On principle, he is for continual change; but latterly he has been making an exception, and declares he has hit upon the right sort, or nearly so. For some time he has been “keeping company” with a girl, whom he has, on account of her exceptional qualities, distinguished from the common herd. I once saw her at his lodgings and was struck with her good looks.
He has been reading a letter from her to-day. I asked him to give it to me as a “document,” which he very readily consented to do.
It runs thus:
“Dear Stephen I must tell you about something that is Roman the intended husband of Genka came to see me at the shop yesterday evening and he set a-talking to me this way don’t I have no notion where Genka is so I answer back what business of mine is that and he just says don’t you make believe for Genka is in Krucza with that there mechanic and he keeps her I hear is in love with her but I’ll pay him out for it, only the street and the number where he lives are gone clean out of my head can you tell me I know his name is Stephen and I answer this way don’t you go worriting an honest fellow for he don’t have nothing to say to no girls let alone such hussies as Genka he asked me where you lived and I said Krucza number 129 fourth floor and Stephen Tworkowski is your name and he said thankee and hooked it and he says he’ll ask the porter in Wspolna and I said don’t you poke your nose in or you’ll get your head punched as you did once before when you flung dirt at me so if he comes you tell him so and give the beast a talking to.... And something else my dear darling ideal I write this I love you to distraction I am regularly off my head with thinking of you and I have your photo before me and kiss it night and day. O God how I love him more than my life more than my faith I can’t tell what sin I have sinned that I have to pay so dear and you dearest you are so cold and you’ll bring me to my grave with your coldness and in no time too I don’t know but it seems to me you told Elizabeth I slept in Hoza and she makes a mock of me and I don’t care a fig for I am daft for your love no one won’t cure me and no one can’t it’s too late I loved you when I saw you first and shall till my life ends and so long as I don’t put an end to it and who will make me do that but you Stephen my dearest pet and sweetheart.
“I end this scrawl of mine throwing away my pen crying my eyes out and dying of hunger for that blessed Sunday.
“Your unhappy or rather love-sick
Hela.”
Quite aware that I am doing wrong, I let Martha look back into her past; and I even question her myself so as to bring before her eyes the long dismal perspective of her wounded love, I listen in the manner she likes best, calmly and without any show of compassion. Nor have I any for her, any more than for a fish that must needs live in cold water, or for a bat that cannot bear the sunlight. Martha likes to suffer, and—perhaps for this very reason—she is compelled to suffer. Indeed, she is something of a Sybarite in her almost abnormal sensitiveness to pain. She is fond of telling me all the petty foolish troubles of an injured wife; and this procures her an odd sense of what may be called a sort of enjoyment.
“But, all the same, there was a time once when he loved you, did he not?”
“Oh, Witold declares that up to now he has loved none but me!”