Malinka tried frequently to learn of Augustinovich the real cause of
Yosef's absence.
"Why bind her hands?" asked she, speaking of Lula.
Augustinovich assured her that he did not wish to bind Lula's hands, but
afterward he was silent or lied.
On the other hand Yosef was convinced that the countess knew everything.
"I told her everything," said Augustinovich.
"But she? Do not hide from me!"
"Yosef?"
"What?"
"What is that to thee?"
Yosef gritted his teeth, but inquired no further. He was ashamed. He
confessed to himself that those questions were an indulgence granted to
weakness and to a former feeling. With consternation almost he saw that
time had brought no relief. Oh, there were moments when he wished to
cast away Helena and duty and conscience and go and sell even honor,
even the remnant of self-respect, for one moment in which he could rest
his head against the countess' shoulder. And he could not help
meditating about her. So far he had conquered, but now he remembered
that formerly he had been different from what he was then.
Formerly his character had that calm depth which concealed everything;
to-day he boiled up. From passionate outbursts he passed frequently to
melancholy and indifferent sentimentalism; he remembered how once he
used to ridicule this in others, how he sneered without pity, how he
despised even sentimentalism. Augustinovich knew this best of all.
A certain time (about a month after the breaking with Lula)
Augustinovich, waking up late in the night, saw Yosef dressed yet and
sitting with a book. The clock in the silent night told the fleeting
moments untiringly. A lamp burnt with a clear, bright flame, and by its
light the ruddy side whiskers and pale face of Yosef were outlined
clearly on the black cover of the chair. He was sitting with head bent
back and closed eyes, but he was not sleeping, his raised brows and the
color of his face testified to this. His face had an expression of
unspeakable bliss; some kind of dream, like a golden butterfly, was
sitting on his brain and melting into misty mildness the sharp lines of
his features.
Augustinovich looked at him carefully, then rose in the bed silently
with a face full of indignation and anger. "What is he doing?" thought
he. "Thou art tempting thyself! May I be hanged if I don't throw a
pillow at thy head. Thou booby! Yes, I will throw the pillow! break the
lamp--Hei!"
He had finished in a moment these warlike preparations, and was making
ready to give the terrible blow, when he pushed under the blanket
quickly; Yosef opened his eyes.
"I am curious to know what will happen now," muttered Augustinovich,
pretending to sleep like a dead man. Meanwhile his astonishment grew in
earnest.
Yosef looked at him suspiciously, then looked around like a criminal;
finally he pulled out a drawer of the table and searched in it for some
object.
"Ei! if he only does not want to shoot himself in the head, or poison
himself," thought Augustinovich, terrified.
But Yosef had no thought of shooting or poisoning himself. The object
which he drew forth was a glove. One small yellow wrinkled glove. Ei! a
poor little memorial, a historical gift with which one says remember me.
_Addio! addio! caro mio!_ Remember me. Yosef, like that Emrod of old,
would have gone for the glove "among two leopards and a tiger for it,"
but the question remained as to whether he went away after that and
never returned. In point of stupidity the centuries agree oftener than
in sound judgment.
Yosef raised the glove to his lips.
"Be ashamed, old man!" roared Augustinovich.
In truth, there was something humiliating in this, and afterward Yosef
was greatly ashamed of his act. Next morning he went out before daylight
to avoid Augustinovich, who was seriously angry and indignant. It seemed
to him that he had been deceived in Yosef.
"That dunce," said he, "is like others." This idea roused that distaste
in him which we feel usually on beginning to lose regard for a man whom
we have thus far respected.
More important still was it that after that event Augustinovich grew
convinced that Yosef would return to Lula. "Let the other die or go
mad," said he of the widow. "They will take each other, let her die--Ei,
let her die" (Augustinovich always tried to persuade himself that he did
not like women), "there will be one less of them. Yosef will go back to
Lula, he will."
He meditated then whether to tell Lula that Yosef was to marry, or not;
in the end he resolved to be silent.
"But Helena is nothing to me. He will return to Lula; if I tell her
everything it will be too late--it will be too late! Oh, ho, ho! But
Helena too will lose, for again it will be too late. Yes, yes, I should
not be able to correct the one, and should spoil the other. I shall say
nothing, I will be silent--I will be silent."
He preferred Helena to Lula, a hundred times, and from his soul he
preferred that Yosef should marry Helena; but he cared more for Yosef
than for both women, therefore he wished Lula to be free "in every
case." Besides, he considered that come what might, Lula would take
Pelski. "Then," thought he, "I will tell the old man. 'Dost see,' I will
say to him, 'I said nothing about Helena, she knew nothing about thy not
loving her; still she married Pelski.'"
Finally, he concealed carefully the news of Yosef's intended marriage,
in case that Lula, laughing and happy in view of Yosef's hypothetical
return, should give her hand to Pelski. "Yosef will wish happiness to
the lady, I will say 'Crescite et multiplicamini! He,' I shall say,
pointing to Yosef, 'has been betrothed this long time; he loves and is
loved immensely.'"