"My dear fellow, as to business I flatter myself that I know a great
deal more about it than you; but as to arguments, I confess that you
would soon drive me into a corner. If you had not inherited millions
from your father, you would be able to amass a fortune as a barrister.
You have put the whole thing in such a light that I do not know what
to think of that Roumanian chap. All I know about it is that some
kind of transaction about his wife had occurred, and that, put it in
whatever light you will, is always a disreputable thing. Besides, as
I am somewhat of a merchant myself, I will tell you another thing:
a bankrupt can always find a way out of his difficulties: he either
makes another fortune and then pays his debts, or he blows out his
brains and pays with his life; and at the same time, if he is married,
he sets his wife free and gives her another chance."
I fumed and raged inwardly, and would have given anything if I could
have shouted out to him: "You are a bankrupt already in one thing, for
your wife does not love you. You see the Cascades; jump in, set her
free, and give her the chance of some happiness." But I remained
silent, chewing the bitter cud of my reflections. Kromitzki, however
commonplace he might be, though capable of selling Gluchow and taking
advantage of his wife's trust in him, was not the villain I took him
for. It was a disappointment and destroyed the plan to which for the
moment I had clung as to a plank of safety. Again I felt powerless,
and saw looming up before me the vast solitude. Nevertheless, I held
fast to that purpose because I understood that unless I could do
something, I should go mad. "It will at least prepare the ground for
anything that may turn up, and accustom Kromitzki to the thought of
parting with Aniela," I said to myself. As I said before, nobody knows
in what state Kromitzki's affairs are, but I suppose that a man who
speculates is liable to losses as well as to gains. I said to him:--
"I do not know whether your principles are, strictly speaking,
business principles, but at any rate they are the sentiments of an
honorable man, and I respect you for them. You said, if I understood
you, that a man has no right to drag his wife with him into poverty."
"No, I did not say that; I only said that to sell one's wife is a
villany; the wife ought to share her husband's fate. I think but
little of a fair-weather wife, who wants to break her marriage vows
because her husband cannot give her the comforts of life."
"Suppose she did not agree, he might set her free against her will.
Besides, if she knew that by submitting to a divorce, she could save
her husband, duty well understood would bid her to yield."
"It is unpleasant even to talk about such things."
"Why? are you sorry for the Boyar?"
"Not I; I shall always hold him for a blackguard."
"Because you do not look at things from an objective point of view.
But that is not astonishing. A man like you, with whom everything is
prospering, cannot enter into the psychology of a bankrupt unless
he be a philosopher; and philosophy has nothing to do with making
millions."
I did not wish to prolong the conversation, so utterly disgusted was
I with my own perversity. I had sown the seed,--a very small and
pitiable seed to produce anything; and yet I clung to it tenaciously.
One thing revived my hope. At the moment when I tried to make him
believe that a ruined man ought to set his wife free, there was a
certain constraint and trouble in his expression. I also noticed that
when I spoke about his millions a slight sigh escaped him. To infer
from this that he is on the brink of ruin, would be jumping at
conclusions; but I may fairly conjecture that his affairs are in
a precarious state. I resolved to get at the truth as quickly as
possible.
In the mean while my own self seemed to be divided in two parts. The
one said: "If you waver ever so little, I will push you downward if
it should cost me my whole fortune. I will work your ruin, and when
I come to deal with a broken man, it remains to be seen whether for
certain transactions you do not find a gentler word than, 'villany.'"
Yet I was conscious at the same time that these were not my thoughts
nor my ways of dealing; that they had been suggested to me by somebody
else, and that but for my desperate position they would never have
found room in me, as they are averse to my nature and repulsive to me.
Money never played any part in my life, either as means or as aim. I
consider myself incapable of using such a weapon, and I felt what a
degradation it would be for me and Aniela to introduce that element
into our relations to each other. The thought of it was so repulsive
to me that I said to myself: "Will you not spare yourself? Must you
even drink from such a bowl? See how you are degenerating step by
step. Formerly thoughts like these would never have crossed your mind;
and what is more, schemes like these are utterly useless, and will
only lower you in your own eyes."
In fact, formerly, when my aunt spoke of Kromitzki's affairs in a
doubting spirit, it had always caused me some uneasiness. The prospect
that at some time or other he might want me to assist him or take a
share in his transactions had made me consider what I should do in
such a case; and I always vowed that I would decline and have nothing
to do with any of his affairs; so repugnant to me was the thought of
mingling money matters with my relations to Aniela. I remember that
I saw in this another proof of the nobility and refinement of my
feelings. To-day I grasp that weapon as if I were a banker and had
lived by money transactions all my life.
I perceive with absolute certainty that my thoughts and deeds are
worse than myself, and I ask myself how that can be. Most probably
because I cannot find the way out of the labyrinth. I love a noble
woman; my love is very great; and yet, putting the two together, the
net result is crookedness, and enchanted circles where my character
loses itself and even my nerves grow less sensitive. When, in former
times, I erred and strayed from the right path there still remained
something, some aesthetic feeling, by the help of which I still
distinguished good from evil. At present I have none of that feeling,
or if it still exists it is powerless. If I had only at the same time
lost the consciousness of what is ugly and offensive! But no; I have
it still, only it does not serve me as a curb, and is of no effect
except to aggravate my troubles. Beside my love for Aniela there is no
room for anything; but consciousness does not require space. I absorb
love, hatred, and sorrow as a cancer breeds in a diseased organism.
He who has never been in a position similar to mine cannot understand
it. I knew that from love's entanglements spring various sufferings,
but I did not appreciate those sufferings. I did not believe they were
so real and so difficult to bear. Only now I understand the difference
between "knowing" and "believing," and the meaning of the French
thinker's words: "We know we must die, but we do not believe it."