Mashko thought a while, and said: “I wished to write in every case to my betrothed; but if thou go, it will be better. I have no hope that she will hold to me, but it is needful to do what is proper. I thank thee. Thou wilt be able to present the affair from the best side,—only not a word touching troubles of any kind. Thou must lessen the sale of the oak to zero, to a politeness which I wished to show thee. I thank thee sincerely. Say that Gantovski apologized.”
“Hast thou some one to sit with thee?”
“My servant and his wife. The doctor will come again, and bring a surgeon. This pains me devilishly, but I am not ill.”
“Then, till we meet again.”
“Be well. I thank thee—thou art—”
“Sleep soundly.”
Pan Stanislav went out. Along the way he meditated on Mashko’s course, and meditated with a species of anger:
“He is not of the romantic school; still he is inclined to pretend something of that sort. Panna Plavitski! he loved her—he would have gone by another road—she might have saved him!—this is merely a tribute to sentimentality, and, besides, in false coin, since a month later he proposed to that puppet—for money’s sake! Maybe I am duller-witted; I do not understand this, and do not believe in disappointments cured so easily. Had I loved one woman, and been disappointed, I do not think that I should marry another in a month. Devil take me if I should! He is right, however, that Marynia is of a different kind from Kraslavski. There is no need whatever to discuss that; she is different altogether! different altogether!”
And that thought was immensely agreeable to Pan Stanislav. When he reached home, he found a letter from Bukatski, who was in Italy, and a card from Marynia, full of anxiety and questions concerning the duel. There was a request to send news early in the morning of what had happened, especially to inform her if everything was really over, and if no new encounter was threatened. Pan Stanislav, under the influence of the idea that she was different from Panna Kraslavski, answered cordially, more cordially even than he wished, and commanded his servant to deliver the note at nine the next morning. Then he set about reading Bukatski’s letter, shrugging his shoulders from the very beginning. Bukatski wrote as follows:—
May Sakya Muni obtain for thee blessed Nirvana! Besides this, tell Kaplaner not to forward my three thousand rubles to Florence, but to keep them at my order. These days I have resolved to entertain the design of forming the plan of becoming a vegetarian. Dost note how decisive this is? If the thought does not annoy me, if this plan becomes a determination, and the determination is not beyond my power, I shall cease to be a flesh-eating animal; and life will cost me less money. That is the whole question. As to thee, I beg thee to be satisfied with everything, for life is not worth fatigue.