"And my Stashko treats him in like manner. It happens frequently that men fight and later on love each other. None of us feel offence toward Pan Tachevski, nay, we should like to conclude with him real friendship. I have just been at his house in Vyrambki, expecting to find him. I wished to invite to Yedlinka you, my benefactor, and Pan Tachevski."
"Yatsek is in Radom, but he will return and would be glad, doubtless, to serve you-- But have you seen, your grace, how they treated him at Pan Gideon's?"
"They have seen that themselves," said Pan Serafin, "and are sorry, not Pan Gideon, however, but the women."
"There are few men so stubborn as Pan Gideon, and he incurs a serious account before the Lord sometimes for this reason--as for the women--God be with them-- Let them go, what is the use in hiding this: that one of them caused the duel?"
"I divined that before my son told me. But the cause is innocent."
"They are all innocent-- Do you know what Ecclesiastes says of women?"
Pan Serafin did not know, so the priest took down the Vulgate and read an extract from Ecclesiastes.
"What do you think of that?" asked he.
"There are women even of that kind."
"Yatsek is going into the world for no other cause, and I am far from dissuading him. On the contrary, I advise him to go."