“Dost wish I will dance no more to-day? I like to dance, but I prefer to be near thee.”
“My worshipped one!”
“I am a stupid society girl, but I want to be worthy of thee. As thou seest, I love music greatly,—even waltzes and polkas. Somehow they act on me wonderfully. How well this Pan Bigiel plays! But I know that there are things higher than waltzes. Hold my handkerchief, and drop my hand for a moment. It is thy hand, but I must arrange my hair. It is time to dance; to dance is not wrong, is it? But if thou wish, I will not dance, for I am an obedient creature. I will learn to read in thy eyes, and afterward shall be like water, which reflects both clouds and clear weather. So pleasant is it for me near thee! See how perfectly those people dance!”
Words failed Pan Ignas; only in one way could he have shown what he felt,—by kneeling before her. But she pointed out Pan Stanislav, who was dancing with Pani Mashko, and admired them heartily.
“Really he dances better than Pan Kopovski,” said she, with gleaming eyes; “and she, how graceful! Oh, I should like to dance even once with him—if thou permit.”
Pan Ignas, in whom Pan Stanislav did not rouse the least jealousy, said,—
“My treasure, as often as may please thee. I will send him at once to thee.”
“Oh, how perfectly he dances! how perfectly! And this waltz, it is like some delightful shiver. They are sailing, not dancing.”
Of this opinion, too, was Marynia, who, following the couple with her eyes, experienced a still greater feeling of bitterness than Pan Ignas a little while earlier; for it seemed a number of times to her that Pan Stanislav had looked again on Pani Mashko with that expression with which he had looked when Svirski supposed that either he was annoyed, or was angry. But now such a supposition was impossible. At moments both dancers passed near her; and then she saw distinctly how his arm embraced firmly Pani Mashko’s waist, how his breath swept around her neck, how his nostrils were dilated, how his glances slipped over her naked bosom. That might be invisible for others, but not for Marynia, who could read in his face as in a book. And all at once the light of the lamps became dark in her eyes; she understood that it was one thing not to be happy, and another to be unhappy. This lasted briefly,—as briefly as one tact of the waltz, or one instant in which a heart that is straitened ceases to beat; but it sufficed for the feeling that life in the future might be embroiled, and present love changed into a bitter and contemptuous sorrow. And that feeling filled her with terror. Before her was drawn aside, as it were, a curtain, behind which appeared unexpectedly all the sham of life, all the wretchedness and meanness of human nature. Nothing had happened yet, absolutely nothing; but a vision came to Marynia, in which she saw that there might be a time when her confidence in her husband would vanish like smoke.
She tried, however, to ward away doubts; she wished to talk into herself that he was under the influence of the dance, not of his partner; she preferred not to believe her eyes. Shame seized her for that “Stas” of whom she had been so proud up to that time; and she struggled with all her strength against that feeling, understanding that it was a question of enormous importance, and that from that little thing, and from that fault of his, hitherto almost nothing, might flow results which would act on their whole future.