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“And I love him,” answered Pani Bronich. “But you will be at the betrothal?”

“C’est décidé. Even though I had to be carried.”

Pani Bronich returned radiant, and at lunch could not restrain herself from expressing suppositions which her active fancy had begun to create.

“Pan Zavilovski,” said she, “is a man of millions, and greatly attached to the name. I should not be astonished at all were he to make our Ignas his heir, if not of the chief, of a considerable part of his property, or if he were to entail some of his estates in Poznan on him. I should not be surprised at all.”

No one contradicted her, for events like that in the world had been seen; therefore after lunch, Pani Bronich, embracing Nitechka, whispered in her ear, —

“Oi, thou, thou, future heiress!”

But in the evening she said to Pan Ignas, —

“Be not astonished if I so mix up in everything, but I am your mamma. So mamma is immensely curious to know what kind of ring you are preparing for Nitechka? It will be something beautiful, of course. There will be so many people at the betrothal. And, besides, you have no idea what a fastidious girl! She is so æsthetic even in trifles; and she has her own taste, but what a taste! ho, ho!”

“I should like,” answered Pan Ignas, “the stones to be of colors denoting faith, hope, and love, for in her is my faith, my hope, and my love.”

“A very pretty idea! have you said this to Nitechka? Do you know what? Let there be a pearl in the middle, as a sign that she is a pearl. Symbols are in fashion now. Have I told you that Pan Svirski, when he gave her lessons, called her ‘La Perla’? Ah, yes, I did. You do not know Pan Svirski? He, too – Yozio Osnovski told me that he would come to-morrow. Well, then, a sapphire, a ruby, an emerald, and in the middle a pearl? Oh, yes! Pan Svirski, too – Will you be at the funeral?”

“Whose funeral?”

“Pan Bukatski’s. Yozio Osnovski told me that Pan Svirski brought home his body.”

“I did not know him; I have never seen him in my life.”

“That is better; Nitechka would prefer that you had not known him. God in His mercy forgive him in spite of this, – that for me he was never a sympathetic person, and Nitechka could not endure him. But the little one will be glad of the ring; and when she is glad, I am glad.”

The “Little One” was glad not only of the ring, but of life in general. The rôle of an affianced assumed for her increasing charm. Beautiful nights came, very clear, during which she and Pan Ignas sat together on the balcony. Nestling up to each other, they looked at the quivering of light on the leaves, or lost their gaze in the silver dust of the Milky Way, and the swarms of stars. From the acacia, growing under the balcony, there rose a strong and intoxicating odor, as from a great censer. Their powers seemed to go to sleep in them; their souls, lulled by silence, turned into clear light, were scattered in some way amidst the depth of night, and were melted into unity with the soft moonlight; and so the two, sitting hand in hand, half in oblivion, half in sleep, lost well-nigh the feeling of separate existence and life, preserving a mere semi-consciousness of some sort of general bliss and general “exaltation of hearts.”

Pan Ignas, when he woke and returned to real life, understood that moments like those, in which hearts melt in that pantheism of love, and beat with the same pulsation with which everything quivers that loves, unites, and harmonizes in the universe, form the highest happiness which love has the power to give, and so immeasurable that were they to continue they would of necessity destroy man’s individuality. But, having the soul of an idealist, he thought that when death comes and frees the human monad from matter, those moments change into eternity; and in that way he imagined heaven, in which nothing is swallowed up, but everything simply united and attuned in universal harmony.

Lineta, it is true, could not move with his flight; but she felt a certain turning of the head, as it were, a kind of intoxication from his flight, and she felt herself happy also. A woman even incapable of loving a man is still fond of her love, or, at least, of herself, and her rôle in it; and, therefore, most frequently she crosses the threshold of betrothal with delight, feeling at the same time gratitude to the man who opens before her a new horizon of life. Besides, they had talked love into Lineta so mightily that at last she believed in it.

And once, when Pan Ignas asked her if she was sure of herself and her heart, she gave him both hands, as if with effusion, and said, —

“Oh, truly; now I know that I love.”

He pressed her slender fingers to his lips, to his forehead, and his eyes, as something sacred; but he was disquieted by her words, and asked, —

“Why ‘now’ for the first time, Nitechka? Or has there been a moment in which thou hast thought that thou couldst not love me?”

Lineta raised her blue eyes and thought a moment; after a while, in the corners of her mouth and in the dimples of her cheeks, a smile began to gather.

“No,” said she; “but I am a great coward, so I was afraid. I understand that to love you is another thing from loving the first comer.” And suddenly she began to laugh. “Oh, to love Pan Kopovski would be as simple as bon jour; but you – maybe I cannot express it well, but more than once it seemed to me that that is like going up on some mountain or some tower. When once at the top, a whole world is visible; but before that one must go and go, and toil, and I am so lazy.”

Pan Ignas, who was tall and bony, straightened himself, and said, —

“When my dear, lazy one is tired, I’ll take her in my arms, like a child, and carry her even to the highest.”

“And I will shrink up and make myself the smallest,” answered Lineta, closing her arms, and entering into the rôle of a little child.

Pan Ignas knelt before her, and began to kiss the hem of her dress.

But there were little clouds, too, on that sky; the betrothed were not the cause, however. It seemed to the young man at times that his feelings were too much observed, and that Pani Bronich and Pani Aneta examined too closely whether he loves, and how he loves. He explained this, it is true, by the curiosity of women, and, in general, by the attention which love excites in them; but he would have preferred more freedom, and would have preferred that they would not help him to love. His feelings he considered as sacred, and for him it was painful to make an exhibition of them for uninvited eyes; at the same time every movement and word of his was scrutinized. He supposed also that there must be female sessions, in which Pani Bronich and Pani Aneta gave their “approbatur;” and that thought angered him, for he judged that neither was in a situation to understand his feelings.

It angered him also that Kopovski was invited to Prytulov, and that he went there in company with all; but in this case it was for him a question only of Osnovski, whom he loved sincerely. The pretext for the invitation was the portrait not finished yet by Lineta. Pan Ignas understood now clearly that everything took place at the word of Pani Aneta, who knew exactly how to suggest her own wishes to people as their own. At times even it came to his head to ask Lineta to abandon the portrait; but he knew that he would trouble her, as an artist, with that request, and, besides, he feared lest people might suspect him of being jealous of a fop, like “Koposio.”¹¹

CHAPTER XLVIII

Svirski had come indeed from Italy with Bukatski’s body; and he went at once on the following day to Pan Stanislav’s. He met only Marynia, however, for her husband had gone outside the city to look at some residence which had been offered for sale. The artist found Marynia so changed that he recognized her with difficulty; but since he had liked her greatly in Rome, he was all the more moved at sight of her now. At times, besides, she seemed to him so touching and so beautiful in her way, with the aureole of future maternity, and besides she had brought to him so many artistic comparisons, with so many “types of various Italian schools,” that, following his habit, he began to confess his enthusiasm audibly. She laughed at his originality; but still it gave her comfort in her trouble, and she was glad that he came, – first, because she felt a sincere sympathy with that robust and wholesome nature; and second, she was certain that he would be enthusiastic about her in presence of “Stas,” and thus raise her in the eyes of her husband.

He sat rather long, wishing to await the return of Pan Stanislav; he, however, returned only late in the evening. Meanwhile there was a visit from Pan Ignas, who, needing some one now before whom to pour out his overflowing happiness, visited her rather often. For a while he and Svirski looked at each other with a certain caution, as happens usually with men of distinction, who fear each other’s large pretensions, but who come together the more readily when each sees that the other is simple. So did it happen with these men. Marynia, too, helped to break the ice by presenting Pan Ignas as the betrothed of Panna Castelli, who was known to Svirski.

“Indeed,” said Svirski, “I know her perfectly; she is my pupil!”

Then, pressing the hand of Pan Ignas, he said, —

“Your betrothed has Titian hair; she is a little tall, but you are tall, too. Such a pose of head as she has one might look for with a candle. You must have noticed that there is something swan-like in her movements; I have even called her ‘The Swan.’”

Pan Ignas laughed as sincerely and joyously as a man does when people praise that which he loves most in life, and said with a shade of boastfulness, —

“‘La Perla,’ do you remember?”

Svirski looked at him with a certain surprise.

“There is such a picture by Raphael in Madrid, in the Museum del Prado,” answered he. “Why do you mention ‘La Perla’?”

“It seems to me that I heard of it from those ladies,” said Pan Ignas, beaten from the track somewhat.

“It may be, for I have a copy of my own making in my studio Via Margutta.”

Pan Ignas said in spirit that there was need to be more guarded in repeating words from Pani Bronich; and after a time he rose to depart, for he was going to his betrothed for the evening. Svirski soon followed, leaving with Marynia the address of his Warsaw studio, and begging that Pan Stanislav would meet him in the matter of the funeral as soon as possible.

In fact, Pan Stanislav went to him next morning. Svirski’s studio was a kind of glass hall, attached, like the nest of a swallow, to the roof of one in a number of many storied houses, and visitors had to reach him by separate stairs winding like those in a tower. But the artist had perfect freedom there, and did not close his door evidently, for Pan Stanislav, in ascending, heard a dull sound of iron, and a bass voice singing, —

 
“Spring blows on the world warmly;
Hawthorns and cresses are blooming.
I am singing and not sobbing,
For I have ceased to love thee too!
Hu-ha-hu!”
 

“Well,” thought Pan Stanislav, stopping to catch breath, “he has a bass, a real, a true bass; but what is he making such a noise with?”

When he had passed the rest of the steps, however, and then the narrow corridor, he understood the reason, for he saw through the open doors Svirski, dressed to his waist in a single knitted shirt, through which was seen his Herculean torso; and in his hands were dumb-bells.

“Oh, how are you?” he called out, putting down the dumb-bells in presence of his guest. “I beg pardon that I am not dressed, but I was working a little with the dumb-bells. Yesterday I was at your house, but found only Pani Polanyetski. Well, I brought our poor Bukatski. Is the little house ready for him?”

Pan Stanislav pressed his hand. “The grave is ready these two weeks, and the cross is set up. We greet you cordially in Warsaw. My wife told me that the body is in Povanzki already.”

“It is now in the crypt of the church. To-morrow we’ll put it away.”

“Well, to-day I will speak to the priest and notify acquaintances. What is Professor Vaskovski doing?”

“He was to write you. The heat drove him out of Rome; and do you know where he went? Among the youngest of the Aryans. He said that the journey would occupy two months. He wishes to convince himself as to how far they are ready for his historical mission; he has gone through Ancona to Fiume, and then farther and farther.”

“The poor professor! I fear that new disillusions are waiting for him.”

“That may be. People laugh at him. I do not know how far the youngest of the Aryans are fitted to carry out his idea; but the idea itself, as God lives, is so uncommon, so Christian, and honest, that the man had to be a Vaskovski to come to it. Permit me to dress. The heat here is almost as in Italy, and it is better to exercise in a single shirt.”

“But best not to exercise at all in such heat.”

Here Pan Stanislav looked at Svirski’s arms and said, —

“But you might show those for money.”

“Well; not bad biceps! But look at these deltoids. That is my vanity. Bukatski insisted that any one might say that I paint like an idiot; but that it was not permitted any one to say that I could not raise a hundred kilograms with one hand, or that I couldn’t hit ten flies with ten shots.”

“And such a man will not leave his biceps nor his deltoids to posterity.”

“Ha! what’s to be done? I fear an ungrateful heart; as I love God, I fear it so much. Find me a woman like Pani Polanyetski, and I will not hesitate a day. But what should I wish you, – a son or a daughter?”

“A daughter, a daughter! Let there be sons; but the first must be a daughter!”

“And when do you expect her?”

“In December, it would seem.”

“God grant happily! The lady, however, is healthy, so there is no fear.”

“She has changed greatly, has she not?”

“She is different from what she was, but God grant the most beautiful to look so. What an expression! A pure Botticelli. I give my word! Do you remember that portrait of his in the Villa Borghese? Madonna col Bambino e angeli. There is one head of an angel, a little inclined, dressed in a lily, just like the lady, the very same expression. Yesterday that struck me so much that I was moved by it.”

Then he went behind the screen to put on his shirt, and from behind the screen he said, —

“You ask why I don’t marry. Do you know why? I remember sometimes that Bukatski said the same thing. I have a sharp tongue and strong biceps, but a soft heart; so stupid is it that if I had such a wife as you have, and she were in that condition, as God lives, I shouldn’t know whether to walk on my knees before her, or to beat the floor with my forehead, or to put her on a table, in a corner somewhere, and adore her with upraised hands.”

“Ai!” said Pan Stanislav, laughing, “that only seems so before marriage; but afterward habituation itself destroys excess of feeling.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m so stupid – ”

“Do you know what? When my Marynia is free, she must find for thee just such a wife as she herself is.”

“Agreed!” thundered Svirski, from behind the screen. “Verbum! I give myself into her hands; and when she says ‘marry,’ I will marry with closed eyes.”

And appearing, still without a coat, he began to repeat, “Agreed, agreed! without joking. If the lady wishes.”

“Women always like that,” answered Pan Stanislav. “Have you seen, for instance, what that Pani Osnovski did to marry our Pan Ignas to Panna Castelli? And Marynia helped her as much as I permitted; she kept her ears open. For women that is play.”

“I made the acquaintance of that Pan Ignas at your house yesterday. He is an immensely nice fellow; simply a genial head. It is enough to look at him. What a profile, and what a woman-like forehead! and with that insolent jaw! His shanks are too long, and his knees must be badly cut, but his head is splendid.”

“He is the Benjamin of our counting-house. Indeed, we love him surpassingly; his is an honest nature.”

“Ah! he is your employee? But I thought he was of those rich Zavilovskis; I have seen abroad often enough a certain old original, a rich man.”

“That is a relative of his,” said Pan Stanislav; “but our Zavilovski hasn’t a smashed copper.”

“Well,” said Svirski, beginning to laugh, “old Zavilovski with his daughter, the only heiress of millions, a splendid figure! In Florence and Rome half a dozen ruined Italian princes were dangling around this young lady; but the old man declared that he wouldn’t give his daughter to a foreigner, ‘for,’ said he, ‘they are a race of jesters.’ Imagine to yourself, he considers us the first race on earth, and among us, of course, the Zavilovskis; and once he showed that in this way: ‘Let them say what they like,’ said he; ‘I have travelled enough through the world, and how many Germans, Italians, Englishmen, and Frenchmen have cleaned boots for me? but I,’ said he, ‘have never cleaned boots for any man, and I will not.’”

“Good!” answered Pan Stanislav, laughing; “he thinks boot-cleaning not a question of position in the world, but of nationality.”

“Yes, it seems to him that the Lord God created other ‘nations’ exclusively so that a nobleman from Kutno may have some one to clean his boots whenever he chooses to go abroad. But doesn’t he turn up his nose at the marriage of the young man? for I know that he thinks the Broniches of small account.”

“Maybe he turns up his nose; but he has become acquainted with our Pan Ignas not long since. They had not met before, for ours is a proud soul, and would not seek the old man first.”

“I like him for that. I hope he has chosen well, for – ”

“What! do you know Panna Castelli? What kind of a person is she?”

“I know Panna Castelli; but, you see, I am no judge of young ladies. Ba! if I knew them, I would not have waited for the fortieth year as a single man. They are all good, and all please me; but since I have seen, as married women, a few of those who pleased me, I do not believe in any. And that makes me angry; for if I had no wish to marry – well, I should say, leave the matter! but I have the wish. What can I know? I know that each woman has a corset; but what sort of a heart is inside it? The deuce knows! I was in love with Panna Castelli; but for that matter I was in love with all whom I met. With her, perhaps, even more than with others.”

“And how is it that a wife did not come to your head?”

“Ah, the devil didn’t come to my head! But at that time I hadn’t the money that I have to-day, nor the reputation. I was working for something then; and believe me that no people are so shy of workers as the children of workers. I was afraid that Pan Bronich or Pani Bronich might object, and I was not sure of the lady; therefore I left them in peace.”

“Pan Ignas has no money.”

“But he has reputation, and, besides, there is old Zavilovski; and a connection like that is no joke. Who among us has not heard of the old man? Besides, as to me, to tell the truth, I disliked the Broniches to the degree that at last I turned from them.”

“You knew the late Pan Bronich, then? Be not astonished that I ask, for with me it is a question of our Pan Ignas.”

“Whom have I not known? I knew also Pani Bronich’s sister, – Pani Castelli. For that matter I have been twenty-four years in Italy, and am about forty, – that is said for roundness. In fact, I am forty-five. I knew Pan Castelli, too, who was a good enough man; I knew all. What shall I say to you? Pani Castelli was an enthusiast, and distinguished by wearing short hair; she was always unwashed, and had neuralgia in the face. As to Pani Bronich, you know her.”

“But who was Pan Bronich?”

“‘Teodor’? Pan Bronich was a double fool, – first, because he was a fool; and second, because he didn’t know himself as one. But I am silent, for ‘de mortuis nil nisi bonum.’ He was as fat as she is thin; he weighed more than a hundred and fifty kilograms, perhaps, and had fish eyes. In general, they were people vain beyond everything. But why expatiate? When a man lives a while in the world, and sees many people, and talks with them, as I do while painting, he convinces himself that there is really a high society, which rests on tradition, and besides that a canaille, which, having a little money, apes great society. The late Bronich and his present widow always seemed to me of that race; therefore I chose to keep them at a distance. If Bukatski were alive, he would let out his tongue now at their expense. He knew that I was in love with Panna Castelli; and how he ridiculed me, may the Lord not remember it against him! And who knows whether he did not speak justly? for what Panna Lineta is will be shown later.”

“It concerns me most of all to learn something of her.”

“They are good, all good; but I am afraid of them and their goodness, – unless your wife would go security for some of them.”

At this point the conversation stopped, and they began to talk of Bukatski, or rather, of his burial of the day following, for which Pan Stanislav had made previously all preparations.

On the way from Svirski’s he spoke to the priest again, and then informed acquaintances of the hour on the morrow.

The church ceremony of burial had taken place at Rome in its own time, so Pan Stanislav, as a man of religious feeling, invited a few priests to join their prayers to the prayers of laymen; he did this also through attachment and gratitude to Bukatski, who had left him a considerable part of his property.

Besides the Polanyetskis came the Mashkos, the Osnovskis, the Bigiels, Svirski, Pan Plavitski, and Pani Emilia, who wished at the same time to visit Litka. The day was a genuine summer one, sunny and warm; the cemetery had a different seeming altogether from what it had during Pan Stanislav’s former visits. The great healthy trees formed a kind of thick, dense curtain composed of dark and bright leaves, covering with a deep green shade the white and gray monuments. In places the cemetery seemed simply a forest full of gloom and coolness. On certain graves was quivering a shining network of sunbeams, which had filtered in through the leaves of acacias, poplars, hornbeams, birch, and lindens; some crosses, nestling in a thick growth, seemed as if dreaming in cool air above the graves. In the branches and among the leaves were swarms of small birds, calling out from every side with an unceasing twitter, which was mild, and, as it were, low purposely, so as not to rouse the sleepers.

Svirski, Mashko, Polanyetski, and Osnovski took on their shoulders the narrow coffin containing the remains of Bukatski, and bore it to the tomb. The priests, in white surplices now gleaming in the sun, now in the shade, walked in front of the coffin; behind it the young women, dressed in black; and all the company went slowly through the shady alleys, silently, calmly, without sobs or tears, which usually accompany a coffin. They moved only with dignity and sadness, which were on their faces as the shadow of the trees on the graves. There was, however, in all this a certain poetry filled with melancholy; and the impressionable soul of Bukatski would have felt the charm of that mourning picture.

In this way they arrived at the tomb, which had the form of a sarcophagus, and was entirely above ground, for Bukatski during life told Svirski that he did not wish to lie in a cellar. The coffin was pushed in easily through the iron door; the women raised their eyes then; their lips muttered prayers; and after a time Bukatski was left to the solitude of the cemetery, the rustling trees, the twitter of birds, and the mercy of God.

Pani Emilia and Pan Stanislav went then to Litka; while the rest of the company waited in the carriages before the church, for thus Pani Aneta had wished.

Pan Stanislav had a chance to convince himself, at Litka’s grave, how in his soul that child once so beloved had gone into the blue distance and become a shade. Formerly when he visited her grave he rebelled against death, and with all the passion of fresh sorrow was unreconciled to it. To-day it seemed to him well-nigh natural that she was lying in the shadow of those trees, in that cemetery; he had the feeling almost that it must end thus. She had ceased all but completely to be for him a real being, and had become merely a sweet inhabitant of his memory, a sigh, a ray, simply one of that kind of reminiscences which is left by music.

And he would have grown indignant at himself, perhaps, were it not that he saw Pani Emilia rise after her finished prayer with a serene face, with an expression of great tenderness in her eyes, but without tears. He noticed, however, that she looked as sick people look, that she rose from her knees with difficulty, and that in walking she leaned on a stick. In fact, she was at the beginning of a sore disease of the loins, which later on confined her for years to the bed, and only left her at the coffin.

Before the cemetery gate the Osnovskis were waiting for them; Pani Aneta invited them to a betrothal party on the morrow, and then those “who were kind” to Prytulov.

Svirski sat with Pani Emilia in Pan Stanislav’s carriage, and for some time was collecting his impressions in silence; but at last he said, —

“How wonderful this is! To-day at a funeral, to-morrow at a betrothal; what death reaps, love sows, – and that is life!”