“So really that she has gone. What a position, when a man like Osnovski left her! In truth, the case is a hard one.”
But Bigiel, who liked to take things on the practical side, said, “I am curious to know what she will do, for all the property is his.”
“If he has not killed her on the spot, he will not let her die of hunger, that is certain; he is not a man of that kind. Kresovski told me that he remained in Ostend, and that he is going to challenge Kopovski to a duel. But Kopovski will not rise out of bed for a week. There will be a duel when he recovers. Pani Bronich and Panna Castelli have gone away, too, to Paris.”
“And the marriage with Kopovski?”
“What do you wish? In view of such open infidelity, it is broken, of course. Evil does not prosper; they, too, were left in the lurch. Ha! let them hunt abroad for some Prince Crapulescu[14]—for after what they have done to Ignas, no one in this country would take Castelli, save a swindler, or an idiot. Pan Ignas will not return to her.”
“I told Pan Stanislav that, too,” said Bigiel; “but he answered, ‘Who knows?’”
“Ai!” said Svirski, “do you suppose really?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything!” answered Pan Stanislav, with an outburst. “I guarantee nothing; I guarantee nobody; I don’t guarantee myself even.”
Svirski looked at him with a certain astonishment.
“Ha! maybe that is right,” said he, after a while. “If any one had told me yesterday that the Osnovskis would ever separate, I should have looked on him as a madman.”