“That is Pani Kraslavski’s villa.”
“I cannot forgive her for what she said of that unfortunate Pani Krovitski,” said Pani Emilia.
“That is simply a cruel woman,” added Pan Stanislav; “but do you know why? It is because of her daughter. She looks on the whole world as a background which she would like to make as black as possible, so that Panna Terka might be reflected on it the more brightly. Perhaps the mother had designs sometime on Ploshovski; perhaps she considered Pani Krovitski a hindrance,—hence her hatred.”
“That is a nice young lady,” said Marynia.
“There are persons for whom behind the world of social forms begins another and far wider world; for her nothing begins there, or rather everything ends. She is simply an automaton, in whom the heart beats only when her mother winds it with a key. For that matter, there are in society very many such young ladies; and even those who give themselves out for something different are in reality just like her. It is the eternal history of Galatea. Would you believe, ladies, that a couple of years since an acquaintance of mine, a young doctor, fell in love to distraction with that puppet, that quenched candle. Twice he proposed, and twice he was rejected; for those ladies looked higher. He joined the Holland service afterwards, and died there somewhere, with the fever doubtless; for at first he wrote to me inquiring about his automaton, and later on those letters ceased to come.”
“Does she know of this?”
“She does; for as often as I see her, I speak of him. And what is characteristic is this,—that the memory of him does not ruffle her composure for an instant. She speaks of him as of any one else. If he expected from her even a posthumous sorrow, he was deceived in that also. I must show you, ladies, sometime, one of his letters. I strove to explain to him her feeling; he answered me, ‘I estimate her coolly, but I cannot tear my soul from her.’ He was a sceptic, a positive man, a child of the age; but it seems that feeling makes sport of all philosophies and tendencies. Everything passes; but feeling was, is, and will be. Besides, he said to me once, ‘I would rather be unhappy with her than happy with another.’ What is to be said in this case? The man looked at things soundly, but could not tear his soul away,—and that was the end of it.”
This conversation ended also. They came out now on to a road planted with chestnut-trees, the trunks of which seemed rosy in the light of the carriage lamps.
“But if any one has misfortune, he must endure it,” said Pan Stanislav, following evidently the course of his own thoughts.
Meanwhile Pani Emilia bent over Litka,—