“I have here somewhere a little Italian book on the Ladies of Nazareth,” said Vaskovski, opening his coat. “Where did I put it? When going out, I stuck it somewhere.”
“What can the Ladies of Nazareth be to me?”
But Vaskovski, after unbuttoning his coat, unbuttoned his shirt in searching; then he thought a while and said, “What am I looking for? I know that little Italian book. In a couple of days I am going to Rome for a long, very long time. Remember what I said, that Rome is the antechamber to another world. It is time for me to go to God’s antechamber. I would persuade Emilia greatly to go to Rome, but she will not leave her child; she will remain here as a Sister of Charity. Maybe, however, the order of Nazareth would please her; it is as simple and mild as was primitive Christianity. Not with the head, my dear, for there they know better what to do, but with the heart, childlike but loving.”
“Button thy shirt, professor,” said Pan Stanislav.
“Very good; I will button it. I have something at my heart, and I would tell it thee; thou art as mobile as water, but thou hast a soul. Seest thou, Christianity not only is not coming to an end, as some philosophizing, giddy heads imagine, but it has only made half its way.”
“Dear professor,” said Pan Stanislav, mildly, “I will listen to what thou hast to tell me willingly and patiently, but not to-day; for to-day I am thinking only of Pani Emilia, and there is simply a squeezing at my throat. This is a catastrophe.”
“Not for her, since her life will be a success, and her death also.”
Pan Stanislav began to mutter, “As God lives, not only every mightier feeling, but simple friendship, ends in regret; never has any attachment brought me a thing except suffering. Bukatski is right: from general attachments there is nothing but suffering, from personal attachments nothing but suffering; and now live, man, in the world so surrounded.”
The conversation broke off, or rather was turned into the monologue of Professor Vaskovski, who began a discourse with himself about Rome and Christianity. After dinner they went out on the street, which was full of the sound of sleighbells and the gladsome winter movement. Though in the morning of that day snow had fallen in sufficient abundance, toward evening the weather had become fair, calm, and frosty.
“But, professor, button thy shirt.”