“I beg thee, by all things, marry not. Remember that if thou marry, if thou have a son, if thou toil to leave him property, thou wilt do so only for this: that that son may be what I am.”
“Here is a nice quandary for thee,” said Pan Stanislav, with a certain stubbornness. “I will marry. I will marry Marynia Plavitski; dost hear? I will gain property; and if I have a son, I will not make of him a decadent; dost understand?”
And he was pleased with himself. A little later he looked at Litka, and felt that a sudden emotion seized him. A current of sorrow for her, and of feeling, rose with a new power in his heart. He began to converse with the child, as in important moments of life people speak usually with beloved dead,—
“Thou art pleased, kitten? Is it not true?” asked he. And she smiled at him from among the birches painted by Marynia; she seemed to blink at him, and to answer,—
“True, Pan Stas; true.”
That evening, before going to bed, he took back from the servant the note which was to be given to Marynia in the morning, and wrote another still more affectionate, and in the following words,—
Dear Lady,—Gantovski made a scene with Mashko—rather an awkward one—from which a duel came. Mashko is slightly wounded. His opponent begged his pardon on the spot. There will be no further results, save this: that I am still more convinced of how kind you are, and thoughtful and excellent; and to-morrow, if you permit, I will come with thanks to kiss your beloved and dear hands. I will come in the afternoon; for, in the morning, after visiting my office, I must go to Pani Kraslavski’s, and then say farewell to Professor Vaskovski, though, were it possible, I should prefer to begin the day not with them.
Polanyetski.
After writing these words, he looked at the clock, and, though it was eleven already, he gave command to deliver the letter, not in the morning, but straightway.
“Thou wilt go in through the kitchen,” said he to the servant; “and, if the young lady is asleep, thou wilt leave it.”