“Marynia has gone to look at lodgings which I found this morning. She will come directly, for they are only a couple of steps distant. Imagine to thyself a plaything, not lodgings. I shall have a cabinet and a sleeping-room; Marynia also a very nice little chamber, – the dining-room is a trifle dark, it is true; but the drawing-room is a candy-box.”
Here Plavitski passed into a narrative concerning his lodgings, with the volubility of a child amused by something, or of an old lover of comfort, who smiles at every improvement. At last he said, —
“I had barely looked around when I found myself at home. Dear Warsaw is my old friend; I know her well.”
But at that moment some one entered the adjoining room.
“That is Marynia, surely,” said Plavitski. “Marynia, art thou there?” called he.
“I am,” answered a youthful voice.
“Come here; we have a guest.”
Marynia appeared in the door. At sight of Pan Stanislav, astonishment shone on her face. He, rising, bowed; and when she approached the table, he stretched out his hand in greeting. She gave him her own with as much coldness as politeness. Then she turned to her father, as if no one else were present in the room, —
“I have seen the lodgings; they are neat and comfortable, but I am not sure that the street is not too noisy.”
“All streets are noisy,” answered Plavitski. “Warsaw is not a village.”
“Pardon me; I will go to remove my hat,” said Marynia. And, returning to her room, she did not appear for some time.
“She will not show herself again,” thought Pan Stanislav.
But evidently she was only arranging her hair before the mirror, after removing her hat; she entered a second time, and asked, —
“Am I interrupting?”
“No,” said Plavitski, “we have no business now, for which, speaking in parenthesis, I am very glad. Pan Polanyetski has come only through politeness.”
Pan Stanislav blushed a little, and, wishing to change the subject, said, —
“I am returning from Reichenhall; I bring you greetings from Pani Emilia and Litka, and that is one reason why I made bold to come.”
For a moment the cool self-possession on Marynia’s face vanished.
“Emilia wrote to me of Litka’s heart attack,” said she. “How is she now?”
“There has not been a second attack.”
“I expect another letter, and it may have come; but I have not received it, for Emilia addressed it very likely to Kremen.”
“They will send it,” said Plavitski; “I gave directions to send all the mail here.”
“You will not go back to the country, then?” asked Pan Stanislav.
“No; we will not,” answered Marynia, whose eyes recovered their expression of cool self-possession.
A moment of silence followed. Pan Stanislav looked at the young lady, and seemed to be struggling with himself. Her face attracted him with new power. He felt now more clearly that in such a person precisely he would find most to please him, that he could love such a one, that she is the type of his chosen woman, and all the more her coldness became unendurable. He would give now, God knows what, to find again in those features the expression which he saw in Kremen, the interest in his words, and the attention, the transparency in those eyes full of smiles and roused curiosity. He would give, God knows what, to have all this return, and he knew not by what method to make it return, by a slow or a quick one; for this cause he hesitated. He chose at last that which agreed best with his nature.
“I knew,” said he, suddenly, “how you loved Kremen, and in spite of that, perhaps, it is I who caused its sale. If that be the case, I tell you openly that I regret the act acutely, and shall never cease to regret it. In my defence I cannot even say that I did it while excited, and without intent. Nay, I had an intent; only it was malicious and irrational. All the greater is my fault, and all the more do I entreat your forgiveness.”
When he had said this, he rose. His cheeks were flushed, and from his eyes shone truth and sincerity; but his words remained without effect. Pan Stanislav went by a false road. He knew women in general too slightly to render account to himself of how far their judgments, especially their judgments touching men, are dependent on their feelings, both transient and permanent. In virtue of these feelings, anything may be taken as good or bad money; anything interpreted for evil or good, recognized as true or false; stupidity may be counted reason, reason stupidity, egotism devotion, devotion egotism, rudeness sincerity, sincerity lack of delicacy. The man who in a given moment rouses dislike, cannot be right with a woman, cannot be sincere, cannot be just, cannot be well-bred. So Marynia, feeling deep aversion and resentment toward Pan Stanislav from the time of Mashko’s coming to Kremen, took sincerity simply ill of him. Her first thought was: “What kind of man is this who recognizes as unreasonable and bad that which a few days ago he did with calculation?” Then Kremen, the sale of the place, Mashko’s visit and the meaning of that visit, which she divined, were for her like a wound festering more and more. And now it seemed to her that Pan Stanislav was opening that wound with all the unsparingness of a man of rough nature and rude nerves.
He rose, and with eyes fixed on her face, waited to see if a friendly and forgiving hand would not be extended to him, with a clear feeling that one such stretching forth of a hand might decide his fate; but her eyes grew dark for a moment, as if from pain and anger, and her face became still colder.
“Let not that annoy you,” said she, with icy politeness. “On the contrary, papa is very much satisfied with the bargain and with the whole arrangement with Pan Mashko.”
She rose then, as if understanding that Pan Stanislav wished to take leave. He stood a moment stricken, disappointed, full of resentment and suppressed anger, full of that feeling of mortification which a man has when he is rejected.
“If that is true, I desire nothing more.”
“It is, it is! I did a good business,” concluded Plavitski.
Pan Stanislav went out, and, descending a number of steps at a time with hat pressed down on his head, he repeated mentally, —
“A foot of mine will not be in your house again.”
He felt, however, that, if he were to go home, anger would stifle him; he walked on, therefore, not thinking whither his feet were bearing him. It seemed to him at that moment that he did not love Marynia, that he even hated her; but still he thought about her, and if he had thought more calmly he would have told himself that the mere sight of her had affected him deeply. He had seen her now a second time, had looked on her, had compared that image of her which he had borne in his memory with the reality; the image became thereby still more definite, more really attractive, and acted the more powerfully on him. And, in spite of the anger, in the depth of his soul an immense liking for her raised its head, and a delight in the woman. There existed, as it were, for him two Marynias, – one the mild, friendly Marynia of Kremen, listening and ready to love; the other that icy young lady of Warsaw, who had rejected him. A woman often becomes dual in this way in the heart of a man, which is then most frequently ready to forgive this unfriendly one for the sake of that loved one. Pan Stanislav did not even admit that Marynia could be such as she had shown herself that day; hence there was in his anger a certain surprise. Knowing his own undeniable worth, and being conceited enough, he carried within him a conviction, which he would not acknowledge to himself, that it was enough for him to extend his hand to have it seized. This time it turned out differently. That mild Marynia appeared suddenly, not only in the rôle of a judge, who utters sentences and condemns, but also in the rôle, as it were, of a queen, with whom it is possible to be in favor or disfavor. Pan Stanislav could not accustom himself to this thought, and he struggled with it; but such is human nature that, when he learned that for that lady he was not so much desired as he had thought, that she not only did not over-value him, but esteemed him lower than herself, in spite of his displeasure, offence,