“Yes, always somewhere somebody leaves something to somebody.” Here he sighed, and after a while added, “But to me no one leaves anything, anywhere, at any time.”
Suddenly an idea equally cruel and empty occurred to Pan Stanislav on a sudden to cheer up Plavitski; therefore he said,—
“Ai! she died in Rome; but the will here was written long ago, and before that one there was another altogether different, as people tell me. Who knows that in Rome a little codicil may not be found, and that my dear uncle will not wake up a millionnaire some day?”
“That day will not come,” answered Plavitski. Still the words had moved him; he began to gaze at Polanyetski, to squirm as if the chair on which he was sitting were a bed of torture, and said, at last, “And you think that possible?”
“I see in it nothing impossible,” answered Pan Stanislav, with real roguish seriousness.
“If the wish of Providence.”
“And that may be.”
Plavitski looked around the hall; they were alone. He pushed back his chair on a sudden, and, pointing to his shirt-bosom, said,—
Pan Stanislav inclined his head, which Plavitski kissed twice, saying at the same time, with emotion,—