He understood, also, that for him it was too late to with draw from that road, and that once those same lips of his, which had sworn faith and love to Marynia, had said to another woman, “I love!” the greatest evil was committed. The rest was simply a sequence, which it was not proper to reject, even for this reason,—that in every case it was a pleasure. He imagined that all must reason thus who throw honesty through the window, and resolve on deeds of vileness; and the reasoning seemed to him as exact as it was immoral. And the more soberly he reflected, the more he was astonished at his own degradation. He had seen much evil and hidden vileness in the world under the guise of refinement and polish. He knew that corruption had worked out for itself, somehow, under the influence of bad books, a right of citizenship; but he remembered that he was indignant at this, that he wished simplicity and strictness for the society in which he lived, in the conviction that only on such bases could social strength and permanence be developed. Nothing has roused in him so many fears for the future as that refined evil of the West sown on the wild Slav field, and growing up on it with a sickly bloom of dilettantism, license, weakness, and faithlessness. More than once, as he remembered, he had reproached with such sowings, at one time high financial spheres, at another aristocracy of birth; and more than once he had attacked them without mercy. Now he understood that whoso lives in an atmosphere filled with carbonic gas, must suffocate. In what was he better than others? Or rather, how much worse was he than those who, floating in corruption, as sticks float in water, do not, at least, amuse themselves with hypocrisy, nor deceive themselves, nor prescribe rules to others, nor erect ideals of a healthy man spiritually, an honest husband, an honest father, as a binding model. And he almost refused to believe that he was the man, who once gave Pani Emilia ideal friendship, and promised faithfulness to Marynia, and who considered that he had a clear intellect and a character juster and stronger than others.
He stronger? His strength was only deception, coming from lack of temptation. If he had loved Pani Emilia with the ideal feeling of a brother; if he had resisted the coquetry of Pani Aneta,—it was only because they did not rouse in him that animal feeling which that puppet with her red eyes roused, she whom his soul rejected, but for whom his senses were striving this long time. He thought then, too, that his feeling for Marynia had never been honest, for at the basis of things it was not anything else than just such an animal attraction. Familiarity had dulled it; and, restrained by the condition of Marynia, he had turned to where he was able, and turned without restraint or scruple hardly half a year after his marriage.
And Pan Stanislav, who, on leaving Mashko’s house, had the feeling that he was a wretch, thought all at once that he was more of a wretch than at first he had imagined, for he remembered now that he was to be a father.
At home, in Marynia’s windows, the lights had not been extinguished; he would have given much to find her sleeping. It came to his mind, even, to walk on and not return till there was darkness in the chamber. But suddenly he saw her profile in the window. She must be looking for him; and, since it was clear in front of the house, she must have seen him,—hence he halted and went in.
She received him in a white night wrapper, and with unbound hair. There was in that unbound hair a certain calculated coquetry, for she knew that she had beautiful hair, and that he liked to fondle it.
“Why art thou not sleeping?” asked he, coming in.
She approached him, sleepy, but smiling, and said,—
“I was waiting for thee to say the evening prayer.”
Since their stay in Rome they had prayed together; but at present the very thought of this seemed to him insupportable. Meanwhile Marynia inquired,—
“Well, Stas, art content that thou hast saved him? Thou art, I think.”