“She remembers it,” answered Marynia, “and we will all help her. If she had not gone to Reichenhall, I should have invited her here.”
“And I should have followed Litka without invitation.”
“Then I beg you in papa’s name, once and for all.”
“Do not say that lightly, for I am ready to abuse your kindness. For me it is very pleasant here; and as often as I feel out of sorts in Warsaw, I’ll take refuge in Kremen.”
Pan Stanislav knew this time that his words were intended to bring them nearer, to establish sympathy between them; and he spoke with design, and sincerely. While speaking, he looked on that mild young face, which, in the light of the setting sun, seemed calmer than usual. Marynia raised to him her blue eyes, in which was the question, “Art speaking by chance, or of purpose?” and she answered in a somewhat lower voice,—
“Do so.”
And both were silent, feeling that really a connection between them was beginning.
“I am astonished that papa is not returning,” said she, at last.
The sun had gone down; in the ruddy gloaming, an owl had begun to circle about in slow flight, and frogs were croaking in the pond.
Pan Stanislav made no answer to the young lady’s remark, but said, as if sunk in his own thoughts: “I do not analyze life; I have no time. When I enjoy myself,—as at this moment, for instance,—I feel that I enjoy myself; when I suffer, I suffer,—that is all. But five or six years ago it was different. A whole party of us used to meet for discussions on the meaning of life,—a number of scholars, and one writer, rather well known in Belgium at present. We put to ourselves these questions: Whither are we going? What sense has everything, what value, what end? We read the pessimists, and lost ourselves in various baseless inquiries, like one of my acquaintances, an assistant in the chair of astronomy, who, when he began to lose himself in interplanetary spaces, lost his reason; and, after that, it seemed to him that his head was moving in a parabola through infinity. Afterward he recovered, and became a priest. We, in like manner, could come to nothing, rest on nothing,—just like birds flying over the sea without a place to light on. But at last I saw two things: first, that my Belgians were taking all this to heart less than I,—we are more naïve; second, that my desire for labor would be injured, and that I should become an incompetent. I seized myself, then, by the ears, and began to color cottons with all my might. After that, I said in my mind: Life is among the rights of nature; whether wise or foolish, never mind, it is a right. We must live, then; hence it is necessary to get from life what is possible. And I wish to get something. Vaskovski says, it is true, that we Slavs are not able to stop there; but that is mere talk. That we cannot be satisfied with money alone, we will admit. But I said to myself, besides money there are two things: peace and—do you know what, Panna Plavitski?—woman. For a man should have some one with whom to share what he has. Later, there must be death. Granted. But where death begins, man’s wit ends. ‘That is not my business,’ as the English say. Meanwhile, it is needful to have some one to whom a man can give that which he has or acquires, whether money or service or fame. If they are diamonds on the moon, it is all the same, for there is no one to learn what their value is. So a man must have some one to know him. And I think to myself, who will know me, if not a woman, if she is only wonderfully good and wonderfully reliable, greatly mine and greatly beloved? This is all that it is possible to desire; for from this comes repose, and repose is the one thing that has sense. I say this, not as a poet, but as a practical man and a merchant. To have near me a dear one, that is an object. And let come then what may. Here you have my philosophy.”