“Had you any personal object in disquieting me?”
“No,” answered Pan Stanislav, who saw that the moment had come to tell her that which he had resolved to say from himself. “In relation to you, I have only one object,—to declare that, with reference to you, I have offended unworthily, and that from my whole soul I beg your pardon.”
But the young woman went into her house without answering a single word. Pan Stanislav, to the end of his life, did not know whether that was the silence of hatred or forgiveness.
Still he returned home with a certain encouragement, for it seemed to him that he ought to have acted thus. In his eyes that was a small act of penitence; it was all one to him how Pani Mashko understood him. “Maybe she judged,” said he to himself, “that I begged pardon of her for my subsequent treatment; in every case I shall be able to look her more boldly in the eyes now.”
And in that thought of his there was undoubtedly some selfishness; but there was also the will to escape from the toils.
CHAPTER LXIV.
Panna Helena, also, before her departure, received a letter from Pani Bronich, in the style of that which Marynia had received, and, like Marynia, she did not show it to Pan Ignas. Besides, Pan Ignas went away with Svirski a week later without visiting any acquaintance except Panna Ratkovski. Svirski, in person, kept him from all visits; and Pan Stanislav, in conversations with his wife, declared that he had acted rightly. “At present,” said he, “it would be disagreeable both for Ignas, and for us. Those who saw him every day are different, for they are used to him; but no one else could refrain from looking at the scar which is left on his forehead. Besides, Ignas has changed very much. During the journey he will recover perfectly; on his return we shall receive him as if nothing had happened; and strangers will see in him, above all, a wealthy young lord.”
And it might have been so in reality. But meanwhile, there was loneliness around the Polanyetskis, because of that departure. Their circle of acquaintances had scattered on all sides. Osnovski remained still in Brussels; where Pani Aneta had gone no one knew. Pani Bronich and Panna Castelli were in Paris; there was no one at Yasmen. Pani Kraslavski and her daughter shut themselves in, and lived only for each other; and finally sickness had confined to her bed poor Pani Emilia, once and forever.
There remained only the Bigiels and the professor. But he was sick, too, and, moreover, he had become so peculiar that strangers considered him a lunatic. Some said with a certain irony that a man who thinks that the spirit of Christianity will penetrate into politics as it has into private life, must be indeed of sound mind. He began himself to think about death, and to make preparations for it. Frequently he repeated to Pan Stanislav his desire to die “in the ante-chamber to the other world,” and in view of that was preparing for Rome. But since he loved Marynia greatly, he wished to wait till after her sickness.