“Why not?” inquired she, looking at him with her usual simplicity. “We have spoken of you more than once in presence of people really friendly, and thought of you before it came to an acquaintance; and why should we not all the more now?”
Zavilovski felt wonderfully disarmed. It seemed to him that he had fallen among exceptional persons, or at least that Pani Polanyetski was an exceptional woman. The fear, which burned him like fire, that he might appear ridiculous with his poetry, his over-long neck, and his pointed elbows, began to decrease. He felt in a manner free in her presence. He felt that she said nothing for the mere purpose of talking, or for social reasons, but only that which flowed from her kindness and sensitiveness. At the same time her face and form delighted him, as they had delighted Svirski in Venice. And since he was accustomed to seek forms for all his impressions, he began to seek them for her too; and he felt that they ought to be not only sincere, but exquisite, charming, and complete, just as her own beauty was exquisite and complete. He recognized that he had a theme, and the artist within him was roused.
She began now to ask with great friendliness about his family relations; fortunately the appearance of Bigiel and Pan Stanislav in the drawing-room freed him from more positive answers, which would have been disagreeable. His father had been a noted gambler and roisterer on a time, and for a number of years had been suffering in an institution for the insane.
Music was to interrupt that dangerous conversation. Pan Stanislav had finished the discussion with Bigiel, who said,—
“That seems to me a perfect project, but it is necessary to think the matter over yet.”
Then, leaning on his violin, he began to meditate really, and said at last,—
“A wonderful thing! When I play, it is as if there were nothing else in my head, but that is not true. A certain part of my brain is occupied with other things; and it is exactly then that the best thoughts come to me.”
Saying this, he sat down, took the violoncello between his knees, closed his eyes, and began the “Spring Song.”
Zavilovski went home that day enchanted with the people and their simplicity, with the “Spring Song,” and especially with Pani Polanyetski.
She did not even suspect that in time she might enrich poetry with a new thrill.