CHAPTER XVII.
IN the morning about ten o'clock I wish to fly to Eva; but I cannot, for I have guests.
Baron Kartofler comes and engages a duplicate of my "Jews." He offers me fifteen hundred rubles; I want two thousand. The bargain is made at that price. After his departure I receive an order for two portraits from Tanzenberg. Antek, who is an Anti-Semite, reviles me as a Jewish painter; but I am curious to know who would buy productions of art, if not the "finance." If the "finance" is afraid of Antek's corpses, the fault is not mine.
I am with Eva at one o'clock. I give her the ring, and declare that we shall go to Rome after our marriage.
Eva consents with delight. We are as much given to talking to-day as we were to silence last evening. I tell her of the order which I have received, and we rejoice together. I must finish the portraits before our departure; but "the Jews" for Kartofler I will paint in Rome. When we return to Warsaw, I will fit up a studio, and we will live as in heaven.
While forming these projects, I tell Eva that we will keep the anniversary of yesterday as a holiday all our lives.
She hides her face on my shoulder, and begs me not to mention it. Then she winds the split sleeves of her gown round my neck, and calls me her great man. She is paler than usual; her eyes are more violet than usual, but they are beaming with gladness.
Ah! what an ass, that having near me such a woman I was seeking for happiness elsewhere, in a circle where I was a perfect stranger, and which was strange to me.
What an artistic nature that of Eva! She is my betrothed, accepts the rôle at once, and involuntarily plays the part of a young and happy affianced. But I do not take that ill of a beloved creature, after so many years in a theatre.
After dinner we go to Hela Kolchanovski's.
From the moment that Eva can present me as her betrothed, the minstrel trick becomes innocent and can cause no misunderstanding between those two ladies. In fact, when Hela heard of the engagement, she received us with open arms, and was delighted at Eva's happiness. We laugh like three maniacs at the "grandfather," and at that which the "grandfather" had to hear concerning the painter Magorski. Yesterday I wanted to put a stiletto into Ostrynski; to-day I am astonished at his cleverness.
Hela laughs so heartily that her transparent eyes are filled with tears. Speaking in parenthesis, she is marvellous. When she inclines her head at the end of the visit, I cannot take my eyes from it; and Eva herself is under its spell to such a degree that during the day she imitates unconsciously that bending of the neck and that look.
We agree that, after our return from abroad, I shall paint a portrait of Hela; but first I shall make my Eva in Rome, if I can reproduce those features, which are so delicate that they are almost over-refined, and that face, so impressionable that every emotion is reflected in it as a cloud in clear water.
But I shall succeed; why shouldn't I?
The evening "Kite" publishes untreated tales of the orders which have come to me; my income is reckoned by thousands. That in a small degree is the reason, perhaps, that next day I receive a letter from Kazia, stating that she returned the ring under the influence of anger and jealousy, but if I come and we fall at the feet of her parents, they will let themselves be implored.
I have enough of that falling at the feet and those forgivenesses. I do not answer. Let him fall at Suslovski's feet who wants to; let Kazia marry Ostrynski! I have my Eva.
But my silence casts an evident panic on the Suslovski family; for a few days later the same messenger comes with a letter from Kazia, but this time to Antek.
Antek shows me the letter. Kazia prays him to come for a moment's conversation concerning an affair on which her whole future depends; she reckons on his heart, on that sense of justice which from the first glance of the eye she divined in him. She has the hope that he will not refuse the prayer of an unhappy woman. Antek curses, mutters something under his nose about low Philistines, and about the necessity of hanging both them and their posterity at the next opportunity; but he goes.
I divine that they wish to influence me through him.