“An honest letter, an honest letter!” cried Svirski. “They are all honest, too. That is why it is a little bitter for me. She doesn’t want me. All right; that is permitted to every one. She is in love; that, too, is permitted. But with whom is she in love? Not with Osnovski or Pan Ignas, of course. With whom, then? With that head of a walking-stick, that casket, that pretty man, that tailor’s model,—with that ideal of a waiting maid. You have seen such beautiful gentlemen depicted on pieces of muslin? That is he, perfectly. If he should stand in a barber’s window, young women would burst in the glass. When he wishes, he puts on a dress-coat; when not, he goes so, and all right! You remember what I said of him,—that he was a male houri? And this is bitter, and this is ill-tasting” (he spoke with growing irritation, accenting with special emphasis the word is), “and this speaks badly of women; for be thou, O man, a Newton, a Raphael, a Napoleon, and wish thou as thy whole reward one heart, one woman’s head, she will prefer some lacquered Bibisi. That’s how they are.”
“Not all women, not all. Besides, as an artist, you should know what feeling is. Something falls on a person, and that is the end of all reasoning.”
“True,” said Svirski, calmly; “I know that not all women are so. And as to love, you say that something falls, and there is an end. Perhaps so. That is like a disease. But there are diseases by which the more noble kinds of creatures are not affected. There is, for instance, a disease of the hoofs. You will permit me to say that it is needful to have hoofs in order to get this disease. But there has never been a case that a dove fell in love with a hoopoo, though a hoopoo is a very nice bird. You see that doesn’t happen to the dove. Hoopoos fall in love with hoopoos. And let them fall in love for themselves, if only they will not pretend to be doves. That is all I care. Remember how I spoke once against Panna Castelli at Bigiel’s. And still she chose Pan Ignas at last. For me, it is a question of those false aspirations, that insincerity, and those phrases. If thou art a hoopoo’s daughter, have the courage to own it. Do not pretend; do not lie; do not deceive. I, a man of experience, would have wagered my neck on this, that Panna Ratkovski is simply incapable of falling in love with Kopovski; and still she has. I am glad that here it is not a question of me, but of comedy, of that conventional lying,—and not of Panna Ratkovski, but of this, that such a type as Kopovski conquers.”
“True,” said Marynia; “but we ought to find out why all this has become entangled somehow.”
But Svirski waved his hand. “Speaking properly,” said he, “it is rather unravelled. If she had married me! surely I should have carried her at last in my arms. I give you my word. In me immensely much tenderness is accumulated. I should have been kind to her, and it would have been pleasant for both of us. I am also a little sorry for it. Still, she is not the only one on earth. You will find some honest soul who will want me; and soon, my dear lady, for in truth at times I cannot endure as I am. Will you not?”
Marynia began to be amused, seeing that Svirski himself did not take the loss of Panna Ratkovski to heart so very greatly. But, thinking over the letter a little more calmly, she remembered one phrase, to which she had not turned attention at first, being occupied entirely with the refusal, and she was disquieted by the phrase.
“Have you noticed,” asked she, “that in one place, she says, ‘After what has happened here I cannot write more’? Can you think what that may be?”
“Perhaps Kopovski has made a declaration.”
“No; in such a case she would have written more explicitly. If she has become attached to him, she is a poor girl indeed, for likely she has no property, and neither is Pan Kopovski rich, they say; therefore he would hardly decide?”
“True,” said Svirski; “you know that that came to my mind, too. She is in love with him,—that is undoubted; but he will not marry her.” Then he stopped, and said, “In such a case, why is he staying there?”