"Well, well, there's no use crying, for I shall depart anyway," he said jokingly to hide his own emotion. "Now, just listen to me . . . but without any protests or loud opposition, for I detest parliamentarism! I see you are in poverty and theatrical poverty in the bargain. . . . Well, I happen to know what it's like. Now, for goodness' sake, stop blushing. Poverty that is honestly acquired is not anything to be ashamed of! It's nothing but an ordinary smallpox which all people who are worth anything in this world have to pass through. Ho! ho! I have been playing blindman's buff with troubles since many a year! Well, I shall end what I am saying in a gallop. Let us do this . . ."
He turned around, took from his pocketbook thirty rubles, that is, all the money that had been sent him for his journey, placed it under Janina's pillow and returned to his former seat.
"'Now we are agreed, are we not, my cousin . . .' said Louis XI after beheading the Duke of Anjou. I will accept no appeal and if you dare to . . ."
He grasped his hat and extending his hand, said softly: "Good-bye,
Miss Janina."
With a desperate motion, Janina hastily barred the door with her body.
"No, no! Do not humiliate me! I am unfortunate enough as it is," she whispered, firmly holding his hand.
"There you have a woman's philosophy! May the deuce take me, but that which I did is as natural as the fact that I will some day blow out my brains and that you will become a great actress!"
Janina began to expostulate with him, and finally to urge him to take back his money, saying that she did not need it, that she would not accept it, and showing a deep aversion to being helped.
Glogowski became gloomy and said roughly: "What! May the deuce take me, but of the two of us I certainly am not the fool! But no! I refuse to get provoked about it. I shall sit down calmly and talk it over with you seriously. I don't want you to get angry at me over such an empty thing as money. You don't want to take it, although you need it, and why? Because a false shame deters you, because you have been taught that such simple human things as helping one another lowers one's pride. Such conceptions are already becoming putrid. To the museum with them! Those are foolish and evil prejudices. May the deuce take me, but it requires a European brain and hysterical subtlety to hesitate to accept money from a human being like yourself when you are in need. Why and to what purpose do you think the human herd unites itself into some form of society? Is it mutually to devour and rob one another or mutually to help one another? I know you will tell me that it is otherwise, but I answer you that that is precisely why we have so much evil in this world. And once we recognize a thing as evil we ought to shun it. Man ought to do good. That is his duty. To do good is the wisest mathematics. But Great Scott! What's the use of my making so much ado about it!" he cried in irritation.
He continued to speak for a long while yet, scoffed, swore occasionally, shouted: "May the deuce take me," and raged fiercely, but in his voice there was so much sincere and deep friendliness, such heartfelt kindness, that Janina, although she was not at all convinced, accepted his proffered aid with a grateful handclasp only because she did not wish to offend him by refusing.