"In private life it is worth something; you can make a footstool of it
for the woman you love."
"You will gain a new fame by this definition."
Sniatynski rushed at me with lively impetuosity.
"Yes, yes; put all your laurels into a cushion, go to the dear one,
and say to her: 'This for which people risk their lives; this which
they consider supreme happiness, appreciate more than wealth,--I have
got it, striven for it; and now put your dear feet on it at once.' If
you do this, you will be loved all your life. You wanted to know what
fame is good for, and there you are."
Further discussions were cut short by the entrance of Pani Sniatynska
and Aniela. They were dressed for going out to the hot-houses. What an
imp of mischief lurks in that little woman. She came up to her husband
to ask his permission to go out, which he granted, insisting only that
she should wrap herself up warm; she turned to me and said with a
roguish smile,--
"You will let Aniela go, will you not?"
That Aniela should blush furiously was only natural, but that I,
an old stager, a razor sharpened against the strops of so many
experiences, should have betrayed so much confusion, I cannot forgive
myself. But, putting on a semblance of self-possession, I went up to
Aniela, and raising her hand to my lips, said:--
"It is Aniela who gives orders at Ploszow, and I am her humble
subject."
I should have liked to take Sniatynski with me and join the excursion,
but refrained. I felt a want to speak about Aniela, my future
marriage, and I knew that sooner or later Sniatynski himself would
broach the question. I gave him an opening after the ladies had left
us by saying:--
"And do you still believe as firmly as ever in your life-dogmas?"
"More than ever, or rather, the same as ever. There is no expression
more worn to tatters than the word 'love;' one scarcely likes to use
it; but between ourselves, I tell you; love in the general meaning,
love in the individual sense does not permit of criticism. It is one
of the canons of life. My philosophy consists in not philosophizing
about it at all,--and the deuce take me if for the matter of that, I
consider myself more foolish than other people. With love, life is
worth something; without, it is not worth a bag of chaff."
"Let us see what you have to say about individual love,--or better
still, put in its place woman."
"Very well, let it be woman."
"My good friend, do you not perceive on what brittle foundation you
are building human happiness?"
"On about as brittle a foundation as life,--no more nor less!"
I did not want to drift into a discussion of life and death, and
pulled Sniatynski up.
"For mercy's sake, do not generalize about individual happiness. You
chanced to find the right woman, another might not."
He would not even listen to that. According to his view, ninety out of
a hundred were successful. Women were better, purer, and nobler than
men.
"We are rascals all, in comparison with them!" he shouted, waving his
arms and snaking his leonine mane. "Nothing but rascals! It is I who
say it,--I, who study mankind closely, if only for the reason that I
am a playwright."
He was sitting astride on his chair, attacking me, as it were, with
the chairback, and went on with his usual impetuosity:--
"There are, as Dumas says, apes from the land of Nod, who know neither
curb nor bridle; but what are eyes given for but to see that you do
not take to wife an ape from Nod? Generally speaking a woman does not
betray her husband nor deceive him, unless he himself corrupts her
heart, tramples on her feelings, or repulses and estranges her by his
meanness, his selfishness, narrowness, and his miserable, worthless
nature. You must love her! Let her feel that she is not only your
female, but the crown of your head, as precious as your child and
friend; wear her close to your heart, let her feel the warmth of it,
and you may rest in peace; year after year she will cling closer to
you, until you two are like Siamese twins. If you do not give her all
that, you pervert her, estrange her by your worthlessness,--and she
will leave you. She will leave you as soon as she sees nobler hands
stretched out for her; she is forced to do it, as this warmth, this
appreciation, are as necessary to her life as the air she breathes."
He charged me with the chairback as with a battering ram. I retreated
before him until we had come close to the window; there he jumped up.
"How blind you are! In presence of such social drought, such utter
absence of general happiness as stamps our time, not to grasp this
felicity that is within reach! Shiver on the forum, and not light a
fire at home! Idiotism can go no farther! I tell you plainly, go and
get married."
He pointed through the window at Aniela, who with his wife was coming
back from the hot-houses, and added: "There is your happiness. There
it patters in fur boots on the frozen snow. Take her by weight of
gold, by weight in carats rather! You simply have no home, not only in
a physical sense, but in a moral, intellectual meaning; you have no
basis, no point of rest, and she will give you all that. But do not
philosophize her away as you have philosophized away your abilities
and your thirty-five years of life!"
He could not have told me anything better, nobler, or what chimed in
more with my own desires. I pressed his hands and replied:--
"No, I will not philosophize her away, because I love her."