“Have you learned it all by yourself?” Pavel asked.
“Not altogether.”
Pavel began with an air of lofty reluctance, but he was soon carried away by the niceties of the ancient syntax, and his stiffness melted into didactic animation. As to Parmet, his plump, dark face was an image of religious ecstasy. Pavel warmed to him. His Talmudic gestures and intonation amused him.
“There’s no trouble about your Latin,” he said, familiarly; “no trouble whatever.”
“Isn’t there? It was Pani Oginska’s son who gave me the first start,” the other said, blissfully, uttering the name in a lowered voice. “If it had not been for him I should still be immersed in the depths of darkness.”
“‘Immersed in the depths of darkness!’ There is a phrase for you! Why should you use high-flown language like that?”
Parmet smiled, shrugging his shoulders bashfully. “Will you kindly try me on Greek now?” he said.
“One second. That must have been quite a little while ago when Pani Oginska’s son taught you, wasn’t it?”
Parmet tiptoed over to the open door, closed it, tiptoed back and said: “Not quite two years. If you knew what a man of gold he was! They are slowly killing him, the murderers. And why? What had he done? He could not harm a fly. He is all goodness, an angel like his mother. He was of delicate health when they took him, and now he is melting like a candle. Why, oh why, should men like him have to perish that way?”
“Isn’t it rather risky for you to be coming here?” Pavel demanded, looking him over curiously.