Meanwhile Basia was holding counsel from early morning with her husband and Pan Zagloba how to unite two loving and straitened hearts. The two men laughed at her enthusiasm, and did not cease to banter her; still, yielding to her usually in everything, as to a spoiled child, they promised at last to assist her.
“The best thing,” said Zagloba, “is to persuade old Novoveski not to take the girl with him to Rashkoff; tell him that the frosts have come, and that the road is not perfectly safe. Here the young people will see each other often, and fall in love with all their might.”
“That is a splendid idea,” cried Basia.
“Splendid or not,” said Zagloba, “do not let them out of your sight. You are a woman, and I think this way,—you will solder them at last, for a woman carries her point always; but see to it that the Devil does not carry his point in the mean while. That would be a shame for you, since the affair is on your responsibility.”
Basia began first of all to spit at Pan Zagloba, like a cat; then she said, “You boast that you were a Turk in your youth, and you think that every one is a Turk. Azya is not that kind.”
“Not a Turk, only a Tartar. Pretty image! She would vouch for Tartar love.”
“They are both thinking more of weeping, and that from harsh sorrow. Eva, besides, is a most honest maiden.”
“Still, she has a face as if some one had written on her forehead, ‘Here are lips for you!’ Ho! she is a daw. Yesterday I fixed it in my mind that when she sits opposite a nice fellow, her sighs are such that they drive her plate forward time after time, and she must push it back again. A real daw, I tell you.”
“Do you wish me to go to my own room?” asked Basia.
“You will not go when it is a question of match-making. I know you,—you’ll not go! But still ’tis too early for you to make matches; for that is the business of women with gray hair. Pani Boski told me yesterday that when she saw you returning from the battle in trousers, she thought that she was looking at Pani Volodyovski’s son, who had gone to the woods on an expedition. You do not love dignity; but dignity, too, does not love you, which appears at once from your slender form. You are a regular student, as God is dear to me! There is another style of women in the world now. In my time, when a woman sat down, the chair squeaked in such fashion that you might think some one had sat on the tail of a dog; but as to you, you might ride bareback on a tom-cat without great harm to the beast. They say, too, that women who begin to make matches will have no posterity.”