"No, I don't think you are—not in the least. You have a happy disposition, and can distract yourself with books and plans and dreaming, even if it is only for a short time. I must live, work, be active; I need impressions from outside. Otherwise I go utterly to pieces; I feel that I am slowly dying."
They sat down to tea and chatted until midnight. In that continuous darkness the late hours of night differed from the rest in the position of the stars, a harder frost with louder reports of the cracking ground, the fact that the fires in the cottages were extinguished, and the quieter but more dismal howling of the dogs.
"Then remember that I will bring them. Do something to take their fancy; you know how to do it."
"Very good. It just happens that I have the District Administrator's musical box here to repair; I will play it to them."
"That will delight them. 'A talking box'—I can imagine what they will say! And don't forget to buy vodka for them, and to entertain Buza also. We shall have need of him. I don't yet know what we shall decide upon—I don't even try to think about it; but I feel that something will come of this...."
"What?... Nothing will come of it. There will not even be any vodka left as a result, for they will drink it all up."
"You horrible pessimist! You always poison everything for me!" Józef cried from the hall, and he banged the door after him.
Stefan stood in the middle of the room for a long while, listening to Józef's brisk footsteps. He was smiling, for he liked to be accused of being a pessimist.
A few days later, sitting at the table with his back towards the door, and busy with his work, he heard a curious noise outside—someone stamping and pulling at the strap which served as a latch, as if unused to it.
Stefan turned his head inquiringly, and at the same moment a flat, brown face appeared in the doorway.