou hast grown!" But because Pani Bigiel
had said that "afterward" she would be more beautiful than ever, she
said in her soul to them, "Wait!"--and that was her solace.
She answered also something similar to Zavilovski. She was at once
glad, and not glad, of the impression she had made on him; for if on
the one hand her self-love had suffered a little, on the other she felt
perfectly safe, and could speak with him freely. She wished to speak,
and speak with full seriousness, for a few days before, Pani Aneta had
told her directly that "The Column" was in love to the ears, and that
Zavilovski had every chance with her.
This forging the iron while hot disquieted her somewhat; she could not
understand why it was so, even taking into consideration the innate
impetuosity of Pani Aneta. For Zavilovski, who had become somehow the
Benjamin of both houses, she, as well as the Bigiels and Pan Stanislav,
had great friendship; and, besides, she was grateful to him, for, be
things as they might, he had appreciated her. He had known her truly,
hence she would help him with gladness in that which seemed to her
a great opportunity; but she thought also, "Suppose it should be bad
for him." She feared responsibility a little, and her own previous
diplomacy. Now, therefore, she wishes to learn first what he thinks
really, and then give him to understand how things are, and finally
advise him to examine and weigh with due care in the given case.
"They are wondering there, because you have not called for a long
time," said she, when they had gone to the garden.
"What did Pani Osnovski say?" inquired Zavilovski.
"I will tell you only one thing, though I am not sure that I ought to
repeat it. Pani Aneta told me--that--but no! First, I must learn why
you have not called there this long time."
"I was not well, and I had a disappointment. I made no visits; I could
not! You have stopped talking."
"Yes, for I wished to know if you were not angry at those ladies for
some cause. Pani Aneta told me that Lineta supposed you were, and that
she saw tears in her eyes a number of times, for that reason."
Zavilovski blushed; on his young and impressionable face real
tenderness was reflected.
"Ah, my God!" answered he; "I angry, and at a lady like Panna Lineta?
Could she offend any one?"
"I repeat what was said to me, though Pani Aneta is so impulsive that
I dare not guarantee all she says to be accurate. I know that she is
not lying; but, as you understand, very impulsive people see things
sometimes as if through a magnifying-glass. Satisfy yourself. Lineta
seems to me agreeable, very uncommon, and very kind--but judge for
yourself; you have such power of observation."
"That she is kind and uncommon is undoubted. You remember how I said
that they produced the impression of foreign women; that is not true
altogether. Pani Osnovski may, but not Panna Lineta."
"You must look yourself, and look again," said Marynia. "You understand
that I persuade you to nothing. I should have a little fear, even of
Stas, who does not like those ladies. But I say sincerely that when I
heard of Lineta's tears, my heart was touched. The poor girl!"
"I cannot even tell you how the very thought of that stirs me," replied
Zavilovski.
Further conversation was interrupted by the coming of Pan Stanislav,
who said,--
"Well? always matchmakers! But these women are incurable. Knowest thou,
Marynia, what I will tell thee? I should be most happy wert thou to
refrain from such matters."
Marynia began to explain; but he turned to Zavilovski, and said,--
"I enter into nothing in this case, and know only this,--that I have
not the least faith in those ladies."
Zavilovski went home full of dreams. All the strings of his imagination
had been stirred and sounded, so that the wished-for sleep fled from
him. He did not light a lamp, so that nothing might prevent him from
playing on those quivering strings; he sat in the moonlight and mused,
or rather, created. He was not in love yet; but a great tenderness
had possessed him at thought of Lineta, and he arranged images as if
he loved already. He saw her as distinctly as though she were before
him; he saw her dreamy eyes, and her golden head, bending, like a cut
flower, till it reached his breast. And now it seems to him that he is
placing his fingers on her temples, and that he is feeling the satin
touch of her hair, and, bending her head back a little, he looks to
see if the fondling has not dried her tears; and her eyes laugh at
him, like the sky still wet from rain, but sunny. Imagination moves
his senses. He thinks that he is confessing his love to her; that he
presses her to his bosom, and feels her heart beating; that he kneels
with his head on her knees, from which comes warmth through the silk
garment to his face. And he began in reality to shiver. Hitherto she
had been for him an image; now he feels her for the first time as a
woman. There is not in him even one thought which is not on her; and he
so forgets himself in her that he loses consciousness of where he is,
and what is happening within him.
Some kind of hoarse singing on the street roused him; then he lighted a
lamp, and began to think more soberly. A kind of alarm seized him now,
because one thing seemed undoubted,--if he did not cease to visit Pani
Bronich and the Osnovskis altogether, he would fall in love with that
maiden past memory.
"I must choose, then," said he to himself.
And next day he went to see her, for he had begun to yearn; and that
same night he tried to write a poem with the title of "Spider-web."
He dared not go to Pani Bronich herself, so he waited till the hour
when he could find all at tea, in the common drawing-room. Pani
Aneta received him with uncommon cordiality, and outbursts of joyous
laughter; but he, after greeting her, began to look at Lineta's face,
and his heart beat with more force when he saw in her a great and deep
joy.
"Do you know what?" cried Pani Aneta, with her usual vivacity. "Our
'Poplar' likes beards so much that I thought this of you: 'he is
letting his beard grow, and does not show himself.'"
"No, no!" said the "Poplar," "stay as you were when I made your
acquaintance."
But Pan Osnovski put his arm around Zavilovski, and said, in that
pleasant tone of a man of good breeding, who knows how to bring people
at once to more intimate and cordial relations,--
"Did Pan Ignas hide himself from us? Well, I have means to compel him.
Let Lineta begin his portrait, then he must come to us daily."
Pani Aneta clapped her hands.
"How clever that Yozio is, wonderfully clever!"
His face was radiant because he had said a thing pleasing to his wife,
and he repeated,--
"Of course, my Anetka, of course."
"I have promised already to paint it," said Lineta, with a soft voice,
"but I was afraid to be urgent."
"Whenever you command," answered Pan Ignas.
"The days are so long now that about four, after Pan Kopovski; for that
matter, I shall finish soon with that insufferable Kopovski."
"Do you know what she said about Pan Kopovski?" began Pani Aneta.
But Lineta would not permit her to say this for anything; she was
prevented, moreover, by Pan Plavitski, who came in at that moment, and
broke up the conversation. Pan Plavitski, on making the acquaintance of
Pani Aneta at Marynia's, lost his head for her, and acknowledged this
openly; on her part, she coquetted with him unsparingly, to the great
delight of herself and of others.
"Let papa sit near me here," said she; "we will be happy side by side,
won't we?"
"As in heaven! as in heaven!" replied Plavitski, stroking his knees
with his palms time after time, and thrusting out the tip of his tongue
from enjoyment.
Zavilovski drew up to Lineta and said,--
"I am so happy to be able to come every day. But shall I not occupy
your time, really?"
"Of course you will occupy it," answered she, looking him in the eyes;
"but you will occupy it as no one else can. I was really too timid to
urge, because I am afraid of you."
Then he looked into the depth of her eyes, and answered with emphasis,--
"Be not afraid."
Lineta dropped her eyelids, and a moment of rather awkward suspense
followed; then the lady inquired, in a voice somewhat lowered,--
"Why did you not come for such a long time?"
He had it on his tongue to say, "I was afraid," but he had not the
daring to push matters that far; hence he answered,--
"I was writing."
"A poem?"
"Yes, called 'Spider-web;' I will bring it to-morrow. You remember that
when I made your acquaintance, you said that you would like to be a
spider-web. I remembered that; and since then I see continually such a
snowy thread sporting in the air."
"It sports, but not with its own power," answered Lineta, "and cannot
soar unless--"
"What? Why do you not finish?"
"Unless it winds around the wing of a Soarer."
When she had said this, she rose quickly and went to help Osnovski, who
was opening the window.
Zavilovski remained alone with mist in his eyes. It seemed to him
that he heard the throbbing of his temples. The honeyed voice of Pani
Bronich first brought him to his senses,--
"A couple of days ago old Pan Zavilovski told me that you and he
are related; but that you are not willing to visit him, and that he
cannot visit you, since he has the gout. Why not visit him? He is a
man of such distinction, and so pleasant. Go to him; it is even a
disappointment to him that you do not go. Go to visit him."
"Very well; I can go," answered Zavilovski, who was ready that moment
to agree to anything.
"How kind and good you must be! You will see your cousin, Panna Helena.
But don't fall in love with her, for she too is very distinguished."
"No, there is no danger," said Zavilovski, laughing.
"They say besides that she was in love with Ploshovski, who shot
himself, and that she wears eternal mourning in her heart for him. But
when will you go?"
"To-morrow, or the day after. When you like."
"You see, they are going away. The summer is at our girdles! Where will
you be in the summer?"
"I do not know. And you?"
Lineta, who during this time had returned and sat down not far away,
stopped her conversation with Kopovski, and, hearing Pan Ignas's
question, replied,--
"We have no plan yet."
"We were going to Scheveningen," said Pani Bronich, "but it is
difficult with Lineta." And after a while she added in a lower voice:
"She is always so surrounded by people; she has such success in society
that you would not believe it. Though why should you not? It is enough
to look at her. My late husband foretold this when she was twelve years
of age. 'Look,' said he, 'what trouble there will be when she grows
up.' And there is trouble, there is! My husband foresaw many things.
But have I told you that he was the last of the Rur--Ah, yes! I have
told you. We had no children of our own, for the first one didn't come
to birth, and my husband was fourteen years older than I; later on he
was to me more,--a father."
"How can that concern me?" thought Pan Ignas. But Pani Bronich
continued,--
"My late husband always grieved over this, that he had no son. That is,
there was a son, but he came halfway too early" (here tears quivered
in the voice of Pani Bronich). "We kept him some time in spirits. And,
if you will believe it, when there was fair weather he rose, and when
there was rain he sank down. Ah, what a gloomy remembrance! How much
my husband suffered because he was to die,--the last of the Rur--.
But a truce to this; 't is enough that at last he was as attached to
Lineta as to a relative,--and surely she was his nearest relative,--and
what remains after us will be hers. Maybe for that reason people
surround her so. Though--no! I do not wonder at them. If you knew
what a torment that is to her, and to me. Two years ago, in Nice, a
Portuguese, Count Jao Colimaçao, a relative of the Alcantaras, so lost
his head as to rouse people's laughter. Or that Greek of last year, in
Ostend!--the son of a banker, from Marseilles, a millionnaire. What was
his name? Lineta, what was the name of that Greek millionnaire, that
one who, thou knowest?"
"Aunt!" said Lineta, with evident displeasure.
But the aunt was in full career already, like a train with full steam.
"Ah, ha! I recollect," said she,--"Kanafaropulos, Secretary of the
French Embassy in Brussels."
Lineta rose and went to Pani Aneta, who was talking at the principal
table with Plavitski. The aunt, following her with her eyes, said,--
"The child is angry. She hates tremendously to have any one speak of
her successes; but I cannot resist. Do you understand me? See how tall
she is! How splendidly she has grown! Anetka calls her sometimes the
column, and sometimes the poplar; and really, she is a poplar. What
wonder that people's eyes gaze at her! I haven't mentioned yet Pan
Ufinski. That's our great friend. My late husband loved him immensely.
But you must have heard of Pan Ufinski? That man who cuts silhouettes
out of paper. The whole world knows him. I don't know at how many
courts he has cut silhouettes; the last time he cut out the Prince of
Wales. There was also a Hungarian."
Osnovski, who sat near by amusing himself with a pencil at his
watch-chain, now drawing it out, now pushing it back, grew impatient at
last, and said,--
"A couple of more such, dear aunt, and there would be a masquerade
ball."
"Precisely, precisely!" answered Pani Bronich. "If I mention them,
it is because Lineta doesn't wish to hear of any one. She is such a
chauviniste! You have no idea what a chauviniste that child is."
"God give her health!" said Pan Ignas.
Then he rose to take farewell. At parting, he held for some time the
hand of Lineta, who answered also with an equally prolonged pressure.
"Till to-morrow," said he, looking into her eyes.
"Till to-morrow--after Pan Kopovski. And do not forget 'Spider-web.'"
"No, I will not forget--ever," answered Zavilovski, with a voice
somewhat moved.
He went out with Plavitski; but they had scarcely found themselves
on the street, when the old man, tapped him lightly on the arm, and
stopping, said,--
"Young man, do you know that I shall soon be a grandfather?"
"I know."
"Yes, yes!" repeated Plavitski with a smile of delight, "and in
addition to that, I will tell you only this much: there is nothing to
surpass young married women!"
And, laughing, he began to clap Pan Ignas time after time on the
shoulder; then he put the ends of his fingers to his lips, took
farewell, and walked off.
But his voice, slightly quivering, came to Pan Ignas from a distance,--
"There is nothing to surpass young married women." Noise on the street
drowned the rest.