"How do you know?"
"That is usually the case. But if it were the reverse, what can I do? Surely I will not journey across the ocean to seek her. In a book that might perhaps appear very romantic, but in reality I have an estate which I cannot abandon and a family which it is not permissible for me to sacrifice. Such a Hanka, with whom, speaking parenthetically, you have soured me by recalling, may be the most honest girl, but to marry her--of course I could not marry her; therefore what, after all, can I do?"
"I do not know; but you must agree that there is a certain moral unsavoriness in the situation in which a man, after committing a wrong, afterwards asks himself or others, 'What can I do?'"
"Oh, that was only a façon de parler," replied Krzycki, "for, on the whole, I know perfectly. I will publish the advertisements and with that everything will end. The penance, which the priest at the proper time imposed upon me, I have performed, and I do not intend to make any further atonement."
To this Gronski said:
"Sero molunt deorum molæ. Do you understand what that means in Polish?"
"Having assumed the management of Jastrzeb, I sowed all my latinity over its soil, but it has not taken root."
"That means: The mills of the gods grind late."
Krzycki began to laugh and, pointing his hand in the direction of the old mill, said:
"That one will not grind anything any more; I guarantee that."