Thus speaking, he raised her hand, which, moreover he kept long at his lips. Pan Stanislav, going aside a little by design, thought,—
“They see each other now for the last time. In some half year a separation in form will follow.”
And the peculiar lot of those two women struck him, the same for mother and daughter. Both married with great appearances of brilliancy; and the husbands of both had to run away from their domestic hearths, leaving only shame to their wives.
But now the bell sounded the third time. Mashko entered. For a while, in the wide pane of the sleeping-car, his side whiskers were visible, and his gold-rimmed eye-glasses; then the train pushed out into darkness.
“I am at your service,” said Pan Stanislav to Pani Mashko.
He was almost certain that she would thank him dryly for his society, and reject it; he was even angry, for the reason that he had determined to tell her not only something about her husband, but something from himself. But she inclined her head in agreement; she, too, had her plan. So much bitter dislike for Pan Stanislav and such a feeling of offence had been rising in her heart for a long time, that, thinking him likely to take advantage again of a moment which they were to pass together, she determined to give him a slap which he would remember for many a day.
But she was mistaken altogether. First, through her he had been crushed as ice is crushed against a cliff, and therefore for some time he had felt for her not only dislike, but even hatred. Second, if later, through a feeling of conviction that the fault was on his side exclusively, that hatred had passed, then he had changed so much that he had become almost entirely another man. His mercantile reckoning with himself had taught him that such transgressions are paid for too dearly; he was in a phase of immense desire for a life without deceit; and finally remorse and sorrow had eaten up desire in him as rust eats up iron. When assisting her into the carriage, and when he touched her shoulder, he remained calm; and when he had taken his seat, he began at once to speak of Mashko, for he judged that through a feeling of humanity alone he ought to prepare her for the coming catastrophe, and soften its significance.
“I wonder at the daring of your husband,” said he. “Let one bridge fall on the road during his stay in Berlin, he will not be able to return to the will case, on which, as you know, of course, all his fate depends. He must have gone for important reasons; but it is always hazardous to act thus.”
“The bridges are strong,” answered Pani Mashko.
But he, unconquered by that not over-encouraging answer, spoke on, drawing aside before her gradually the curtain of the future; and he spoke so long that while he was talking they arrived before the Mashko dwelling. Then she, not understanding the meaning of his words evidently, and angry, perhaps, that she had not had the chance to give him the intended blow, said, when she had stepped out of the carriage,—