“Listen; this is the event. To-day Gantovski’s card is brought into my office; not knowing who he is, I receive the man. A rough fellow enters, and asks if ’t is true that I sold the oak, and if I wish to depopulate a part of Kremen. Evidently I reply by asking how that may concern him. He answers that I have bound myself to pay old Plavitski a yearly annuity from Kremen; and that, if I ruin the place by a plundering management, there will be nothing through which to compel me. In answer, as thou canst understand, I advise him to take his cap, button up closely, in view of the frost, and go to the place whence he came. Hereupon he falls to making an uproar, calling me a cheat and a swindler. At last he says that he lives in the Hotel Saxe, and goes out. Hast thou the key to this? Canst thou tell me its meaning?”
“Of course. First, this Gantovski is of limited mind, by nature he is rude; second, for whole years he has been in love with Panna Plavitski, and has wished to be her knight.”
“Thou knowest that I have rather cool blood; but, in truth, it seems at times a dream. That a man should permit himself to insult me because I sell my own property, simply passes human understanding.”
“What dost thou think of doing? Old Plavitski will be the first to warm Gantovski’s ears, and force him to beg thy pardon.”
Mashko’s face took on such a cold and determined expression of wrath that Pan Stanislav thought,—
“Well, ‘the bear’ has brewed beer of a kind that he did not expect; now he must drink it.”
“No one has ever offended me without being punished, and no one ever will. This man not only has insulted me, but has done me a wrong beyond estimation.”
“He is a fool, simply irresponsible.”
“A mad dog, too, is irresponsible, but people shoot him in the head. I talk, as thou seest, coolly; listen, then, to what I say: a catastrophe has come to me, from which I shall not rise.”
“Thou art speaking coolly; but anger is stifling thee, and thou art ready to exaggerate.”