The news made a great impression on Marynia; she wanted to inquire further, but when Pan Stanislav told her that he knew nothing more, and that in all likelihood more detailed news would come in some days, she fell to lamenting the fate of Osnovski, whom she had always liked much, and was indignant at Pani Aneta.
“I thought,” said she, “that he would change her, and attract her by his love; but she is not worthy of him, and Pan Svirski is right in what he says about women.”
The conversation was interrupted by Plavitski, who, after an early dinner at the restaurant, had come to tell the “great news,” which he had just heard, for all the city was talking of it. Pan Stanislav thought then that he had done well to prepare Marynia, for in Plavitski’s narrative the affair took on colors which were too glaring. Plavitski mentioned, it is true, in the course of his story, “principles and matrons” of the old time; but apparently he was satisfied that something of such rousing interest had happened, and evidently he took the affair, too, from the comic side, for at the end he said,—
“But she is a mettlesome woman! she is a frolicker! Whoever was before her was an opponent! She let no man pass, no man! Poor Osnosio! but she let no man pass.”
Here he raised his brows, and looked at Marynia and Pan Stanislav, as if wishing to see whether they understood what “no man” meant. But on Marynia’s face disgust was depicted.
“Fe! Stas,” said she, “how all that is not only dishonorable, but disgusting!”
CHAPTER LXI.
After dinner Pan Stanislav went to Panna Helena’s. Pan Ignas wore a black bandage on his forehead yet, with a wider plaster in the centre, covering a wound; he stuttered, and, when looking, squinted somewhat; but, in general, he was coming to himself more and more, and looked on himself as recovered already. The doctor asserted that those marks which remained from the wound yet were disappearing without a trace. When Pan Stanislav entered, the young man was sitting at a table in a deep armchair, in which old Pan Zavilovski used to sit formerly, and was listening with closed eyes to verses which Panna Ratkovski was reading. But she closed the book at sight of a visitor.
“Good-evening,” said Pan Stanislav to her. “How art thou, Ignas? I see that I have interrupted a reading. In what are you so interested?”