After a while he continued, “And from an economical point of view, what is the question? The money will remain in the country; and, as God lives, I do not know that it will be put to worse use. By aid of it a number of sickly children might be reared to imbecility and help dwarf the race, or a number of seamstresses might get sewing-machines, or a number of tens of old men and women live a couple of years longer; not much good could come to the country of that. Those are objects quite unproductive. We should study political economy some time. Finally, I will say in brief, that I had the knife at my throat. My first duty is to secure life to myself, my wife, and my coming family. If thou art ever in such a position as I was, thou’lt understand me. I chose to sail out rather than drown; and such a right every man has. My wife, as I wrote thee, has a considerable income, but almost no property, or, at least, not much; besides, from that income she allows something to her father. I have increased the allowance, for he threatened to come here, and I didn’t want that.”
“So thou art sure, then, that Pan Kraslavski exists? Thou hast mentioned him, I remember.”
“I have; and for that very reason I make no secret of the matter now. Besides, I know that people talk to the prejudice of my father-in-law and my wife, that they relate God knows what; hence I prefer to tell thee, as a friend, how things are. Pan Kraslavski lives in Bordeaux. He was an agent in selling sardines, and was earning good money, but he lost the position, for he took to drinking, and drinks absinthe; besides, he has created an illegal family. Those ladies send him three thousand francs yearly; but that sum does not suffice him, and, between remittance and remittance, need pinches the man. Because of this he drinks more, and torments those poor women with letters, threatening to publish in newspapers how they maltreat him; and they treat him better than he deserves. He wrote to me, too, immediately after my marriage, begging me to increase his allowance a thousand francs. Of course he informs me that those women have ‘eaten him up;’ that he hasn’t had a copper’s worth of happiness in life; that their selfishness has gnawed him, and warns me against them.” Here Mashko laughed. “But the beast has a nobleman’s courage. Once, from want, he was going to sell handbills in the corridor of the theatre; but the authorities ordered him to don a kind of helmet, and he could not endure that. He wrote to me as follows: ‘All would have gone well, sir, but for the helmet; when they gave me that, I could not.’ He preferred death by hunger to wearing the helmet! My father-in-law pleases me! I was in Bordeaux on a time, but forget what manner of helmets are worn by the venders of handbills; but I should like to see such a helmet. Thou wilt understand, of course, that I preferred to add the thousand francs, if I could keep him far away, with his helmet and his absinthe. This is what pains me, however: people say that even here he was a sort of tipstaff, or notary; and that is a low fiction, for it is enough to open the first book on heraldry to see who the Kraslavskis were. Here connections are known; and the Kraslavskis are in no lack of them. The man fell; but the family was and is famous. Those ladies have dozens of relatives who are not so and so; and if I tell this whole story, I do so because I wish thee to know what the truth is.”
But the truth touching the Kraslavskis concerned Pan Stanislav little; so he returned to the ladies, and all the more readily that Zavilovski had just come. Pan Stanislav had invited the young man to after-dinner tea, so as to show him photographs brought from Italy. In fact, piles of them were laid out on the table; but Zavilovski was holding in his hand the frame containing the photograph of Litka’s head, and was so enchanted that immediately after they made him acquainted with Mashko, he looked again at the portrait, and continued to speak of it.
“I should have thought it the idea of an artist rather than a portrait of a living child. What a wonderful head! What an expression! Is this your sister?”
“No,” answered Marynia; “that is a child no longer living.”
In the eyes of Zavilovski, as a poet, that tragic shadow increased his sympathy and admiration for that truly angelic face. He looked at the photograph for some time in silence, now holding it away from his eyes, and now drawing it nearer.
“I asked if it was your sister,” said he, “because there is something in the features, in the eyes rather; indeed, there is something.”
Zavilovski seemed to speak sincerely; but Pan Stanislav had such a respect for the dead child, a respect almost religious, that, in spite of his recognition of Marynia’s beauty, the comparison seemed to him a kind of profanation. Hence, taking the photograph from Zavilovski’s hands, he put it back on the table, and began to speak with a certain harsh animation,—
“Not the least; not the least! There is not one trait in common. How is it possible to compare them! Not one trait in common.”