“I wanted to present my son to you before we sat down to table,” said she; “a big son! a tremendous boy! a nice son!”
And in time to these words she began to sway him toward Pan Yamish. Pan Yamish touched Stas’s face with his fingers, whereupon the “nice son” first made a grimace, then smiled, and all at once gave out a sound which might have a certain exceptionally important meaning for investigators of “esoteric speech;” but for an ordinary ear it recalled wonderfully the cry of a magpie or a parrot.
Meanwhile Gantovski came, and having hung up his overcoat on a peg in the entrance, he was looking in it for a handkerchief, when, by a strange chance, Rozulka, young Stas’s nurse, found herself also in the entrance, and approaching Gantovski, embraced his knees, and then kissed his hands.
“Oh! how art thou, how art thou? What wilt thou say?” asked the heir of Yalbrykov.
“Nothing! I only wished to make obeisance,” said Rozulka, submissively.
Gantovski bent a little to one side, and began to search for something with his fingers in his breast pocket; but evidently she had come only to bow to the heir, for, without waiting for a gift, she kissed his hand again, and walked away quietly to the nursery.
Gantovski went with a heavy face to the rest of the company, muttering to himself in bass,—
“Um-dree-dree! Um-dree-dree! Um-dramta-ta!”
Then all sat down at the table, and a conversation began about the return of the Polanyetskis to the country. Pan Yamish, who, of himself, was an intelligent man, and, as a councillor, must be wise by virtue of his office, and eloquent, turned to Pan Stanislav, and said,—
“You come to the country without a knowledge of agriculture, but with that which is lacking mainly to the bulk of our country residents,—a knowledge of administration, and capital. Hence, I trust, and I am sure, that you will not come out badly in Kremen. Your return is for me a great joy, not only with reference to you and my beloved pupil, but because it is also a proof of what I say always, and assert, that the majority of us old people must leave the land; but our sons, and if not our sons, our grandsons, will come back; and will come back stronger, better trained in the struggle of life, with calculation in their heads, and with the traditions of work. Do you remember what I told you once,—that land attracts, and that it is genuine wealth? You contradicted me, then, but to-day—see, you are the owner of Kremen.”