After a while he began to take farewell, thanking Pan Stanislav, meanwhile, again for good-will toward his wife, and future care of her.
Pan Stanislav went out with him, sat in a carriage, and started for Buchynek.
On the road he thought of Mashko and his fate; but at the same time he repeated to himself, “I too am a bankrupt!”
And that was true. Besides this, for a certain time some sort of general uncomprehended alarm had tormented him; against this he could not defend himself. Round about he saw disappointment, catastrophes, ruin; and he could not resist the feeling that all these were for him, too, a kind of warning and threat of the future. He proved to himself, it is true, that such fears could not be logically justified; but none the less, the fears did not cease to stick in the bottom of his soul somewhere, and sometimes he said to himself again, “Why should I be the one exception?” Then his heart was straitened with a foreboding of misfortune. This was still worse than those pins which, without wishing it, people, even the most friendly, drove into him by any word, unconsciously. In general, his nerves had suffered recently, so that he had become almost superstitious. He returned daily to Buchynek in alarm, lest something bad might have happened in the house during his absence.
This evening, he returned later than usual because of Mashko’s call, and drove in about the time when real darkness had come. Stepping out before the entrance on the sandy road, which dulled the sound of the carriage, he saw through the window Marynia, Pani Emilia, and the professor sitting near a table in the middle of the parlor. Marynia was laying out patience, and was evidently explaining the play to Pani Emilia, for her head was turned toward her, and she had one finger on the cards. At sight of her Pan Stanislav thought that which for some time he had been repeating mentally, and which filled him at once with a feeling of happiness, and with greater anger at himself: “She is the purest soul that I have met in life.” And with that thought he entered the room.
“Thou art late to-day,” said Marynia, when he raised her hand to his lips with greeting; “but we are waiting for thee with supper.”
“Mashko detained me,” answered he. “What is to be heard here?”
“The same as ever. All happy.”
“And how art thou?”
“As well as a fish!” answered she, joyously, giving him her forehead for a kiss.