“They are wondering there, because you have not called for a long time,” said she, when they had gone to the garden.
“What did Pani Osnovski say?” inquired Zavilovski.
“I will tell you only one thing, though I am not sure that I ought to repeat it. Pani Aneta told me – that – but no! First, I must learn why you have not called there this long time.”
“I was not well, and I had a disappointment. I made no visits; I could not! You have stopped talking.”
“Yes, for I wished to know if you were not angry at those ladies for some cause. Pani Aneta told me that Lineta supposed you were, and that she saw tears in her eyes a number of times, for that reason.”
Zavilovski blushed; on his young and impressionable face real tenderness was reflected.
“Ah, my God!” answered he; “I angry, and at a lady like Panna Lineta? Could she offend any one?”
“I repeat what was said to me, though Pani Aneta is so impulsive that I dare not guarantee all she says to be accurate. I know that she is not lying; but, as you understand, very impulsive people see things sometimes as if through a magnifying-glass. Satisfy yourself. Lineta seems to me agreeable, very uncommon, and very kind – but judge for yourself; you have such power of observation.”
“That she is kind and uncommon is undoubted. You remember how I said that they produced the impression of foreign women; that is not true altogether. Pani Osnovski may, but not Panna Lineta.”
“You must look yourself, and look again,” said Marynia. “You understand that I persuade you to nothing. I should have a little fear, even of Stas, who does not like those ladies. But I say sincerely that when I heard of Lineta’s tears, my heart was touched. The poor girl!”
“I cannot even tell you how the very thought of that stirs me,” replied Zavilovski.
Further conversation was interrupted by the coming of Pan Stanislav, who said, —
“Well? always matchmakers! But these women are incurable. Knowest thou, Marynia, what I will tell thee? I should be most happy wert thou to refrain from such matters.”
Marynia began to explain; but he turned to Zavilovski, and said, —
“I enter into nothing in this case, and know only this, – that I have not the least faith in those ladies.”
Zavilovski went home full of dreams. All the strings of his imagination had been stirred and sounded, so that the wished-for sleep fled from him. He did not light a lamp, so that nothing might prevent him from playing on those quivering strings; he sat in the moonlight and mused, or rather, created. He was not in love yet; but a great tenderness had possessed him at thought of Lineta, and he arranged images as if he loved already. He saw her as distinctly as though she were before him; he saw her dreamy eyes, and her golden head, bending, like a cut flower, till it reached his breast. And now it seems to him that he is placing his fingers on her temples, and that he is feeling the satin touch of her hair, and, bending her head back a little, he looks to see if the fondling has not dried her tears; and her eyes laugh at him, like the sky still wet from rain, but sunny. Imagination moves his senses. He thinks that he is confessing his love to her; that he presses her to his bosom, and feels her heart beating; that he kneels with his head on her knees, from which comes warmth through the silk garment to his face. And he began in reality to shiver. Hitherto she had been for him an image; now he feels her for the first time as a woman. There is not in him even one thought which is not on her; and he so forgets himself in her that he loses consciousness of where he is, and what is happening within him.
Some kind of hoarse singing on the street roused him; then he lighted a lamp, and began to think more soberly. A kind of alarm seized him now, because one thing seemed undoubted, – if he did not cease to visit Pani Bronich and the Osnovskis altogether, he would fall in love with that maiden past memory.
“I must choose, then,” said he to himself.
And next day he went to see her, for he had begun to yearn; and that same night he tried to write a poem with the title of “Spider-web.”
He dared not go to Pani Bronich herself, so he waited till the hour when he could find all at tea, in the common drawing-room. Pani Aneta received him with uncommon cordiality, and outbursts of joyous laughter; but he, after greeting her, began to look at Lineta’s face, and his heart beat with more force when he saw in her a great and deep joy.
“Do you know what?” cried Pani Aneta, with her usual vivacity. “Our ‘Poplar’ likes beards so much that I thought this of you: ‘he is letting his beard grow, and does not show himself.’”
“No, no!” said the “Poplar,” “stay as you were when I made your acquaintance.”
But Pan Osnovski put his arm around Zavilovski, and said, in that pleasant tone of a man of good breeding, who knows how to bring people at once to more intimate and cordial relations, —
“Did Pan Ignas hide himself from us? Well, I have means to compel him. Let Lineta begin his portrait, then he must come to us daily.”
Pani Aneta clapped her hands.
“How clever that Yozio is, wonderfully clever!”
His face was radiant because he had said a thing pleasing to his wife, and he repeated, —
“Of course, my Anetka, of course.”
“I have promised already to paint it,” said Lineta, with a soft voice, “but I was afraid to be urgent.”
“Whenever you command,” answered Pan Ignas.
“The days are so long now that about four, after Pan Kopovski; for that matter, I shall finish soon with that insufferable Kopovski.”
“Do you know what she said about Pan Kopovski?” began Pani Aneta.
But Lineta would not permit her to say this for anything; she was prevented, moreover, by Pan Plavitski, who came in at that moment, and broke up the conversation. Pan Plavitski, on making the acquaintance of Pani Aneta at Marynia’s, lost his head for her, and acknowledged this openly; on her part, she coquetted with him unsparingly, to the great delight of herself and of others.
“Let papa sit near me here,” said she; “we will be happy side by side, won’t we?”
“As in heaven! as in heaven!” replied Plavitski, stroking his knees with his palms time after time, and thrusting out the tip of his tongue from enjoyment.
Zavilovski drew up to Lineta and said, —
“I am so happy to be able to come every day. But shall I not occupy your time, really?”
“Of course you will occupy it,” answered she, looking him in the eyes; “but you will occupy it as no one else can. I was really too timid to urge, because I am afraid of you.”
Then he looked into the depth of her eyes, and answered with emphasis, —
“Be not afraid.”
Lineta dropped her eyelids, and a moment of rather awkward suspense followed; then the lady inquired, in a voice somewhat lowered, —
“Why did you not come for such a long time?”
He had it on his tongue to say, “I was afraid,” but he had not the daring to push matters that far; hence he answered, —
“I was writing.”
“A poem?”
“Yes, called ‘Spider-web;’ I will bring it to-morrow. You remember that when I made your acquaintance, you said that you would like to be a spider-web. I remembered that; and since then I see continually such a snowy thread sporting in the air.”
“It sports, but not with its own power,” answered Lineta, “and cannot soar unless – ”
“What? Why do you not finish?”
“Unless it winds around the wing of a Soarer.”
When she had said this, she rose quickly and went to help Osnovski, who was opening the window.
Zavilovski remained alone with mist in his eyes. It seemed to him that he heard the throbbing of his temples. The honeyed voice of Pani Bronich first brought him to his senses, —
“A couple of days ago old Pan Zavilovski told me that you and he are related; but that you are not willing to visit him, and that he cannot visit you, since he has the gout. Why not visit him? He is a man of such distinction, and so pleasant. Go to him; it is even a disappointment to him that you do not go. Go to visit him.”
“Very well; I can go,” answered Zavilovski, who was ready that moment to agree to anything.
“How kind and good you must be! You will see your cousin, Panna Helena. But don’t fall in love with her, for she too is very distinguished.”
“No, there is no danger,” said Zavilovski, laughing.
“They say besides that she was in love with Ploshovski, who shot himself, and that she wears eternal mourning in her heart for him. But when will you go?”
“To-morrow, or the day after. When you like.”
“You see, they are going away. The summer is at our girdles! Where will you be in the summer?”
“I do not know. And you?”
Lineta, who during this time had returned and sat down not far away, stopped her conversation with Kopovski, and, hearing Pan Ignas’s question, replied, —
“We have no plan yet.”
“We were going to Scheveningen,” said Pani Bronich, “but it is difficult with Lineta.” And after a while she added in a lower voice: “She is always so surrounded by people; she has such success in society that you would not believe it. Though why should you not? It is enough to look at her. My late husband foretold this when she was twelve years of age. ‘Look,’ said he, ‘what trouble there will be when she grows up.’ And there is trouble, there is! My husband foresaw many things. But have I told you that he was the last of the Rur – Ah, yes! I have told you. We had no children of our own, for the first one didn’t come to birth, and my husband was fourteen years older than I; later on he was to me more, – a father.”
“How can that concern me?” thought Pan Ignas. But Pani Bronich continued, —
“My late husband always grieved over this, that he had no son. That is, there was a son, but he came halfway too early” (here tears quivered in the voice of Pani Bronich). “We kept him some time in spirits. And, if you will believe it, when there was fair weather he rose, and when there was rain he sank down. Ah, what a gloomy remembrance! How much my husband suffered because he was to die, – the last of the Rur – . But a truce to this; ’t is enough that at last he was as attached to Lineta as to a relative, – and surely she was his nearest relative, – and what remains after us will be hers. Maybe for that reason people surround her so. Though – no! I do not wonder at them. If you knew what a torment that is to her, and to me. Two years ago, in Nice, a Portuguese, Count Jao Colimaçao, a relative of the Alcantaras, so lost his head as to rouse people’s laughter. Or that Greek of last year, in Ostend! – the son of a banker, from Marseilles, a millionnaire. What was his name? Lineta, what was the name of that Greek millionnaire, that one who, thou knowest?”
“Aunt!” said Lineta, with evident displeasure.
But the aunt was in full career already, like a train with full steam.
“Ah, ha! I recollect,” said she, – “Kanafaropulos, Secretary of the French Embassy in Brussels.”
Lineta rose and went to Pani Aneta, who was talking at the principal table with Plavitski. The aunt, following her with her eyes, said, —
“The child is angry. She hates tremendously to have any one speak of her successes; but I cannot resist. Do you understand me? See how tall she is! How splendidly she has grown! Anetka calls her sometimes the column, and sometimes the poplar; and really, she is a poplar. What wonder that people’s eyes gaze at her! I haven’t mentioned yet Pan Ufinski. That’s our great friend. My late husband loved him immensely. But you must have heard of Pan Ufinski? That man who cuts silhouettes out of paper. The whole world knows him. I don’t know at how many courts he has cut silhouettes; the last time he cut out the Prince of Wales. There was also a Hungarian.”
Osnovski, who sat near by amusing himself with a pencil at his watch-chain, now drawing it out, now pushing it back, grew impatient at last, and said, —
“A couple of more such, dear aunt, and there would be a masquerade ball.”
“Precisely, precisely!” answered Pani Bronich. “If I mention them, it is because Lineta doesn’t wish to hear of any one. She is such a chauviniste! You have no idea what a chauviniste that child is.”
“God give her health!” said Pan Ignas.
Then he rose to take farewell. At parting, he held for some time the hand of Lineta, who answered also with an equally prolonged pressure.
“Till to-morrow,” said he, looking into her eyes.
“Till to-morrow – after Pan Kopovski. And do not forget ‘Spider-web.’”
“No, I will not forget – ever,” answered Zavilovski, with a voice somewhat moved.
He went out with Plavitski; but they had scarcely found themselves on the street, when the old man, tapped him lightly on the arm, and stopping, said, —
“Young man, do you know that I shall soon be a grandfather?”
“I know.”
“Yes, yes!” repeated Plavitski with a smile of delight, “and in addition to that, I will tell you only this much: there is nothing to surpass young married women!”
And, laughing, he began to clap Pan Ignas time after time on the shoulder; then he put the ends of his fingers to his lips, took farewell, and walked off.
But his voice, slightly quivering, came to Pan Ignas from a distance, —
“There is nothing to surpass young married women.” Noise on the street drowned the rest.
CHAPTER XLV
From that time Pan Ignas went every day to Aunt Bronich’s. He found Kopovski there frequently, for toward the end something had been spoiled in the portrait of “Antinoüs.” Lineta said that she had not been able to bring everything out of that face yet; that the expression in the picture was not perhaps what it should be, – in a word, she needed time for reflection. With Pan Ignas her work went more easily.
“With such a head as Pan Kopovski’s,” said she once, “it is enough to change the least line, it is enough to have the light wrong, to ruin everything. While with Pan Zavilovski one must seize first of all the character.”
On hearing this, both were satisfied. Kopovski declared even that it was not his fault; that God had created him so. Pani Bronich said later on that Lineta had said apropos of that: “God created him; the Son of God redeemed him; but the Holy Ghost forgot to illuminate him.” That witticism on poor Kopovski was repeated throughout Warsaw.
Pan Ignas liked him well enough. After a few meetings he seemed to him so unfathomably stupid that it did not occur to him that any one could be jealous of the man. On the contrary, it was always pleasant to look at him. Those ladies too liked him, though they permitted themselves to jest with him; and sometimes he served them simply as a ball, which they tossed from hand to hand. Kopovski’s stupidity was not gloomy, however, nor suspicious. He possessed a uniform temper and a smile really wonderful; of this last he was aware, perhaps, hence he preferred to smile rather than frown. He was well-bred, accustomed to society, and dressed excellently; in this regard he might have served as a model to Pan Ignas.
From time to time he put astonishing questions, which filled the young ladies with merriment. Once, hearing Pani Bronich talk of poetic inspirations, he asked Pan Ignas, “If anything was taken for it or not,” and at the first moment confused him, for Pan Ignas did not know what to answer.
Another time Pani Aneta said to him, —
“Have you ever written poetry? Make some rhyme, then.”
Kopovski asked time till next day; but next day he had forgotten the request, or could not make the verses. The ladies were too well-bred to remind him of his promise. It was always so agreeable to look at him that they did not wish to cause him unpleasantness.
Meanwhile spring ended, and the races began. Pan Ignas was invited for the whole time of their continuance to the carriage of the Osnovskis. They gave him a place opposite Lineta; and he admired her with all his soul. In bright dresses, in bright hats, with laughter in her dreamy eyes, with her calm face flushing somewhat under the breath of fresh breezes, she seemed to him spring and paradise. Returning home, he had his eyes full of her, his mind and his heart full. In that world in which they lived, in the society of those young men, who came up to the carriage to entertain the ladies, he was not at home, but the sight of Lineta recompensed him for everything. Under the influence of sunny days, fair weather, broad summer breezes, and that youthful maiden, who began to be dear to him, he lived, as it were, in a continuous intoxication; he felt youth and power in himself. In his face there was at times something truly eagle-like. At moments it seemed to him that he was a ringing bell, sounding and sounding, heralding the delight of life, the delight of love, the delight of happiness, – a great jubilee of loving.
He wrote much, and more easily than ever before; there was besides in his verses that which recalled the fresh odor of newly ploughed fields, the vigor of young leaves, the sound of wings of birds flying on to fallow land to the immense breadth of plains and meadows. He felt his own power, and ceased to be timid about poetry even before strangers, for he understood that there was something about him, something within him, and that he had something to lay at the feet of a loved one.
Pan Stanislav, who, in spite of his mercantile life, had an irrestrainable passion for horses, and never neglected the races, saw Pan Ignas every day with the Osnovskis and Panna Castelli, and gazing at the latter as at a rainbow; when he teased him in the counting-house for being in love, the young poet answered, —
“It is not I, but my eyes. The Osnovskis will go soon, those ladies too; and all will disappear like a dream.”
But he did not speak truth, for he did not believe that all could disappear like a dream. On the contrary, he felt that for him a new life had begun, which with the departure of Panna Lineta might be broken.
“And where are Pani Bronich and Panna Castelli going?” continued Pan Stanislav.
“For the rest of June and during July they will remain with the Osnovskis, and then go, as they say, to Scheveningen; but this is not certain yet.”
“Osnovski’s Prytulov is fifteen miles from Warsaw,” said Pan Stanislav.
For some days Pan Ignas had been asking himself, with heart beating, whether they would invite him or not; but when they invited him, and besides very cordially, he did not promise to go, and with all his expressions of gratitude held back, excusing himself with the plea of occupation and lack of time. Lineta, who was sitting apart, heard him, and raised her golden brows. When he was going, she approached him and asked, —
“Why will you not come to Prytulov?”
He, seeing that no one could hear them, said, looking into her eyes, —
“I am afraid.”
She began to laugh, and inquired, repeating Kopovski’s words, —
“Is it necessary to take anything for that?”
“It is,” answered he, with a voice somewhat trembling; “I need to take the word, come, from you!”
She hesitated a moment; perhaps she did not dare to tell him directly in that form which he required, but she blushed suddenly and whispered; —
“Come.”
Then she fled, as if ashamed of those colors on her face, which, in spite of the darkness, were increasingly evident.
On the way home it seemed to Pan Ignas that a shower of stars was raining down on him.
The departure of the Osnovskis was to take place in ten days only. Up to that time, the painting of portraits was to continue its usual course, and to go on in the same fashion till the last day, for Lineta did not wish to lose time. Pani Aneta persuaded her to paint Pan Ignas exclusively, since Kopovski would need only as many sittings as could be arranged in Prytulov just before their departure for Scheveningen. For Pan Ignas those sittings had become the first need of his life, as it were; and if by chance there was any interruption, he looked on that day as lost. Pani Bronich was present at the sittings most frequently. But he divined in her a friendly soul; and at last the manner in which she spoke of Lineta began to please him. They both just composed hymns in honor of Lineta, whom in confidential conversation Pani Bronich called “Nitechka.”
10
10
“Nitechka” (little thread) is the diminutive of “Nitka,” itself a diminutive of “Nits,” which means thread.
This name pleased Pan Ignas the more clearly he felt how that “Nitechka” (thread) was winding around his heart.
Frequently, however, it seemed to him that Pani Bronich was narrating improbable things. It was easy to believe that Lineta was and could be Svirski’s most capable pupil; that Svirski might have called her “La Perla;” that he might have fallen in love with her, as Pani Bronich gave one to understand. But that Svirski, known in all Europe, and rewarded with gold medals at all the exhibitions, could declare with tears, while looking at some sketch of hers, that saving technique, he ought rather to take lessons of her, of this even Pan Ignas permitted himself to doubt. And somewhere, in some corner of his soul, in which there was hidden yet a small dose of sobriety, he wondered that Panna “Nitechka” did not contradict directly, but limited herself to her words usual on such occasions: “Aunt! thou knowest that I do not wish you to repeat such things.”
But at last he lost even those final gleams of sobriety, and began to have feelings of tenderness even over the late Bronich, and almost fell in love with Pani Bronich, for this alone, – that he could talk with her from morning till night of Lineta.
In consequence of this repeated insistence of Pani Bronich, he visited also, at this time, old Pan Zavilovski, that Crsus, at whose house he had never been before. The old noble, with milk-white mustaches, a ruddy complexion, and gray hair closely trimmed, received him with his foot in an armchair, and with that peculiar great-lord familiarity of a man accustomed to this, – that people count more with him than he with them.
“I beg pardon for not standing,” said he, “but the gout is no joke. Ha, what is to be done! An inheritance! It seems that this will be attached to the name for the ages of ages. But hast thou not a twist in thy thumb sometimes?”
“No,” answered Pan Ignas, who was a little astonished, as well at the manner of reception as that the old noble said
thou
to him from the first moment.
“Wait; old age will come.”
Then, calling his daughter, he presented Pan Ignas to her, and began to speak of the family, explaining to the young man how they were related. At last he said, —
“Well, I have not written verses, for I am too dull; but I must tell thee that thou hast written them for me, and that I was not ashamed, though I read my name under the verses.”
But the visit was not to end successfully. Panna Zavilovski, a person of thirty years, good-looking, but, as it were, untimely faded and gloomy, wishing to take some part in the conversation, began to inquire of her “cousin” whom he knew, and where he visited. To every name mentioned, the old noble appended, in one or two words, his opinion. At mention of Pan Stanislav, he said, “Good blood!” at Bigiel’s, he inquired, “How?” and when the name was repeated, he said, “
Connais pas
;” Pani Aneta he outlined with the phrase, “Crested lark!” at mention of Pani Bronich he muttered, “Babbler;” at last, when the young man named, with a certain confusion, Panna Castelli, the noble, whose leg twitched evidently at that moment, twisted his face terribly, and exclaimed, “Ei! a Venetian
half-devil
!”
At this, it grew dark in the eyes of Pan Ignas, who, notwithstanding his shyness, was impulsive; his lower jaw came forward more than ever, and, rising, he measured with a glance the old man from his aching foot to his crown, and said, —
“You have a way of giving sharp judgments, which does not suit me; therefore it is pleasant to take farewell.”
And, bowing, he took his hat and departed.
Old Pan Zavilovski, who permitted himself everything, and to whom everything was forgiven, looked at his daughter some time with amazement, and only after long silence exclaimed, —
“What! has he gone mad?”
The young man did not tell Pani Bronich what had happened. He said merely that he had made a visit, and that father and daughter alike did not please him. She learned everything, however, from the old man himself, who, for that matter, did not call Lineta anything but “Venetian half-devil,” even to her eyes.
“But to make the matter perfect, you have sent me a full devil,” said he; “it is well that he did not break my head.”
Still in his voice one might note a species of satisfaction that it was a
Zavilovski
who had shown himself so resolute; but Pani Bronich did not note it. She took the affair somewhat to heart, and, to the great astonishment of the “full-devil,” said to him, —
“He is wild about Lineta, and with him this is a sort of term of tenderness; besides, one should forgive a man much who has such a position, and in this age. It must be that you haven’t read Krashevski’s novel, ‘Venetian Half-Devil.’ This is a title in which there is a certain poetry ever since that author used it. When the old man grows good-natured, write him a couple of words, will you not? Such relations should be kept up.”
“Pani,” answered Pan Ignas, “I would not write to him for anything in the world.”
“Even if some one besides me should ask?”
“That is – again, I am not a stone.”
Lineta laughed when she heard these words. In secret she was pleased that Pan Ignas, at one word touching her which to him seemed offensive, sprang up as if he had heard a blasphemy. So that during the sitting, when for a while they were alone, she said, —
“It is wonderful how little I believe in the sincerity of people. So difficult is it for me to believe that any one, except aunt, should wish me well really.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I cannot explain it to myself.”
“But, for example, the Osnovskis? Pani Aneta?”
“Pani Aneta?” repeated Lineta.
And she began to paint diligently, as if she had forgotten the question.
“But I?” asked Pan Ignas, in a lower voice.
“You – yes. You, I am sure, would not let any one speak ill of me. I feel that you are sincerely well-wishing, though I know not why, for in general I am of so little worth.”
“You of little worth!” cried Pan Ignas, springing up. “Remember that, in truth, I will let no one speak ill of you, not even you yourself.”
Lineta laughed and said, —
“Very well; but sit down, for I cannot paint.”
He sat down; but he looked at her with a gaze so full of love and enchantment that it began to confuse her.
“What a disobedient model!” said she; “turn your head to the right a little, and do not look at me.”
“I cannot! I cannot!” answered Pan Ignas.
“And I, in truth, cannot paint, for the head was begun in another position. Wait!”
Then she approached him, and, taking his temples with her fingers, turned his head toward the right slightly. His heart began to beat like a hammer; everything went around in his eyes; and, holding the hand of Lineta, he pressed her warm palm to his lips, and made no answer, – he only pressed it more firmly.
“Talk with aunt,” said she, hurriedly. “We are going to-morrow.”
They could not say more, for that moment Osnovski, Kopovski, and Pani Aneta, who had been sitting in the drawing-room adjoining, came into the studio.
Pani Aneta, seeing Lineta’s blushing cheeks, looked quickly at Pan Ignas, and asked, —
“How is it going with you to-day?”
“Where is aunt?” inquired Lineta.
“She went out to make visits.”
“Long since?”
“A few minutes ago. How has it gone with you?”
“Well; but enough for to-day.”
Lineta put down her brush, and after a moment went to wash her hands. Pan Ignas remained there, answering, with more or less presence of mind, questions put to him; but he wanted to go. He feared the conversation with Pani Bronich, and, with the habit of cowards, he wished to defer it till the morrow; he wanted, besides, to remain a while with his own thoughts, to arrange them, to estimate better the significance of what had happened. For at that moment he had in his head merely a certain chaos of indefinite thoughts; he understood that something unparalleled had happened, – something from which a new epoch in life would begin. At the very thought of this, a quiver of happiness passed through him, but also a quiver of fear, for he felt that now it was too late to withdraw; through love, through confession, through declaration to the lady and to her family, he must advance to the altar. He desired this with his whole soul; but he was so accustomed to consider everything that was happiness as a poetic imagining, as something belonging exclusively to the world of thought, art, and dreams, that he almost lacked daring to believe that Lineta could become his wife really. Meanwhile he had barely endurance to sit out the time; and when Lineta returned, he rose to take leave.
She gave him her hand, cooled by fresh water, and said, —
“Will you not wait for aunt?”
“I must go; and to-morrow I will take farewell of you and Pani Bronich.”
“Then till our next meeting!”
This farewell seemed to Pan Ignas, after what had happened, so inappropriate and cold that despair seized him; but he had not the daring to part before people otherwise, all the more that Pani Aneta was looking at him with uncommon attention.
“Wait! I have something to do in the city; we’ll go together,” said Osnovski, as he was going out.
And they went together; but barely were they outside the gate of the villa, when Pan Osnovski stopped, and put his hand on the poet’s arm.
“Pan Ignas, have you not quarrelled a little with Lineta?”
Pan Ignas looked at him with great eyes.
“I? with Panna Lineta?”
“Yes, for you parted somehow coldly. I thought you were as far, at least, as hand-kissing.”
Pan Ignas’s eyes grew still larger; Osnovski laughed, and said, —
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth. My wife, as a woman who is curious, looked at you, and said that something had happened. My Pan Ignas, you have in me a great friend, who, besides, knows what it is to love. I can say to you only one thing, – God grant you to be as happy as I am!”<