I saw a miracle, and that's the end of it.
Now for the first time I understand why a man has eyes.
_Corpo di Bacco_; what beauty!
I am walking with Ostrynski; I see on a sudden at the corner of Willow
Street some woman passing quickly. I stand as if fixed to the earth; I
become oak; I become stone; I stare; I lose consciousness; without
knowing it I seize Ostrynski by the cravat; I loosen his
cravat--and--save me, or I die!
What that she has perfect features? It is not the features, she is
simply an artist's ideal, a masterpiece as outline, a masterpiece as
coloring, a masterpiece as sentiment. Greuze would have risen from the
dead in her presence, and hanged himself then for having painted so much
ugliness.
I gaze and gaze. She is walking alone,--how alone? Poetry is walking
with her; music, spring, splendor, and love are walking with her. I know
not whether I should prefer to paint her immediately; I should rather
kneel before her and kiss her feet, because such a woman was born.
Finally, do I know what I would do?
She passes us as serenely as a summer day. Ostrynski bows to her; but
she does not see him. I wake from my amazement and cry,--
"Let us follow her!"
"No," answers Ostrynski; "have you gone mad? I must tie my cravat. Give
me peace! that is an acquaintance of mine."
"An acquaintance of yours? Present me."
"I do not think of it; look to your own betrothed."
I hurl a curse at Ostrynski and his posterity to the ninth generation;
then I wish to fly after the unknown. To my misfortune, she has entered
an open carriage. Only from a distance do I see her straw hat and red
parasol.
"Do you know her really?" ask I of Ostrynski.
"I know all people."
"Who is she?"
"Pani Helena Kolchanovski of the house of Turno, otherwise Panna Vdova
[Miss Widow], so called."
"Why Miss Widow?"
"Because her husband died at their wedding supper. If you have
recovered, I will tell you her history. There was a rich, childless
bachelor, Kolchanovski de Kolchanovo, a noble of the Ukraine. He had
immensely honorable relatives who hoped to be his heirs, and an
immeasurably short neck, which gave the greater hopes to the heirs. I
knew those heirs. They were in truth perfectly honorable people; but
what's to be done? The most honorable and the least interested of them
could not refrain from looking at Kolchanovski's neck. This annoyed the
old man so intensely that out of spite to the family he paid court to a
neighbor's daughter, drew up a document, conveyed to her all his
property, then married her; after the ceremony there was dancing; at the
end of the dancing a supper; at the end of the supper apoplexy killed
him on the spot. In that way Madame Helena Kolchanovski became Miss
Widow."
"Was that long ago?"
"Three years. At that time she was twenty-two years of age. Since then
she might have married twenty-two times; but she doesn't want to marry.
People supposed that she was waiting for a prince. It turned out that
that was not true; for she fired a prince out a little while ago.
Besides I know well that she has no pretensions; the best proof of which
is that Pani Kolchanovski lives to this time in close friendship with
our well-known, sympathetic, gifted, etc., Eva Adami, who was a friend
of hers in the boarding-school."
Hearing this, I just jumped from joy. If that is true, no more of
Ostrynski. My beloved, honest Evusia[18] will smooth the way for my
acquaintance with Pani Helena.
[18] A form of endearment for Eva.
"Well, then you won't take me to her?" asked I of Ostrynski.
"Decidedly not; if any man wishes to make the acquaintance of any one in
the city, why, he will make it," answered Ostrynski; "but because you
put me out with Kazia, I do not wish people to say in the present case
that I caused-- Do I know? Be in good health!"[19]
[19] This means farewell.