Two days later Pan Stanislav received a note from Mashko, containing a
few words of farewell.
"I go to-day," wrote he. "I shall try absolutely to run in once
more to thee; but in every case I bid thee farewell, and thank
thee for all proofs of friendship which thou hast shown me. May
the Lord God prosper thee better than He has prospered me so far!
I should like to see thee, even for a moment; and if I can, I
shall run in about four o'clock. Meanwhile I repeat the request to
remember my wife, and protect her a little when people drop her. I
pray thee also to defend me before her against people's tongues. I
am going to Berlin at nine in the evening, and quite openly. Till
we meet again I and in every case, be well,--and once more, thanks
for everything.
"MASHKO."
Pan Stanislav went to the counting-house about four, but he waited
beyond an hour in vain. "He will not come," thought he, at last; "so
much the better." And he went home with the feeling of satisfaction
that he had succeeded in avoiding a disagreeable meeting. But in the
evening a species of pity for Mashko began to move him: he thought that
the man had gone by a bad and feverish road, it is true; but he had had
his fill of torment and tearing, and in the end had paid dearly; that
all which had happened was to be foreseen long before; and if those who
foresaw it had associated with him, and received him at their houses,
they ought not to show him contempt in the day of his downfall. He
knew, too, that he should give Mashko pleasure by his appearance at the
station; and after a moment of hesitation he went.
On the road he remembered that likely he should find Pani Mashko,
too, at the station; but he knew that in any event he must meet her,
and he judged that to withdraw because of her would be a kind of vain
cowardice. With these thoughts he went to the station.
In the hall of the first class, which is not large, there were several
persons, and on the tables whole piles of travelling-cases, but nowhere
could he see Mashko; and only after he had looked around carefully did
he recognize in a young veiled lady, sitting in one corner of the
hall, Pani Mashko.
"Good-evening," said he, approaching her. "I have come to say good-by
to your husband. Where is he?"
She bowed slightly, and answered, with the thin, cold voice usual to
her,--
"My husband is buying tickets."
"How tickets? Are you going with him?"
"No; my husband is buying a ticket."
Further conversation under these conditions seemed rather difficult;
but, after a while, Mashko appeared in company with a railway servant,
to whom he gave the ticket and money, with the order to check the
baggage. Wearing a long travelling overcoat and a soft silk cap, he
looked, with his side whiskers and gold glasses, like some travelling
diplomat. Pan Stanislav deceived himself, too, in thinking that Mashko
would show uncommon delight at his coming. Mashko, when he saw him,
said, it is true, "Oh, how thankful I am that thou hast come!" but,
as it were, with a kind of indifference, and with the hurry usual to
people who are going on a journey.
"Everything is checked," said he, looking around the hall. "But where
are my hand packages? Ah, here they are! Good!"
Then he turned to Pan Stanislav, and said,--
"I thank thee for having come. But do me still one kindness, and
conduct my wife home; or, at least, go out with her, and help her to
find a carriage. Terenia, Pan Polanyetski will take thee home. My dear
friend, come one moment; I have something more to say to thee."
And, taking Pan Stanislav aside, he began to speak feverishly,--
"Take her home without fail. I have given a plausible form to my
journey; but do thou say to her, so, in passing, that thou art
surprised that I am going such a short time before the calling of the
will case, for if any event should detain me, the case must be lost.
I wanted to go to thy house just to ask this of thee; but, as thou
knowest, on the day of a journey--The case will come up in a week.
I shall fall ill; my place will be taken by my assistant, a young
advocate, a beginner, and of course he will lose. But the affair will
be plausible through my illness. I have secured my wife; everything
is in her name, and they will not take one glass from her. I have a
plan which I shall lay before a shipbuilding company in Antwerp. If
I make a contract, timber will rise in price throughout this whole
country; but who knows, in that case, if I shall not return, for the
whole affair of Ploshov is a trifle in comparison with this business? I
cannot speak more in detail. Were it not for the grievous moments which
my wife must pass, I should keep regret away; but that just throttles
me."
Here he touched his throat with his hand, and then spoke still more
hurriedly,--
"Misfortune fell on me; but misfortune may fall on any man. For that
matter, it is too late to speak of this. What has been, has been; but
I did what I could, and I shall do yet what I can. And this, too, is a
relief to me,--that thou wilt get thy own even from Kremen. If I had
time to tell thee what I have in mind, thou couldst see that it would
not come to the head of every man. Maybe I shall have business even
with thy firm. I do not give up, as thou seest--I have secured my wife
perfectly. Well, it's over, it's over! Another in my place might have
ended worse. Might he not? But let us return to my wife now."
Pan Stanislav listened to Mashko's words with a certain pain. He
wondered, it is true, at his mental fertility; but at the same time
he felt that in him there was lacking that balance which makes the
difference between a man of enterprise and an enterprising adventurer.
It seemed to him, too, that there was in Mashko already something of
the future worn-out trickster, who will struggle for a long time yet,
but who, with his plans, will be falling lower and lower till he ends,
with boots worn on one side, in a second-rate coffee-house, telling, in
a circle of the same kind of "broken men," of his former greatness. He
thought, also, that the cause of all this was a life resting to begin
with on untruth; and that Mashko, with all his intelligence, can never
work himself out of the fetters of falsehood.
See, he pretends yet, and even before his wife. He had to do so; but
when the hall began to fill with people, some acquaintances stepped up
to greet the two men, and exchange a couple of such hurried phrases
as are used at railroads. Mashko answered them with such a tinge of
loftiness and favor that anger seized Pan Stanislav. "And to think,"
said he, "that he is fleeing from his creditors! What would happen were
that man to reach fortune?"
But now the bell sounded, and beyond the window was heard the hurried
breath of the engine. People began to move about and hasten.
"I am curious to know what is going on in him now?" thought Pan
Stanislav.
But even at that moment Mashko could not free himself from the bonds
of lying. Maybe his heart was straitened by an evil foreboding: maybe
he had a gleam of second sight, that that wife whom he loved he should
never see again; that he was going to want, to contempt, to fall; but
it was not permitted him to show what he felt, or even to say farewell
to his wife as he wished.
The second bell sounded. They went out on the platform, and Mashko
stood still a wile before the sleeping-car. The gleam of the lamp
fell directly on his face, on which two small wrinkles appeared near
the month. But he spoke calmly, with the tone of a man whom business
constrains to a few days' absence, but who is sure that he will return.
"Well, till we meet again, Terenia! Kiss mamma'a hands for me, and be
well. Till we meet, till we meet!"
Thus speaking, he raised her hand, which, moreover he kept long at his
lips. Pan Stanislav, going aside a little by design, thought,--
"They see each other now for the last time. In some half year a
separation in form will follow."
And the peculiar lot of those two women struck him, the same for mother
and daughter. Both married with great appearances of brilliancy; and
the husbands of both had to run away from their domestic hearths,
leaving only shame to their wives.
But now the bell sounded the third time. Mashko entered. For a while,
in the wide pane of the sleeping-car, his side whiskers were visible,
and his gold-rimmed eye-glasses; then the train pushed out into
darkness.
"I am at your service," said Pan Stanislav to Pani Mashko.
He was almost certain that she would thank him dryly for his society,
and reject it; he was even angry, for the reason that he had determined
to tell her not only something about her husband, but something from
himself. But she inclined her head in agreement; she, too, had her
plan. So much bitter dislike for Pan Stanislav and such a feeling of
offence had been rising in her heart for a long time, that, thinking
him likely to take advantage again of a moment which they were to pass
together, she determined to give him a slap which he would remember for
many a day.
But she was mistaken altogether. First, through her he had been
crushed as ice is crushed against a cliff, and therefore for some time
he had felt for her not only dislike, but even hatred. Second, if
later, through a feeling of conviction that the fault was on his side
exclusively, that hatred had passed, then he had changed so much that
he had become almost entirely another man. His mercantile reckoning
with himself had taught him that such transgressions are paid for too
dearly; he was in a phase of immense desire for a life without deceit;
and finally remorse and sorrow had eaten up desire in him as rust eats
up iron. When assisting her into the carriage, and when he touched her
shoulder, he remained calm; and when he had taken his seat, he began
at once to speak of Mashko, for he judged that through a feeling of
humanity alone he ought to prepare her for the coming catastrophe, and
soften its significance.
"I wonder at the daring of your husband," said he. "Let one bridge fall
on the road during his stay in Berlin, he will not be able to return to
the will case, on which, as you know, of course, all his fate depends.
He must have gone for important reasons; but it is always hazardous to
act thus."
"The bridges are strong," answered Pani Mashko.
But he, unconquered by that not over-encouraging answer, spoke on,
drawing aside before her gradually the curtain of the future; and
he spoke so long that while he was talking they arrived before the
Mashko dwelling. Then she, not understanding the meaning of his words
evidently, and angry, perhaps, that she had not had the chance to give
him the intended blow, said, when she had stepped out of the carriage,--
"Had you any personal object in disquieting me?"
"No," answered Pan Stanislav, who saw that the moment had come to tell
her that which he had resolved to say from himself. "In relation to
you, I have only one object,--to declare that, with reference to you,
I have offended unworthily, and that from my whole soul I beg your
pardon."
But the young woman went into her house without answering a single
word. Pan Stanislav, to the end of his life, did not know whether that
was the silence of hatred or forgiveness.
Still he returned home with a certain encouragement, for it seemed to
him that he ought to have acted thus. In his eyes that was a small act
of penitence; it was all one to him how Pani Mashko understood him.
"Maybe she judged," said he to himself, "that I begged pardon of her
for my subsequent treatment; in every case I shall be able to look her
more boldly in the eyes now."
And in that thought of his there was undoubtedly some selfishness; but
there was also the will to escape from the toils.