“Because,” answered Marynia, “I, indeed, am almost unacquainted with Panna Lineta, and judge only from my first impressions and from what I hear of her; but it seems to me that hers is an uncommon nature, and that there is something deep in her heart. It is well, then, that you should become acquainted.”
“I also judge from first impressions,” answered Zavilovski, quieted; “and it is true that Pani Castelli seems to me less shallow than Pani Osnovski. In general, those are beautiful and pleasant ladies; but—maybe I cannot define it, because I am not acquainted enough with society—but, coming away from them, I had a feeling as if I had been travelling on the railway with exceedingly charming foreign ladies, who amused themselves by conversing very wittily—but nothing more. Something foreign is felt in them. Pani Osnovski, for example, is exactly like an orchid,—a flower very peculiar and beautiful, but a kind of foreign flower. Panna Castelli is also that way, and in her there is nothing homelike. With them there is no feeling that one grew up on the same field, under the same rain and same sunshine.”
“What intuition this poet has!” said Pan Stanislav.
Zavilovski became so animated that on his delicate forehead the veins in the form of the letter Y became outlined more distinctly. He felt that his blame of those ladies was also praise for Marynia, and that made him eloquent.
“Besides,” continued he, “there exists a certain instinct which divines the real good wishes of people; it is not divined in that house. They are pleasant, agreeable, but their society has the appearance of form only; therefore I think that an earnest man, who becomes attached to people easily, might experience there many deceptions. It is a bitter and humiliating thing to mistake social tares for wheat. As to me, that is just why I fear people; for though Pan Stanislav says that I have intuition, I know well that at the root of the matter I am simple. And such things pain me tremendously. Simply my nerves cannot endure them. I remember that when still a child I noticed how people acted toward me in one way before my parents, and in another when my parents were absent; that was one of the great vexations of my childhood. It seemed to me contemptible, and pained me, as if I myself had done something contemptible.”
“Because you have an honest nature,” said Pani Bigiel.
He stretched forth his long arms, with which he gesticulated, when, forgetting his timidity, he spoke freely, and said,—
“O sincerity! in art and in life, that is the one thing!”
But Marynia began, in defence of those ladies: “People, and especially men, are frequently unjust, and take their own judgments, or even suppositions, for reality. As to Pani Osnovski and Lineta, how is it possible to suspect them of insincerity? They are joyful, kind, cordial, and whence should that come if not from good hearts?” Then, turning to Zavilovski, she began at him, partly in earnest, partly in jest, “You have not such an honest nature as Pani Bigiel says, for those ladies praise you, and you criticise them—”
But Pan Stanislav interrupted her with his usual vivacity: “Oh, thou art an innocent, and measurest all things with thy own measure. Wilt thou understand this, that petty cordiality and kindness may flow also from selfishness, which likes to be cosey and comfortable.