The strains subsided and silence ensued. Marynia stood near the piano with a countenance, composed as usual, but seemingly, awakened from a dream.
The aged notary sat for a while with bowed head, moving his toothless jaws; afterwards he rose, and when the young maid placed the violin beside the key-board, he ardently kissed her hands; after which he threw a challenging look at those present as if he sought the person who would dare to protest against that mark of homage or deem it a superfluous act. Nobody, however, protested because under the enchantment of that music that happened with the listeners which always happens with mankind, when fanned by the breath of genius. As sometimes in a dream it seems to a person that having shoved himself off the earth with his feet, he afterwards reels a long time in the air, so, too, their bodies became lighter, less material, as if deprived of those heavy and gross elements which bound them to the earth. Their nerves became more susceptible and subtle and their souls more volatile, approaching more closely those boundaries on which eternity begins. It was an unconscious feeling; after the passage of which the daily life was to encompass and drag them down. But during this momentary exaltation there awakened within them, unknown to themselves, a power of apprehending, appreciating, and feeling beauty, and in general such things as in their customary moods they had not felt and did not know that they could have felt.
Even the young and unfledged physician, Laskowicz, notwithstanding all his prejudices, could not resist this influence. The moment when Marynia stood up to play, he began to scrutinize her from his dark corner in the salon and examine her form as an anatomist. He was conscious that there was something brutal in this, but such a viewpoint gave him satisfaction, as being proper for an investigator and a man of his convictions. He started to persuade himself that this young lady of the so called higher spheres was for him merely an object which one should examine in the same manner as a corpse on the dissecting-table is examined. So, when tuning her violin, she bent her head, he took a mental inventory of the Latin names of all her cranial bones, repelling the thought which, against his will, rushed to his head that this was, however, an extraordinarily noble skull. Afterwards, during the first moments after the beginning of the concert, he became occupied with the nomenclature of the muscles of her hands, arms, breast, limbs, outlined under her dress and whole figure. But as he was not only a medical student and a socialist, but also a young man, this anatomical review ended in the conclusion that this was a girl, not yet sufficiently developed, but exceedingly pretty and attractive, resembling a spring flower. From that moment he began, to a certain extent, to forgive her connection with spheres living "from the wrongs of the proletariat," and could not get rid of the thought that if, as a result of some unheard-of social upheaval, such "a saintly doll" became dependent upon his favor or disfavor, then such a state of affairs would bring to him an indescribably coy delight.
But when Beethoven placed his hands upon his head, there awakened within him better and higher instincts. He saw during the performance the lips and eyebrows of the young lady contract, and began to concede that "she, however, felt something." In consequence of this, his ill-will towards her began to melt away, although slowly and with difficulty. He half confirmed, half conjectured that not only the hands but also the soul played. He did not have sufficient culture for music to appeal to him as it did, for instance, to Gronski, nevertheless there awakened within him a certain dismal consciousness that this was something, like the air, which all breasts can breathe, regardless of whether they love or hate. Amazement seized him at the thought that there were things lying beyond the swarm of human passions. At the conclusion he so identified music with the figure of the playing girl that when the old notary, at the end of the concert, kissed her hands, he almost felt inclined to do the same.
In the meanwhile, Ladislaus said to Miss Anney:
"As long as Jastrzeb has been Jastrzeb, never yet has such music been heard. I am not a connoisseur, but must admit that this has captivated me. Besides, though I am often in the city, it has always so happened that I never have had an opportunity of seeing a woman play on the violin. And this is so beautiful that I now have an impression that only women should play the violin."
"One gets such an impression when he hears Marynia play."
"Assuredly. I even begin to understand Pan Gronski. You, of course, know that she is his adoration?"
"The greatest in the world. And mine and everybody's who knows her,--and soon she will be yours."
"I do not deny that she will be, only I doubt whether she will be the greatest."