Imszanski was enchanted with the little one, and kissed his rosy face.
For men like him, there is something incomparably sublime and public-spirited in the fact of being a father; this they hold to be the only thing that compensates and atones for the life they lead.
Martha shrank away; standing at a distance, fury in her heart and a smile on her face, she looked on at the father caressing his boy.
“Look, you,” she whispered to me, “this—this is my vocation, this the mission of my life; all the pain I have undergone, all the rage of my never-ending and vain revolt, all my disappointed existence; all these have been, only that they two should sit here thus, forgetting me entirely; and that all the wrong done to me by the father should come to life again in that son of his!”
But Witold, having caressed Orcio, went to bed. Not until the evening did he wake up, fresh and hearty-looking, to dine with us, kiss Martha’s hand, retail with lively wit several stories then going the round of the town, and make his way to the club once more.
In his love-affairs, Wiazewski is just as fickle and as insatiable as Imszanski; but their “spheres of influence” are different. Wiazewski has a liking for seamstresses, shop-assistants, and so forth; whereas Imszanski is specially interested in cocottes (even his intrigue with Madame Wildenhoff is a case in point). Neither of the two has any great liking for the other, in spite of their mutually courteous bearing at all times. Imszanski has against my friend that he is too democratic: whereas Wiazewski looks on Imszanski as a fool.
The latter explains his dislike for demi-mondaines thus:
“I have a great liking for misdeeds, but not when committed by professional criminals.”
The art of playing with his victims has been brought by him to the acme of perfection. To this end, he employs what naturalists call “mimicry.” His features being rather common, he has no trouble in putting a girl off her guard; he makes up as a commercial man, or a lackey, or a waiter; and in such parts he expresses himself most eloquently in the slang of those classes, which he has picked up to perfection.
He is a thorough expert in the art of getting into touch with the minds of such people; and the ease with which he finds his way through a labyrinth of ideas quite unknown to us is truly admirable.