CHAPTER VI.
THEY will make me slam the door some day.
What a comedy! Since I have won reputation and money, Suslovski, in spite of my forethought, treats me simply with contempt; his wife, all Kazia's relatives, male and female, meet me frigidly.
On the first evening Suslovski announces that if I suppose that my new position has influenced their action, or if I suppose—which for that matter is evident in me—that I am doing them a favor, I am mistaken. Though ready to sacrifice much for the happiness of their child, still even that only child cannot ask them to sacrifice their human dignity. The mother adds, that, in case of need, the child will know where to seek refuge. The honest Kazia defends me at moments very angrily; but they are in wait for every word of mine.
Barely do I open my mouth when Suslovski bites his lips, looks at his wife and nods, as if to say, "I knew that it would come to this." Such a saw have they fixed for me from morning till evening.
And to think that all this is hypocrisy, that its special service is to keep me in their net, that at the bottom of the question they are after my fifteen thousand francs, and that they are as anxious for them as I am, though our motives are different.
It is time to finish.
They have brought me to this that I seem to myself to have committed really some scoundrelism in getting the gold medal and the fifteen thousand francs for my picture.