“What you say has this good side, that then my such-an-uncle-not-an-uncle Plavitski will belong to a type that has perished.”
Pan Yamish thought a while and said, —
“A thread stretches and stretches till it breaks, but at last it must break. To my thinking, they cannot hold out in Kremen, even though they parcel Magyerovka. But do you see whom I pity? – Marynia. She is an uncommonly honest girl. For you do not know that the old man wanted to sell Kremen two years ago; and that that did not take place partly through the prayers of Marynia. Whether this was done out of regard to the memory of her mother, who lies buried there, or because so much is said and written about the duty of holding to the soil, it is sufficient that the girl did what she could to prevent the sale. She imagined, poor thing, that if she would betake herself with all power to work, she could do everything. She abandoned the whole world for Kremen. For her it will be a blow when the thread breaks at last, and break it must. A pity for the years of the girl!”
“You are a kind person, councillor!” cried Pan Stanislav, with his accustomed vivacity.
The old man smiled. “I love that girl: besides, she is my pupil in agriculture; of a truth it will be sad when she is gone from us.”
Pan Stanislav fell to biting his mustaches, and said at last, “Let her marry some man in the neighborhood, and remain.”
“Marry, marry! As if that were easy for a girl without property. Who is there among us? Gantovski. He would take her. He is a good man, and not at all so limited as they say. But she has no feeling for him, and she will not marry without feeling. Yalbrykov is a small estate. Besides, it seems to the old man that the Gantovskis are something inferior to the Plavitskis, and Gantovski too believes this. With us, as you know, that man passes for a person of great family who is pleased to boast himself such. Though people laugh at Plavitski, they have grown used to his claim. Moreover, one man raises his nose because he is making property, another because he is losing it, and nothing else remains to him. But let that pass. I know one thing, whoever gets Marynia will get a pearl.“
Pan Stanislav had in his mind at that moment the same conviction and feeling. Sinking, therefore, into meditation, he began again to muse about Marynia, or, rather, to call her to mind and depict her to himself. All at once it even seemed to him that he would be sad without her; but he remembered that similar things had seemed so to him more than once, and that time had swept away the illusion. Still he thought of her, even when they were approaching the city; and when he got out at Warsaw, he muttered through his teeth, —
“How stupidly it happened! how stupidly!”
CHAPTER IV
On his return to Warsaw, Pan Stanislav passed the first evening at the house of his partner, Bigiel, with whom, as a former schoolmate, he was connected by personal intimacy.
Bigiel, a Cheh by descent, but of a family settled in the country for a number of generations, had managed a small commercial bank before his partnership with Pan Stanislav, and had won the reputation of a man not over-enterprising, it is true, but honorable and uncommonly reliable in business. When Pan Stanislav entered into company with him, the house extended its activity, and became an important firm. The partners complemented each other perfectly. Pan Stanislav was incomparably more clever and enterprising; he had more ideas and took in a whole affair with greater ease; but Bigiel watched its execution more carefully. When there was need of energy, or of pushing any one to the wall, Pan Stanislav was the man; but when it was a question of careful thought, of examining interests from ten sides, and of patience, Bigiel’s rôle began. Their temperaments were directly opposite; and for that reason, perhaps, they had sincere friendship for each other. Preponderance was relatively on the side of Pan Stanislav. Bigiel believed in his partner’s uncommon capacity; and a number of ideas really happy for the house, which Pan Stanislav had given, confirmed this belief. The dream of both was to acquire in time capital sufficient to build cotton-mills, which Bigiel would manage, and Pan Stanislav direct. But, though both might count themselves among men almost wealthy, the mills were in a remote future. Less patient, and having many relatives, Pan Stanislav tried, it is true, immediately after his return from abroad, to direct to this object local, so-called “our own,” capital; he was met, however, with a general want of confidence. He noticed at the same time a wonderful thing: his name opened all doors to him, but rather injured than helped him in business. It might be that those people who invited him to their houses could not get it into their heads that one of themselves, hence a man of good family and with a name ending in ski, could conduct any business successfully. This angered Polanyetski to such a degree that the clever Bigiel had to quench his outburst by stating that such want of confidence was in fact caused by years of experience. Knowing well the history of different industrial undertakings, he cited to Pan Stanislav a whole series of cases, beginning with Tyzenhaus, the treasurer, and ending with various provincial and land banks, which had nothing of the country about them except their names, – in other words, they were devoid of every home basis.
“The time has not come yet,” said Bigiel; “but it will come, or, rather, it is in sight. Hitherto there have been only amateurs and dilettanti; now for the first time are appearing here and there trained specialists.”
Pan Stanislav who, in spite of his temperament, had powers of observation rather well developed, began to make strange discoveries in those spheres to which his relatives gave him access. He was met by a general recognition for having done something. This recognition was offered with emphasis even; but in it there was something like condescension. Each man let it be known too readily that he approved Polanyetski’s activity, that he considered it necessary; but no one bore himself as if he considered the fact that Polanyetski was working at some occupation as a thing perfectly common and natural. “They all protect me,” said he; and that was true. He came also to the conclusion that if, for example, he aspired to the hand of any of the young ladies of so-called “society,” his commercial house and his title of “affairist” would, notwithstanding the above recognition, have injured more than helped him. They would rather give him any of those maidens if, instead of a lucrative business, he had some encumbered estate, or if, while living as a great lord, he was merely spending the interest of his capital, or even the capital itself.
When he had made dozens of observations of this kind, Pan Stanislav began to neglect his relatives, and at last abandoned them altogether. He restricted himself to the houses of Bigiel and Pani Emilia Hvastovski, and to those male acquaintances who were a necessity of his single life. He took his meals at Francois’s with Bukatski, old Vaskovski, and the advocate Mashko, with whom he discussed and argued various questions; he was often at the theatre and at public amusements of all kinds. For the rest, he led rather a secluded life; hence he was unmarried yet, though he had great and fixed willingness to marry, and, besides, sufficient property.
Having gone after his return from Kremen almost directly to Bigiel’s, he poured out all his gall on “uncle” Plavitski, thinking that he would find a ready and sympathetic listener; but Bigiel was moved little by his narrative, and said, —
“I know such types. But, in truth, where is Plavitski to find money, since he has none? If a man holds mortgages, he should have a saint’s patience. Landed property swallows money easily, but returns it with the greatest difficulty.”
“Listen, to me, Bigiel,” said Pan Stanislav; “since thou hast begun to grow fat and sleep after dinner, one must have a saint’s patience with thee.”
“But is it true,” asked the unmoved Bigiel, “that thou art in absolute need of this money? Hast thou not at thy disposal the money that each of us is bound to furnish?”
“I am curious to know what that is to thee, or Plavitski. I have money with him; I must get it, and that is the end of the matter.”
The entrance of Pani Bigiel, with a whole flock of children, put a curb on the quarrel. She was young yet, dark-haired, blue-eyed, very kind, and greatly taken up with her children, six in number, – children liked by Pan Stanislav uncommonly; she was for this reason his sincere friend, and also Pani Emilia’s. Both these ladies, knowing and loving Marynia Plavitski,