“Because,” said Pan Stanislav, “mind is the lantern with which virtue and kindness and heart must light the way for themselves, otherwise they might break their noses, or, what is worse, break the noses of other people.”
Marynia did not utter, it is true, a single word; but in her face it was possible to read distinctly, “How wise this Stas is—terribly wise!”
“Wise Stas” added meanwhile,—
“I am not speaking of Osnovski now, for I do not know him.”
“Osnovski,” said Svirski, “loves his wife as his wife, as his child, and as his happiness; but she has her head turned, God knows with what, and does not repay him in kind. Women interest me, as an unmarried man, immensely; more than once have I talked whole days about women, especially with Bukatski, when they interested him more than they do now. Bukatski divides women into plebeian souls, by which he means poor and low spirits, and into patrician souls,—that is, natures ennobled, full of the higher aspirations, and resting on principles, not phrases. There is a certain justice in this, but I prefer my division, which is simply into grateful and ungrateful hearts.”
Here he withdrew from the sketch for a moment, half closed his eyes, then, taking a small mirror, placed it toward the picture, and began to look at the reflection.
“You ask what I mean by grateful and ungrateful hearts,” said he, turning to Marynia, though she had not asked about anything. “A grateful heart is one which feels when it is loved, and is moved by love; and in return for the loving, loves more and more, yields itself more and more, prizes the loving, and honors it. The ungrateful heart gets all it can from the love given; and the more certain it feels of this love, the less it esteems it, the more it disregards and tramples it. It is enough to love a woman with an ungrateful heart, to make her cease loving. The fisherman is not concerned for the fish in the net; therefore Pani Osnovski does not care for Pan Osnovski. In the essence of the argument this is the rudest form of egotism in existence,—it is simply African; and therefore God guard Osnovski, and may the Evil One take her, with her Chinese eyes of violet color, and her frizzled forelock! To paint such a woman is pleasant, but to marry—we are not such fools. Will you believe it, I am in so much dread of an ungrateful heart that I have not married so far, though my fortieth year has sounded distinctly?”
“But it is so easy to recognize such a heart,” said Marynia.
“May the Evil One take what is bad!” answered Svirski. “Not so easy, especially when a man has lost sense and reason.”
Bending his athletic form, he looked at the sketch some time, and said,—