A couple of days after the christening, Svirski visited Pan Stanislav
in the counting-house, to inquire for Marynia's health, and to talk
about various things which lay at his heart. Seeing, however, that he
was late, and that Pan Stanislav was preparing to go, he said,--
"Do not stop for me. Let us talk on the street. The light is so sharp
to-day that I cannot work; therefore I will walk to your door with you."
"In every case I should have been forced to beg your pardon," said Pan
Stanislav. "My Marynia goes out to-day for the first time, and we are
to dine with the Bigiels. She must be dressed by this time, but we have
twenty minutes yet."
"As she goes out, she is well?"
"Praise be to God, as well as a bird!" answered Pan Stanislav, with
delight.
"And the little Aryan?"
"The little Aryan bears himself stoutly."
"O happy man, if I had such a toad at home, not to mention such a wife,
I should not know what to do--unless to walk upon house-tops."
"You will not believe how that boy takes my heart. Every day more, and
in general, in a way that I did not expect, for you must know that I
wanted a daughter."
"It is not evening yet; the daughter will come. But you are in a hurry;
let us go then."
Pan Stanislav took his fur coat, and they went to the street. The day
was frosty, clear. Around was heard the hurried sound of sleigh-bells.
Men had their collars over their ears, their mustaches were frosty, and
they threw columns of steam from their mouths.
"It is a gladsome sort of day," said Pan Stanislav. "I rejoice, for my
Marynia's sake, that it is clear."
"It is gladsome for you in life; therefore everything seems clear to
you," said Svirski, taking him by the arm. But all at once he dropped
the arm, and stopping the way, said, with an expression as if he wished
to quarrel,--
"Do you know that you have the most beautiful woman in Warsaw as wife?
It is I who tell you this--I!"
And he began to strike his breast with his hand as if to increase
thereby the certainty that it was he and no one else who was speaking
thus.
"Of course!" answered Pan Stanislav, laughing, "and also the best and
most honest on earth; but let us go on, for it is cold."
When Svirski took him again by the arm, Pan Stanislav added with some
emotion,--
"But what I went through during her sickness, the Lord God alone
knows--Better not mention it--She gave me a surprise simply by her
return to life; but if God grants me to live till spring, I will give a
surprise that will gladden her."
"There is nothing with which to compare her," answered Svirski.
Then, halting again, he said, as if in astonishment, "And; as I love
God, so much simplicity at the same time."
They walked on a while in silence, then Pan Stanislav asked Svirski of
his journey.
"I shall stay three weeks in Florence," answered the artist. "I have
some work there. Besides, I have grown homesick for the light on San
Miniato and Ginevra, with which, and with Cimabue, I was in love on
a time. Do you remember in Santa Maria Novella, in the chapel of
Rucellai? After a three weeks' stay I shall go to Rome. I wanted to
talk with you about the journey, for this morning Pan Ignas came to me
with the proposition that we should go again together."
"Ah! and did you agree?"
"I had not the heart to refuse, though, between ourselves, he is
sometimes a burden. But you know how I loved him, and how I felt for
him, so it is hard for me to say it, but he is burdensome occasionally.
What is to be said in this case? he is changed immensely. At the
christening I told Pani Polanyetski that at times he seems to me like
a costly vessel which is cracked; and that is true. For I saw how he
struggled over those letters, in which he wished to describe Italy for
her. He walked whole hours through the room, rubbed his shot forehead,
sat down, stood up; but the paper remained just as it was, untouched.
God grant him to recover his former power. At present he repeats to
every one that he will write; but he begins to doubt himself, and to
grieve. I know that he grieves."
"The loss of his power would be a misfortune both for him and Panna
Helena. If you knew how she was concerned to the verge of despair, not
only for his life, but his talent."
"The loss of that would be a public misfortune; but the person for whom
I am most sorry is Panna Ratkovski. She too begins to doubt whether he
will be what he was, and that tortures her, perhaps, more than other
griefs."
"Poor girl!" said Pan Stanislav, "and the more so since from all his
plans of travelling one thing is clear, that he does not even think of
her. It is fortunate that Panna Helena secured her independence."
"I will wait a year," answered Svirski, "and after a year I will
propose a second time. She has taken hold of me, it is not to be
denied! Have you noticed how becoming short hair is to her? She ought
to wear it that way always. I will wait a year," and he was silent;
"but after that I shall consider my hands free. It is not possible
either that in her something will not change in a year, especially
if he gives no sign of life. All this is wonderfully strange. Do you
think that I do not do everything in my power to blow into life some
spark for her? As God is true, a man has never done more against his
own heart than I have. Pani Bigiel too does what she can. But it is
difficult. Again, no one has the right to say to him expressly: marry!
if he does not love her. And this is the more wonderful, since he does
not seem even to think of the other. One Panna Ratkovski is worth more
than a whole grove of such 'Poplars;' but that is another affair! For
me the point is that she should not suppose that I am taking him away
purposely. I have not dissuaded him, for I could not; but, my dear sir,
should there ever be a conversation about our journey, say to her that,
as God lives, I did not persuade Pan Ignas to the journey, and that I
would give more than she supposes to make her happy, even were it at
the cost of an old dog like me."
"Of course we shall do so."
"Thank you for that. Before going, I shall be with you again to say
good-by to Pani Polanyetski."
"Surely in the evening, so that we may sit longer. I think too that you
will return in summer; you and Pan Ignas will spend some time with us."
"In Buchynek?"
"In Buchynek or not, that is unknown yet."
Further conversation was interrupted by the sight of Osnovski, who at
that moment was coming out of a fruit-shop, with a white package in his
hand.
"See, there is Osnovski!" said Svirski.
"How changed!" said Pan Stanislav.
And indeed he was changed immensely. From under his fur cap gazed a
pale face, grown yellow, and, as it were, much older. His fur coat
seemed to hang on him. Seeing his two friends, he was vexed; it was
evident that for a while he hesitated whether or not to go around,
pretending that he did not see them. But the sidewalk was empty, and
they had come so near that he changed his intention, and, coming up,
began to speak with unnatural haste, as if wishing to cover with talk
that of which all three were thinking exclusively.
"A good day to you, gentlemen! Oh, this is a chance that we meet, for
I am shut up in Prytulov, and come rarely to the city. I have just
bought some grapes, for the doctor orders me to eat grapes. But they
are imported in sawdust, and have the odor of it; I thought they would
be better here. There is frost to-day, indeed. In the country sleighing
is perfect."
And they walked on together, all feeling awkward.
"You are going to Egypt, are you not?" inquired Pan Stanislav at last.
"That is my old plan, and perhaps I shall go. In the country there is
nothing to do in winter; it is tedious to be alone there."
Here he stopped suddenly, for he saw that he was touching a delicate
subject. And they went on in a silence still more oppressive, feeling
that unspeakable awkwardness which is felt always when, by some tacit
agreement, people talk of things of no interest, while hiding the main
ones, which are painful. Osnovski would have been glad to leave his
two friends; but people accustomed for long years to observe certain
forms pay attention to appearances unconsciously, even in the deepest
misfortune, hence he wanted to find some easy and natural means of
leaving Pan Stanislav and the artist; but not being able to find it,
he merely continued the awkward position. Finally, he began to take
farewell of them in the unexpected and unnatural way of a man who has
lost his head. At the last moment, however, he determined otherwise.
Such a comedy seemed to him unendurable. He had had enough of it. It
flashed into his head that he ought not to make a secret of anything;
that in avoidance of every mention of misfortune there is something
abject. On his face constraint was clear, and suffering; but, halting,
he began to say with a broken voice, losing breath every moment,--
"Gentlemen, I beg pardon for detaining you longer. But you know that
I have separated from my wife--I do not see any reason why I should
not speak of it, especially with persons so honorable and so near--I
declare to you, gentlemen, that that was--that that happened so--that
is, that I wished it myself, and that to my wife nothing--"
But the voice stuck in his throat, and he could not speak further.
Evidently he wanted to take the fault on himself; but on a sudden he
felt all the incredibility, all the extent and desperate emptiness of
a lie like that, which must be a mere sound of words, so that not even
the feeling of any duty, nor any social appearance could justify him.
And, losing his head altogether, he went into the crowd, bearing with
him his grapes and unfathomable misfortune.
Svirski and Pan Stanislav went on in silence under the impression of
this misfortune.
"As God is true," said Pan Stanislav at length, "his heart is breaking."
"For such a man," answered the artist, "there is nothing except to wish
death."
"And still he has not deserved such a fate."
"I give you my word," said Svirski, "whenever I think of him, I see
him kissing her hands. He did it so often that I cannot imagine him
otherwise. And what sets me to thinking again is this, that misfortune,
like death, severs the relations of people, or if it does not sever
relations completely, it estranges people. You have not known him long,
but I, for example, lived on intimate terms with him, and now he is to
me somehow farther away, while I am to him more a stranger; there is no
help in this case, and that is so sad."
"Sad and wonderful--"
But Svirski stopped on a sudden, and exclaimed,--
"Do you know what? May a thunderbolt burn that Pani Osnovski! Panna
Helena said that it was not permitted to despair of a man while he was
living; but as to that one, let a thunderbolt shake her!"
"There was not in the world, perhaps, a woman more worshipped than
she," said Pan Stanislav.
"There you have them," answered Svirski, passionately. "Women, taking
them in general--"
But all at once he struck his glove across his mouth.
"No!" cried he. "To the devil with my old fault! I have promised myself
not to make any general conclusions about women."
"I said that he worshipped her," continued Pan Stanislav, "because now
I simply do not understand how he can live without her."
"But he must."
Osnovski was forced really to live without his wife, but he was not
able. In Prytulov and in Warsaw, which were full of reminiscences of
her, life soon became for him unendurable; hence a month later he
started on a journey. But, already out of health when he left Warsaw,
he caught cold in an over-heated car, and in Vienna fell so ill that
he had to take to his bed. The cold, which at first was considered
influenza, turned into a violent typhus. After a few days the sick man
lost consciousness, and lay in a hotel at the mercy of strange doctors
and strange people, far from home and his friends. But afterward in the
fever which heated his brain and confused his thoughts it seemed to him
that he saw near his bedside the face dearest in life to him, beloved
at all times, beloved in loneliness, in sickness, and in presence
of death. It seemed to him that he saw it even when he had regained
consciousness, but was so weak that he could not move yet, nor speak,
nor even arrange his own thoughts.
Later the vision disappeared. But he began to inquire about it from
the Sisters of Charity, who were sent, it was unknown by whom, and who
surrounded him with the most tender care; and he began to yearn beyond
measure.