Then she began to inquire about Pan Ignas. Pan Stanislav, after the disagreeable talk with Mashko, breathed for the first time more freely. “She is in health, and all is right,” thought he, as if in wonder. And really he felt well in that bright room, in that great peace, among those friendly souls and at the side of that person so good and reliable. He felt that everything was there which he needed for happiness; but he felt that he had spoiled that happiness of his own will; that he had brought into the clear atmosphere of his house the elements of corruption and evil, and that he was living under that roof without a right.
CHAPTER LX.
In the middle of September such cold days came that the Polanyetskis moved from Buchynek to their house in the city. Pan Stanislav, before the arrival of his wife, had the house aired and ornamented with flowers. It seemed to him, it is true, that he had lost the right to love her, but he had lost only his former freedom with reference to her; but perhaps, just because of this, he became far more attentive and careful. The right to love no one gives, and nothing can take away. It is another case when a man has fallen, and in presence of a soul incomparably more noble than his own, feels that he is not worthy to love; he loves then with humility, and does not dare to call his feeling by its name. What Pan Stanislav had lost really was his self-confidence, his commanding ways, and his former unceremoniousness in his treatment of his wife. At present in his intercourse with her he bore himself sometimes as if she were Panna Plavitski, and he a suitor not sure of his fate yet.
Still that uncertainty of his had the aspect of coldness at times. Finally, their relation, in spite of Pan Stanislav’s increased care and efforts, had become more distant than hitherto. “I have not the right!” repeated Pan Stanislav, at every more lively movement of his heart. And Marynia at last observed that they were living now somehow differently, but she interpreted this to herself variously.
First, there were guests in the house, before whom, be what may, freedom of life must be diminished; second, that misfortune had happened to Pan Ignas,—a thing to shock “Stas” and carry his mind in another direction; and finally Marynia, accustomed now to various changes in his disposition, had ceased also to attach to them as much meaning as formerly.
Having gone through long hours of meditation and sadness, she came at last to the conviction that in the first period, while certain inequalities and bends of character are not accommodated into one common line, such various shades and changes in the disposition are inevitable, though transient. The sober judgment of Pani Bigiel helped her also to the discovery of this truth; she, on a time when Marynia began to praise her perfect accord with her husband, said,—
“Ai! it didn’t come to that at once. At first we loved each other as it were more passionately, but we were far less fitted for each other; sometimes one pulled in one and the other in another direction. But because we both had honesty and good-will the Lord God saw that and blessed us. After the first child all went at once in the best way; and this day I wouldn’t give my old husband for all the treasures of earth, though he is growing heavy, and when I persuade him to Karlsbad he will not listen to me.”
“After the first child,” inquired Marynia, with great attention. “Ah! I would have guessed at once that it was after the first child.”
Pani Bigiel began to laugh.