In spite of all her efforts, she began to sob, for repressed alarm and despair were changed to joy in her, and she found relief in tears. In that noble and spiritualized nature, innate exaltation disturbed calm thought; by reason of this, Pani Emilia never gave an account to herself of the real state of affairs; now, for example, she had not the least doubt that Litka’s illness had ended once for all with this recent attack, and that thenceforth a time of perfect health would begin for the child.
Pan Stanislav had neither the wish nor the heart to show her a middle road between delight and despair; his heart rose with great pity for her, and there came to him one of those moments in which he felt more clearly than usually how deeply, though disinterestedly, he was attached to that enthusiastic and idealistic woman. If she had been his sister, he would have embraced her and pressed her to his bosom; as it was, he kissed her delicate, thin hands, and said,—
“Praise be to God; praise be to God! Let the dear lady think now of herself, and I will go to the little one and not stir till she wakes.” And he went.
In Litka’s chamber there was darkness, for the window-blinds were closed, and the sun was going down. Only through the slats did some reddish rays force their way; these lighted the chamber imperfectly and vanished soon, for the sky began to grow cloudy. Litka was sleeping soundly. Pan Stanislav, sitting near her, looked on her sleeping face, and at the first moment his heart was oppressed painfully. She was lying with her face toward the ceiling; her thin little hands were placed on the coverlid; her eyes were closed, and under them was a deep shadow from the lashes. Her pallor, which seemed waxen in that reddish half-gloom, and her open mouth, finally, the deep sleep,—gave, her face the seeming of such rest as the faces of the dead have. But the movement of the ruffles on her nightdress showed that she was living and breathing. Her respiration was even calm and very regular. Pan Stanislav looked for a long time at that sick face, and felt again, with full force, what he had felt often, when he thought of himself,—namely, that nature had made him to be a father; that, besides the woman of his choice, children might be the immense love of his life, the chief object and reason of his existence. He understood this, through the pity and love which he felt at that moment for Litka, who, a stranger to him by birth, was as dear to him then as would have been his own child.
“If she had been given to me,” thought he; “if she lacked a mother,—I would take her forever, and consider that I had something to live for.”
And he felt also that were it possible to make a bargain with death, he would have given himself without hesitation to redeem that little “kitten,” over whom death seemed then to be floating like a bird of prey over a dove. Such tenderness seized him as he had not felt till that hour; and that man, of a character rather quick and harsh, was ready to kiss the hands and head of that child, with a tenderness of which not even every woman’s heart is capable.
Meanwhile it had grown dark. Soon Pani Emilia came in, shading with her hand a blue night-lamp.
“She is sleeping?” asked she, in a low voice, placing the lamp on the table beyond Litka’s head.
“She is,” answered Pan Stanislav, in an equally low voice.
Pani Emilia looked long at the sleeping child.