After dinner Pan Stanislav went to Panna Helena's. Pan Ignas wore a
black bandage on his forehead yet, with a wider plaster in the centre,
covering a wound; he stuttered, and, when looking, squinted somewhat;
but, in general, he was coming to himself more and more, and looked
on himself as recovered already. The doctor asserted that those marks
which remained from the wound yet were disappearing without a trace.
When Pan Stanislav entered, the young man was sitting at a table in a
deep armchair, in which old Pan Zavilovski used to sit formerly, and
was listening with closed eyes to verses which Panna Ratkovski was
reading. But she closed the book at sight of a visitor.
"Good-evening," said Pan Stanislav to her. "How art thou, Ignas? I see
that I have interrupted a reading. In what are you so interested?"
Panna Ratkovski turned her closely-clipped head to the book,--her hair
had been luxuriant before, but she cut it so as not to occupy time
needed for the sick man,--and answered,--
"This is Pan Zavilovski's poetry."
"Thou art listening to thy own poetry?" said Pan Stanislav, laughing.
"Well, how does it please thee?"
"I hear it as if it were not my own," replied Pan Ignas. After a while
he added, speaking slowly, and stuttering a little, "But I shall write
again as soon as I recover."
It was evident that this thought occupied him greatly, and that he must
have mentioned it more than once; for Panna Ratkovski, as if wishing to
give him pleasure, said,--
"And the same kind of beautiful verses, and not too long."
He smiled at her with gratitude, and was silent. But at that moment
Panna Helena entered the room, and pressing Pan Stanislav's hand,
said,--
"How well it is that you have come! I wanted to take counsel with you."
"I am at your service."
"I beg you to come to my room."
She conducted him to the adjoining room, indicated a chair to him,
then, sitting down opposite, was silent, as if collecting her thoughts.
Pan Stanislav, looking at her under the lamp, noticed, for the first
time, a number of silvery threads in her bright hair, and remembered
that that woman was not thirty yet.
She began to speak in her cool and decisive voice,--
"I do not request counsel precisely, but assistance for my relative. I
know that you are a real friend of his, and, besides, you have shown
me so much kindness at the death of my father that I shall be grateful
the rest of my life for it; and now I will speak more openly with you
than with any one else. For personal reasons, which I will not touch,
and of which I can only say that they are very painful, I have decided
to create for myself other conditions of life,--conditions for me
more endurable. I should have done so long since, but while my father
was living I could not. Then Ignas's misfortune came. It seemed to me
my duty not to desert the last relative bearing our name, for whom,
besides, I have a heartfelt and real friendship. But now, thanks be to
God! he is saved. The doctors answer for his life; and if God has given
him exceptional capacities and predestined him to great things, nothing
stands in the way of his activity."
Here she stopped, as if she had fallen to thinking suddenly of
something in the future, after which, when she had roused herself, she
spoke on,--
"But by his recovery my last task is finished, and I am permitted to
return to my original plan. There remains only the property of which
my father left a considerable amount, and which would be altogether
useless to me in my coming mode of life. If I could consider this
property my own personally, I might dispose of it otherwise, perhaps;
but since it is family property, I consider that I have no right to
devote it to foreign objects while any one of the family is alive
who bears the name. I do not conceal from you that attachment to my
cousin moves me; but I judge that I do above all that which conscience
commands, and besides carry out the wish of my father, who did not
succeed in writing his will, but who--I know with all certainty--wished
to leave a part of his property to Ignas. I have provided for myself
not in the degree which my father thought of doing, but still I take
more than I need. Ignas inherits the rest. The act of conveyance has
been written by Pan Kononovich according to all legal rules. It
includes this house, Yasmen, the property in Kutno, the estates in
Poznan and the moneys with the exception of that portion which I have
retained for myself, and a small part which I have reserved for Panna
Ratkovski. It is a question now only of delivering this document to
Ignas. I have asked two doctors if it is not too early, and if the
excitement might not harm him. They assure me that it is not too early,
and that every agreeable news may only act on his health beneficially.
This being the case, I wish to finish the matter at once, for I am in a
hurry."
Here she smiled faintly. Pan Stanislav, pressing her hand, asked, with
unfeigned emotion,--
"Dear lady, I do not inquire through curiosity, What do you intend?"
Not wishing evidently to give an explicit answer, she said,--
"A person has the right always to take refuge under the care of God.
As to Ignas, he has an honest heart and a noble character, which will
not be injured by wealth; but the property is very considerable, and
he is young, inexperienced; he will begin life in conditions changed
altogether,--hence I wish to ask you, as a man of honor and his friend,
to have guardianship over him. Care for him, keep him from evil people,
but above all remind him that his duty is to write and work further.
For me it was a question, not only of saving his life, but his gifts.
Let him write; let him pay society, not for himself only, but for those
too whom God created for His own glory and the assistance of men, but
who destroyed both themselves and their gifts."
Here her lips became pale on a sudden, her hands closed, and the voice
stopped in her throat. It might seem that the despair accumulated in
her soul would break all bounds immediately; but she mastered herself
after a while, and only her clinched hands testified what the effort
was which that action had cost her.
Pan Stanislav, seeing her suffering, judged that it would be better to
turn her thought in another direction, toward practical and current
affairs; hence he said,--
"Evidently this will be an unheard of change in the life of Ignas;
but I too hope that it will result only in good. Knowing him, it is
difficult to admit another issue. But could you not defer the act for a
year, or at least half a year?"
"Why?"
"For reasons which do not lie in Ignas himself, but which might have
connection with him. I do not know whether the news has reached you
that the marriage of Panna Castelli to Kopovski is broken, and that
the position of those ladies is tremendously awkward in consequence.
Through breaking with Ignas, they have made public opinion indignant,
and now their names are on people's tongues again. It would be for them
a perfect escape to return to Ignas; and it is possible to suppose that
when they learn of your gift, they will surely attempt this, and it
is unknown whether Ignas, especially after so short an interval, and
weakened as he is, might not let himself be involved by them."
Panna Helena looked at Pan Stanislav with brows contracted from
attention, and, dwelling on what he said, she answered,--
"No. I judge that Ignas will choose otherwise."
"I divine your thought," said Pan Stanislav; "but think,--he was
attached to that other one beyond every estimate, to such a degree that
he did not wish to outlive the loss of her."
Here something happened which Pan Stanislav had not expected, for Panna
Helena, who had always such control of herself and was almost stern,
opened her thin arms in helplessness, and said,--
"Ah, if that were true,--if there were not for him any other happiness
save in her! Oh, Pan Polanyetski, I knew that he ought not to do that;
but there are things stronger than man, and they are things which he
needs for life absolutely--and besides--"
Pan Stanislav looked at her with astonishment; after a while she
added,--
"Besides, while one lives, one may enter on a better road any moment."
"I did not suppose that I should hear anything like this from her,"
thought Pan Stanislav. And he said aloud,--
"Then let us go to Ignas."
Pan Ignas received the news first with amazement, and then with
delight; but that delight was as if external. It might be supposed
that, by the aid of his brain, he understood that something immensely
favorable had met him, and that he had told himself that he must be
pleased with it, but that he did not feel it with his heart. His heart
declared itself only in the care and interest with which he asked Panna
Helena what she intended to do with herself, and what would become of
her. She was not willing to answer him, and stated, in general terms,
that she would withdraw from the world, and that her resolve was
unchangeable. She implored of him this, which clearly concerned her
most, not to waste his powers and disappoint people who were attached
to him. She spoke as a mother, and he, repeating, "I will write again
the moment I recover," kissed her hands and had tears in his eyes. It
was not known, however, whether those tears meant sympathy for her, or
the regret of a child abandoned by a good and kind nurse; for Panna
Helena told him that from that moment she considered herself a guest in
his house, and in two days would withdraw. Pan Ignas would not agree to
this, and extorted the promise from her to remain a week longer. She
yielded at last, through fear of exciting him and injuring his health.
Then he grew calm, and was as gladsome as a little boy whose prayer
has been granted. Toward the end of the evening, however, he grew
thoughtful, as if remembering something, looked around with astonished
eyes on those present, and said,--
"It is wonderful, but it seems to me as if all this had happened before
some time."
Pan Stanislav, wishing to give a more cheerful tone to the
conversation, asked, laughing,--
"Was it during previous existences on other planets? It was, was it
not?"
"In that way everything might have happened some other time," said Pan
Ignas.
"And you have written the very same verses already--on the moon?"
He took up a book lying on the table, looked at it, grew thoughtful,
and said at last,--
"I will write again, but when I recover completely."
Pan Stanislav took farewell and went out. That evening Panna Ratkovski
removed to her little chamber at Pani Melnitski's.