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The Argonauts

by Eliza Orzeszkowa · English · Gutenberg #20537 · 512,580 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Argonauts

Author: Eliza Orzeszkowa

Translator: Jeremiah Curtin


        
Release date: February 6, 2007 [eBook #20537]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20537

Credits: Produced by Andrew Leader of www.polishwriting.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARGONAUTS ***




Produced by Andrew Leader of www.polishwriting.net





Introduction

Eliza Orzeszko, the authoress of "The Argonauts," is the greatest
female writer and thinker in the Slav world at present. There are
keen and good critics, just judges of thought and style, who
pronounce her the first literary artist among the women of
Europe.

These critics are not Western Europeans, for Western Europe has
no means yet of appreciating this gifted woman. No doubt it will
have these means after a time in the form of adequate
translations. Meanwhile I repeat that she is the greatest
authoress among all the Slav peoples. She is a person of rare
intellectual distinction, an observer of exquisite perception in
studying men and women, and the difficulties with which they have
to struggle.

Who are the Slavs among whom Eliza Orzeszko stands thus
distinguished?

The Slavs form a very large majority of the people in
Austria-Hungary, an immense majority in European Turkey, and an
overwhelming majority in the Russian Empire; they are besides an
unyielding, though repressed, majority in that part of Prussian
territory known as Posen in German, and Poznan in Polish.

The Slav race occupies an immense region extending from Prussia,
Bohemia, and the Adriatic eastward to the Pacific Ocean. Its main
divisions are the Russians, Poles, Bohemians (Chehs), Serbs,
Bulgarians; its smaller divisions are the Slovaks, Wends,
Slovinians, Croats, Montenegrins. These all have literature in
some form, literature which in respect to the world outside is
famous, well known, little known, or unknown.

The Slavs have behind them a history dramatic to the utmost,
varied, full of suffering, full also, of heroism in endurance or
valor.

The present time is momentous for all nations, the future is a
tangled riddle; for the Slavs this seems true in a double
measure. To involved social problems is added race opposition in
the breasts of neighbors, a deep, sullen historic hostility.
Hence when a writer of power appears among the Slavs, whether he
takes up the past or the present, he has that at hand through
which he compels the whole world to listen. Sienkiewicz has shown
this, so has Tolstoy, so have Dostoyevski and Gogol.

The present volume gives in translation a book which should be
widely read with much pleasure. The winning of money on an
immense scale to the neglect of all other objects, to the neglect
even of the nearest duties, is the sin of one Argonaut; the utter
neglect of money and the proper means of living is the ruin of
the other.

Darvid by "iron toil" laid the basis of a splendid structure, but
went no farther; he had not the time, he had not the power,
perhaps, to build thereon himself, and his wife, to whom he left
the task, had not the character to do so. By neglect of duty
Darvid is brought to madness; by neglect of money Kranitski is
brought to be a parasite, and when he loses even that position he
is supported by a servant.

The right use of wealth, the proper direction of labor, these are
supreme questions in our time, and beyond all in America.

Friends have advised Madame Orzeszko to visit this country and
study it; visit Chicago, the great business centre, the most
active city on earth, and New York, the great money capital. If
she comes she will see much to rouse thought. What will she see?
That we know how to win money and give proper use to it? Whatever
she sees, it will be something of value, that is undoubted;
something that may be compared with European conditions,
something to be compared with the story in this book.

Eliza Orzeszko writes because she cannot help writing; her works,
contained in forty-odd volumes, touch on the most vital subjects
in the world about her. She tells the truth precisely as she sees
it. We may hope for much yet from the pen of this lady, who is
still in the best years of her intellectual activity.

Madame Orzeszko was born a little more than fifty years ago in
Lithuania, that part of the Commonwealth which produced
Mickiewicz, the great poet, and Kosciuszko the hero.

THE ARGONAUTS

By Eliza Orzeszko (Orzeszkowa)

Translated by Jeremiah Curtin
Bristol, Vt., U.S.A.
September 12, 1901.




CHAPTER I

It was the mansion of a millionaire. On the furniture and the
walls of drawing-rooms, colors and gleams played as on the
surface of a pearl shell. Mirrors reflected pictures, and inlaid
floors shone like mirrors. Here and there dark tapestry and
massive curtains seemed to decrease the effect, but only at first
sight, for, in fact, they lent the whole interior a dignity which
was almost churchlike. At some points everything glistened,
gleamed, changed into azure, scarlet, gold, bronze, and the
various tints of white peculiar to plaster-of-Paris, marble,
silk, porcelain. In that house were products of Chinese and
Japanese skill; the styles of remote ages were there, and the
most exquisite and elegant among modern styles, lamps,
chandeliers, candlesticks, vases, ornamental art in its highest
development. Withal much taste and skill was evident, a certain
tact in placing things, and a keenness in disposing them, which
indicated infallibly the hand and the mind of a woman who was far
above mediocrity.

The furnishing of this mansion must have cost sums which to the
poor would seem colossal, and very considerable even to the
wealthy.

Aloysius Darvid, the owner of this mansion, had not inherited his
millions; he had won them with his own iron labor, and he toiled
continually to increase them. His industry, inventiveness, and
energy were inexhaustible. To him business seemed to be what
water is to a fish: the element which gives delight and freedom.
What was his business? Great and complicated enterprises: the
erection of public edifices, the purchase, sale, and exchange of
values of various descriptions, exchanges in many markets and
corporations. To finish all this business it was necessary to
possess qualities of the most opposite character: the courage of
the lion and the caution of the fox, the talons of the falcon and
the elasticity of the cat. His life was passed at a gaming-table,
composed of the whole surface of a gigantic State; that life was
a species of continuous punting at a bank kept by blind chance
rather frequently; for calculation and skill, which meant very
much in his career, could not eliminate chance altogether, that
power which appears independently. Hence, he must not let chance
overthrow him; he might drop to the earth before its thrusts and
contract a muscle, but only to parry, make an elastic spring, and
seize new booty. His career was success rising and falling like a
river, it was also a fever, ceaselessly bathed in cool
calculation and reckoning.

As to the rest, post-wagons, railways, bells at railway stations,
urging to haste, glittering snows of the distant North, mountains
towering on the boundary between two parts of the world, rivers
cutting through uninhabited regions, horizons marked with the
gloomy lines of Siberian forests, solitary since the beginning of
ages. Then, as a change: noise, glitter, throngs, the brilliancy
of capitals, and in those capitals a multitude of doors, some of
which open with freedom, while others are closed hermetically;
before doors of the second sort the pliancy of the cat's paw is
needed; this finds a hole where the broad way is impossible.

He was forced to be absent from his family for long months,
sometimes for whole years, and even when living under the same
roof with the members of it he was a rare guest, never a real
confiding companion. For permanence, intimacy, tender feeling in
relations, with even those who were nearest him, Darvid had not
the time, just as he had not the time to concentrate his thoughts
on any subject whatever unless it was connected with his lines,
dates, and figures, or with the meshes of that net in which he
enclosed his thoughts and his iron labor.

As to amusements and delights of life, they were at intervals
love-affairs, flashing up on a sudden, transient, fleeting,
vanishing with the smoke of the locomotive which rushed forward,
at times luxuries of the table peculiar to various climates, or
majestic scenery which forced itself on the eye by its grandeur
and disappeared quickly, or some hours of animated card-playing;
but, above all, relations with social magnates, who were on the
one hand of use, and on the other an immensely great honor to his
vanity. Money and significance, these were the two poles around
which all Darvid's thoughts, desires, and feelings circled; or,
at least, it might seem all, for who can be certain that nothing
exists in a man save that which is manifest in his actions?
Surely no one, not the man himself even.

After three years' absence, Darvid had returned only a few months
before to his native city, and to his own house, where he was as
ever a rare and inattentive guest. Pie was laboring again. In the
first week, on the first day almost, he discovered a new field;
he was very anxious to seize this field, and begin his Herculean
efforts on it. But the seizure depended on a certain very highly
placed personage to whom, up to that time, he had not been able
to gain admittance.

The cat's paw had played about a number of times to open a
crevice in the closed door, but in vain! He desired a
confidential talk of two hours, but could not obtain it.

He turned then to a method which had given him real service
frequently.

He found an individual who had the art of squeezing into all
places, of winning everyone, of digging from under the earth
circumstances, relations, influences. Individuals of this kind
are generally dubious in character, but this concerned Darvid in
no way. He considered that at the bottom of life dregs are found
as surely as slime is in rivers which have golden sand. He
thought of life's dregs and smiled contemptuously, but did not
hesitate to handle those dregs, and see if there were golden
grains in them. He called his dubious assistants hounds, for they
tracked game in thickets inaccessible to the hunter. Small,
almost invisible, they were still better able than he to contract
muscles, creep up or spring over. He had let out such a hound a
few days before to gain the desired audience, and had received no
news from him thus far. This disturbed and annoyed Darvid
greatly. He would rush into the new work like a lion into an
arena, and spring at fresh prey.

The evening twilight came down into the series of great and small
chambers. Darvid, in his study, furnished with such dignified
wealth that it was almost severe in the rich lamp-light, received
men who came on affairs of various descriptions: with reports,
accounts, requests, proposals.

In that study everything was dark-colored, massive, grand in its
proportions, of great price, but not flashy. Not the least object
was showy or fantastic; nothing was visible save dignity and
comfort. There were books behind the glass of a splendid
bookcase, two great pictures on the wall, a desk with piles of
papers, in the middle of the room a round table covered with
maps, pamphlets, thick volumes; around the table, heavy, deep and
low armchairs. The room was spacious with a lofty ceiling, from
which hung over the round table a splendid lamp, burning
brightly.

Darvid's remote prototype, the Argonaut Jason, must have had
quite a different exterior when he sailed on toward Colchis to
find the golden fleece. Time, which changes the methods of
contest, changes the forms of its knights correspondingly. Jason
trusted in the strength of his arm and his sword-blade. Darvid
trusted in his brain and his nerves only. Hence, in him, brain
and nerves were developed to the prejudice of muscles, creating a
special power, which one had to know in order to recognize it in
that slender and not lofty figure, in that face with shrunken
cheeks, covered with skin which was dry, pale, and as mobile as
if quivering from every breeze which carried his bark toward the
shores which he longed for. On his cheeks shone narrow strips of
whiskers, almost bronze-hued; the silky ends of these fell on his
stiff, low collar; ruddy mustaches, short and firm, darkened his
pale, thin lips, which had a smile in the changeableness of which
was great expression; this smile encouraged, discouraged,
attracted, repelled, believed, doubted, courted or jeered-jeered
frequently. But the main seat of power in Darvid seemed to be his
eyes, which rested long and attentively on that which he
examined. These eyes had pupils of steel color, cold, very deep,
and with a fullness of penetrating light which was often sharp,
under brows which were prominent, whose ruddy lines were drawn
under a high forehead, increased further by incipient baldness-a
forehead which was smooth and had the polish of ivory; between
the brows were numerous wrinkles, like a cloud of anxiety and
care. His was a cold, reasoning face, energetic, with the stamp
of thought fixed between the brows, and lines of irony which had
made the mouth drawn.

A jurist, one of the most renowned in that great city, held in
his hand an open volume of the Code, and was reading aloud a
series of extracts from it. Darvid was standing and listening
attentively, but irony increased in his smile, and, when the
jurist stopped reading, he began in a low voice. This voice with
its tones suppressed, as it were, through caution, was one of
Darvid's peculiarities.

"Pardon me, but what you have read has no relation to the point
which concerns us." Taking the book he turned over its pages for
a while and began then to read from it. In reading he used
glasses with horn-rims; from these the yellowish pallor of his
lean face became deeper. The renowned jurist was confused and
astonished.

"You are right," said he. "I was mistaken. You know law
famously." How was he to avoid knowing it, since it was his
weapon and safety-valve! The jurist sat down on one of the broad
and low armchairs in silence, and now the architect unrolled on
the table the plan of a public edifice to which the last finish
was to be given during winter and before work began in spring.

Darvid listened again in silent thought, looking at the plan with
his steel-colored eyes, in which at times there flashed sparks of
ideas coming from the brain-ideas which, after a while, he
presented to the trained architect. He spoke in a voice low and
fluent; he spoke connectedly and very clearly. The architect
answered with respect, and, like, the jurist who had preceded,
not without a certain astonishment. Great God! this man knows
everything; he moves as freely in the fields of architecture,
mathematics, and law as in his own chamber! Darvid noticed the
astonishment of those around him, and irony settled on his thin
lips. Did those men imagine that he could begin such undertakings
and be like a blind man among colors? Some begin thus but are
ruined! He understood that in our time immense knowledge is the
only foundation for pyramidal fortunes, and his memory alone knew
the long series of nights which had passed above his head while
it was sleepless in winning knowledge.

Next appeared before the table a young man, lean and slender; his
dark eyes expressed genius, his clothing was threadbare, his
gestures almost vulgar. This was a sculptor, young but already
famous. The man had incipient consumption, which brought
excessive ruddiness to his face, a glitter to his eyes, and a
short, rasping cough from his breast.

He spoke of the sculptures which he was to finish for the
edifices reared by the great contractor; he showed the drawings
of them, and explained his ideas; he rose to enthusiasm; he spoke
more loudly, and coughed at more frequent intervals. Darvid
raised his head; the sensitive skin on his cheeks quivered with a
delicate movement; he touched the shoulder of the artist with the
tips of two white, slender fingers.

"Best," said he; "it hurts you to speak too long."

"My younger daughter coughs in just this way," remarked he to the
other men present, "and it troubles me somewhat."

"Perhaps a visit to Italy," said the architect.

"Yes, I have thought of that, but the doctors note nothing
dangerous so far." Then he turned to the sculptor:

"You ought to visit Italy, for its collections of art and--its
climate." The artist, not pleased with this interruption, did not
answer directly, but went on showing his projects and explaining
them; though his short breath and the cough, which was repeated
oftener, made his conversation more difficult. Thereupon Darvid
straightened himself.

"I know very little of art," said he. "Not because I despise it;
on the contrary, I think art a power, since the world does it
homage, but because I lack time. Trouble yourself no further to
exhibit plans and ideas here. I confirm them beforehand, knowing
well what I do. Prince Zeno, whose good taste and intellect I
admire, advised me to turn to you. At his house, moreover, I have
seen works of your chisel which charmed me. Some declare that we
men of finance and business represent only matter, and have no
concern with Psyche (the soul). But I say that your Psyche, now
in Prince Zeno's palace, produced on me the impression that I am
not matter only."

Irony covered his lips, but with increased amiability he added:

"Let us fix the amount of your honorarium, permit me to take the
initiative," said he, hurriedly.

In a tone of inquiry he mentioned a sum which was very
considerable. The sculptor bowed, unwilling, or unable to conceal
his delight and astonishment. Darvid touched him lightly on the
arm, and conducted him to a great desk, one drawer of which he
opened. The jurist and the architect at the round table exchanged
glances.

"A protege of the prince!" whispered one.

"Cleverness! advertising!" whispered the other.

"I know from report," said Darvid, to the young artist, "that
sculptors must spend considerable sums before they begin a given
work. Here is an advance. Do not hesitate. Money should be at the
service of talent."

The sculptor was astonished. He had imagined the millionaire as
entirely different.

"Money should be at the service of talent!" repeated he.

"I hear this for the first time from a man having money! Do you
really think so?" Darvid smiled, but his face clouded
immediately.

"My dear sir," said he, "I would give, I think, much money if a
cough like yours were not in the world."

"Because of your daughter--" began the sculptor, but Darvid had
grown cold now, ceremonious, and he turned toward the round
table.

At the same moment a servant announced from the door a new guest.

"Pan Arthur Kranitski."

The guest entered immediately after the servant, and passed the
outgoing sculptor in the door.

This guest was a man who carried his fifth decade of years with
youthful elasticity of movement, and with a pleasant, winning
expression on his still handsome face. In general he seemed to be
clothed with remnants of great manly beauty, from behind which,
like soiled lining through rents in a once splendid robe,
appeared, carefully concealed, old age, which was premature,
perhaps.

A tall man with a shapely oval face, he had dark whiskers, and
the black curls of his hair did not cover successfully the bald
spot appearing on the back of his head; his mustache was curled
upward, in the fashion of young men, above ruddy lips; he passed
through the study with a youthful step, and had the express
intention of greeting the master of the house in a cordial and
intimate manner. But in the cold eyes of Darvid appeared flashes
well-nigh threatening; he barely touched with his finger-tips the
hand extended by the guest-a hand really aristocratic, white,
slender, and greatly cared for.

"Pardon, pardon, dear Pan Aloysius, that I come at this hour,
just the hour of thy important, immense, colossal occupations!
But on receiving thy invitation I hastened."

"Yes," said Darvid, "I need to talk with you a little--will you
wait a while?"

He turned toward the two men standing by the table, who when he
greeted Kranitski looked at him with a curiosity impossible to
conceal.

Every meeting of Darvid with that eternal guest, that offshoot of
aristocratic families, roused the curiosity of people. For a good
while Darvid did not know this, but at last he discovered it, and
now his quick glance caught on the lips of the famous jurist a
barely discernible smile, to meet which a similar smile appeared
on the lips of the architect. He discoursed a few minutes more
with the two men. When they turned to go he conducted them to the
door; when that was closed he turned to Kranitski and said:

"Now I am at your service."

No one had ever seen service so icy cold, and having in it the
shade of a restrained threat. Kranitski in view of this spent
more time than was needed in placing his hat on one of the pieces
of furniture, besides an expression of alarm covered his face,
now bent forward, and, in the twinkle of an eye, the wrinkling of
his forehead and the dropping of his cheeks, made him look ten
years older. Still with grace which was unconscious, since it had
passed long before into habit, he turned to Darvid.

"Thou hast written to me, dear Pan Aloysius--"

"I have called you," interrupted Darvid, "for the purpose of
proposing a certain condition, and a change."

From a thick, long book he cut out a page, on which, previously,
he had written a few words in haste, and giving it to Kranitski,
he said:

"Here is a bank check for a considerable sum. Your affairs, as I
hear, are in a very disagreeable condition."

Kranitski's face grew radiant from delight, and became ten years
younger. Taking the check presented to him he began, with a
certain hesitation:

"Dear Pan Aloysius, this service, really friendly, which thou art
rendering me, even without request on my part, is truly
magnanimous, but be assured that the moment income from my
property increases--"

Darvid interrupted him a second time.

"We know each other so long that I cannot be ignorant of what
your property is, and what income you receive from it. You have
no property. You own a little village, the income from which has
never sufficed to satisfy even one half of your needs. In that
little village you would have passed your life unknown to the
great world if your mother had not been a relative of Prince
Zeno, and some other coronets of nine quarterings. But since you
had relationship so brilliant through your mother, high society
did not suffer from the loss of your presence. I know all that
relates to you, you need not try to lead me into error--I know
everything."

On the last words he put an emphasis which seemed to bring
Kranitski into a profound confusion, which he could not master.

"Parole d'honneur," began he, "I do not understand such a real
friendly service with such a tone."

"You will understand at once. This sum offered you is not a
friendly service, but a simple commercial transaction. To begin
with, I insist that for the future you cut short all relations
with my son Maryan."

Kranitski stepped back a number of paces.

"With Maryan!" exclaimed he, as if not wishing to believe his own
ears. "I break all relations with him! Is it possible? Why? How
can that be? But you yourself--"

"That is true, I myself began this. I wished that my family,
which, during my frequent absences, resided here permanently,
should move in that social sphere which I considered most
desirable, and I asked you to be the link between my family and
that sphere--"

"I did what you desired," interrupted Kranitski in turn, and
raising his head.

Darvid, looking firmly into his face, said in a low voice,
slowly, but the ice of his tones seemed at moments to break from
the boiling of passion confined beneath them.

"Yes, but you, sir, have demoralized my son. Of himself he would
never have gone to such a degree of corruption and idleness. You
drew him from study, you led him into all kinds of sport, you
took him to all places of amusement, from the highest to the
lowest. On returning, after three years' absence, I found Maryan
withered morally. Luckily he is a child yet, twenty-three years
of age, it is possible to save him. The process of salvation I
begin by forbidding you to have any further relations whatever
with my son."

Darvid grew terrible during his remaining words. His fingers were
sinking into the table, on which he rested his hand. The cluster
of wrinkles between his brows became deeper, his eyes had the
flash of steel in them; he was all hatred, anger, contempt. But
Kranitski, who at first listened to him as if unable to move from
astonishment, boiled up also with anger.

"What do you say?" cried he. "Does not my hearing deceive me? You
reproach me! Me, who during your ceaseless occupations and
absences have been for many years, one may say, the only guardian
of your family, and director of your son. Well! Then do you not
remember our former intimacy, and this, that it was I who made
you acquainted with the highest families of this city, and all
this country? Do you not remember your confidential statements to
me that you wished to give your daughters in marriage within
those circles to which my connections might be a convenient
bridge for you? Do you not remember your requests that I should
introduce Maryan into the best society, and teach him the manners
prevailing there? Very well! You were making your millions in
peace, going after them to the ends of the earth, while I did
everything that you wished, and now I meet with reproaches,
which, at the very least, are expressed without delicacy--des
reproches, des grossieretes--Mais ca n'a pas de nom! c'est inoui!
This demands the satisfaction of honor."

His indignation was genuine and heartfelt; it brought out a deep
flush on his still shapely face. A stony amazement fell on
Darvid. True, true, that man spoke the truth.

He, Darvid, had used him for his purposes; he had liked the man,
almost loved him; he had given him great confidence. He had not
looked into his character; he had not tried to know him, though
he had found time to analyze and know men who took no part in his
business. But the fact in this case was, that whatever had
happened, had happened with his own will. From the depth of his
bosom, from out their mysterious den, came a coil of snakes, and
a repulsive coldness and slime rose toward his throat, still he
reared his head.

"There is much truth in what you say; still my decisive and
repeated wish is that you cease to appear in my house."

Kranitski's forehead was flushed with blood, and the words were
hissing on his lips when he cried:

"In view of such feelings of yours toward me, how am I to explain
the service rendered just now?"

"As pay for service which you have rendered me, or my family. I
pay, we are at quits, and part forever."
"You are not the only power in this world!" cried Kranitski; "not
your will alone can open or close the doors of this house to me."

Darvid, so pale that even his thin lips did not seem to possess a
drop of blood, took from a letter-case and showed Kranitski,
between two fingers, a letter in a small elegant envelope,
bearing the address of Pani Malvina Darvid.

The dark flush vanished from Kranitski without a trace; he became
very pale and rested his hand on the arm of the chair; his eyes
opened widely. Silence lasted some seconds; between those two men
with faces as pale as linen hung the terror of a discovered
secret. Darvid, with a voice so stifled that it was barely
audible, was the first to speak.

"How this letter came into my hands we need not explain! Simply
by chance. Such chances are very common, and they have in them
only this good, that at times they put an end to deceit
and--villainy!"

Kranitski, still very pale except that red spots were coming out
on his forehead, looked very old all at once; he advanced some
steps and stood before Darvid, the round table alone was between
them. With stifled voice, but fixing his black, flashing eyes
boldly on Darvid's face, he said:

"Deceit! villainy! those words are said easily! Do you not know
that in early youth your wife was almost my betrothed?"

Darvid's lips were covered with irony, and he said:

"You deserted her at command of your mother, when she sent you to
this capital in search of the golden fleece."

"And when you went to the ends of the earth for it," answered
Kranitski, "you thought proper to place me to guard the woman
whom I loved formerly. You considered yourself invincible, even
when separated by hundreds or thousands of miles from her--"

"Let us stop this ridiculous discussion," said Darvid.

"As for me," put in Kranitski, with animation, "I will finish it
by offering you any satisfaction which you may demand. I await
your seconds."

Darvid laughed loudly and sharply.

"A duel! Do you think that the world would not know the cause of
it? Your former betrothed would appear in the matter. For that I
should care less, though I must care, for she bears my name, but
I have daughters, and I have business--"

He was silent a while, then he finished:

"A scandal might injure my business, and most assuredly would
injure the future of my daughters; therefore I will neither
challenge you to a duel, nor will I direct my servants to thrash
you!"

A trembling shook Kranitski from head to foot, as if from the
effects of a blow; he straightened himself, he became manful, and
crushing in his hand the bank check which he had received, hurled
that paper bullet into Darvid's face so directly that it hit him
at the top of his bronze colored whiskers and fell to his feet.
Then with elastic movement, and with a grace which was
unconscious and uncommon, he turned toward the door and strode
out. Darvid remained alone. In that spacious, lofty chamber,
richly furnished, in the abundant light of a costly lamp, he
remained alone. Clasping his inclined head with both hands, he
squeezed it with his white, lean fingers, as with pincers. How
many vexations and troubles had met him here after an absence of
years! There was something greater still than even these
vexations and troubles. The coil of serpents rose in his breast
and crawled up to his very throat.

That was torture mixed with a feeling of unendurable disgust. But
Darvid avoided high-sounding phrases, and would never think or
say: torture, disgust. That was a manner of speaking for idlers
and poets. He, a man of iron industry, knew only the words
vexation, trouble. What is he to do now with that woman? Throw
her out like a beast which, bathed in milk and honey by its
owner, has bitten him to the blood? Impossible. His children,
especially his daughters, his business, his position, his
house--scandals are harmful in every way. So he must live on
under the same roof with her; meet the sight of her face, her
eyes--those eyes which on a time were for him--yes, it cannot be
otherwise.

He must endure that and master himself; master himself mightily,
so as not to let things reach a scene, or reproaches, or
explanation. Naturally, no scenes, disputes, or explanations.
For, first of all, what can they profit? Nothing save a useless
expense of energy, and he needs energy so much.

Besides, the very best punishment for that woman is unbroken
silence, which will raise between her and him an impenetrable
wall. From words, even though they be as sharp as sword-edges,
some sound may be got, some slight hope of salvation; but
silence, concealing hidden knowledge of a deed, is a coffin in
which, from the first hour of each day to the end of it, that
woman's pride will be placed with all that in her may still be
human. Contempt as silent as the grave! She will eat of his
millions, seasoned with his contempt. She will array herself in
his millions, interwoven with his hatred. Hatred? Oh, beyond
doubt he hates her with passion, and only at times does her name
move marvellously through his brain with such sounds as if they
were the echo of things very dear, things lost forever and
irreplaceable. Can it be? Is it possible that she did that?
Malvina, once an ideal maiden, and ten years later a woman so
loving that when he was going on a journey she threw herself on
her knees and wept, and then besought him not to go from her! He
remembers the scene perfectly.

Her hair of pale gold, dropping then in disorder to her shoulders
and bosom--her magnificent hair, surrounded by which the tears
flowing down her face glistened like diamonds! He raised his
head, straightened himself. What stupidity! On what sentiment and
exaltation is he losing time and energy! He needs them for
something else. He needs to concentrate all his forces to bring
his new designs to the desired culmination. Why does "that hound"
not show himself and bring the answer needed? Ah, if he could
only get one hour of that conversation, he would convince; he
would capture; he would overcome rivals, and seize into his own
sole possession new fields of industry and speculation! There are
hindrances, intrigues, dangerous rivalries, he knows of them, and
these oppositions it is precisely which attract him most of all.
Now especially, with those vexations and troubles, victory and
the new work would be as a spoonful of hashish to him, or a glass
of strong, invigorating wine. He must go to the club. A game of
cards, to which he devotes some night hours frequently, is not
specially pleasant, but he plays with persons of high position in
society, or with those who are needed in his business. He will
find perhaps, also, that man for whom he has been waiting,
vainly, some days.

He was extending his hand to the button of the electric bell when
from behind the portieres which half hid the door opening to the
interior of the mansion a thin and timid voice came; one could
hardly tell whether it was the voice of a child or a young lady:

"Is it permitted to enter?"

Darvid went to the door hurriedly, saying, also hurriedly:

"It is! It is!"

At that moment, from the darkness which filled the adjoining
room, into the abundant light of the study, came a maiden of
fifteen years, in a bright dress; she was tall and very slender,
with a small waist and narrow breast. An immense wealth of pale,
golden hair seemed to bend back with its weight her small,
shapely head somewhat; her oval face, with its delicate features,
had the blush of spring on it; her lips were like cherries, and
under the arches of her dark brows were large dark eyes. Right
behind the bright dress of the girl came a small shaggy creature,
a ball of ash colored silk, a little dog.

"Cara!" cried Darvid, "well, you are here, little one! How often
have I asked you to come always boldly. How do you feel to-day?
You have not coughed much, I think? Have you taken your daily
walk? With whom did you go? With Miss Mary, or Irene? Come, come,
sit here in this armchair."

He held her small hand in his and led her toward the table, which
was surrounded with armchairs. In his movements there was
something polished and exquisite, as it were delicacy toward a
person who was very dear and not much known, pushed to the degree
where it might be called gallantry. Joined with this was a
feeling of delight. She was pleased and smiling, but she was
blushing and embarrassed. Advancing with short steps at his side,
she bent to his hand every moment and kissed it. Her act was full
of a timid charm, half capricious. They both looked like persons
who were greatly pleased at meeting, but who remained on a
footing of ceremony with each other. He received her in his study
as a queen; he seated her in an armchair, then, sitting very
near, he held her hands in his. Between them, on the edge of his
mistress's skirt, sat the dog with the ash-colored coat, in a
posture of disquiet and uncertainty; it was evident that he was
not accustomed to visit that room. Cara also, with an expression
of timid happiness on her lips which were open, cast her glance
with a smile on the vases and the walls, uncertain whether she
was to speak, not knowing if she might say something; she bore
herself very simply; her small hands rested without motion
between her father's palms. At last she said, in a very low
voice:

"I was so anxious to see you, father, dear; I wished so much to
speak with you that I have come."

"You have done excellently, my little one. Why not come oftener?
Your coming gives me great pleasure."

While speaking he looked all the time into her face, which was
almost that of a little child. She was so like her mother, that
Malvina's youth was simply renewed in Cara.

But Malvina, when he made her acquaintance, was considerably
older; the hair was just the same, very bright, and the eyes with
dark brows and pupils, the same shape of forehead. With a
deepening of the wrinkles between his brows he repeated:

"Why not come offener?"

"You are always so occupied, father," whispered she.

"What of that?" answered he hurriedly and abruptly.

"There is reproach in your voice. Are my occupations a crime? But
labor is service, it is the value of a man. My children should
esteem my labor more than others, since I toil for them as much,
or even more, than for myself."

He did not even think of speaking to that child with a voice so
abrupt, and with such a cloud on his forehead; but that cloud
came to him from some place within, from a distant feeling of
something which he had never looked at directly before. But he
hardly knew the girl! When he went away the last time she was a
child; now she was almost full grown. But she, in the twinkle of
an eye, slipped from the low armchair to the carpet, and kneeling
with clasped hands began to speak passionately and quickly:

"Your child is on her knees before you, father. When you were far
away she revered you, did you homage, longed for you; when you
are here she loves you greatly, above everything--"

Here she turned and removed from her dress the ball of
ash-colored silk, which was climbing to her shoulder.

"Go away, Puffie, go away! I have no time for thee now."

She pushed away the little dog, which sat on the carpet some
steps distant. Darvid felt a stream of pleasant warmth flooding
into his breast from the words of his daughter; but on principle
he did not like enthusiasm. In feelings and the expression of
them he esteemed moderation beyond everything. He raised with
both hands the girl's head, which was bending toward his knees.

"Be not excited, be not carried away. Repose is beautiful, it is
indispensable; without repose no calculation can be accurate, no
work complete. Your attachment makes me happy; but compose
yourself, rise from your knees, sit comfortably."

She put her hands together as in prayer.

"Let me stay as I am, father, at your knee. I imagined that on
your return I should be able to talk often and long with you; to
ask about everything, learn everything from you."

She coughed. Darvid took her in his arms, and, without raising
her from her knees, he drew her to his breast.

"See! your cough lasts! Do you cough much? Well, do not speak, do
not speak! let it pass. Does this cough pass quickly?"

It had passed. She stopped coughing, laughed. Her teeth glittered
like pearls between her red lips. A gleam of delight shot through
Darvid's eyes.

"It has gone already! I do not cough often, only rarely. I am
perfectly well. I was very sick when I got chilled at an open
window while you were away, father."

"I know, I know. Your enthusiastic little head thought of opening
the window on a winter night, so as to peep out and see how the
garden looked covered with snow in the moonlight."

"The trees, father, the trees!" began she, smiling and with
vivacity; "not the whole garden, just the trees, which, covered
with snow and frost in the moonlight, were like pillars of
marble, alabaster, crystal, set with diamonds, hung with laces;
and whenever the slightest breeze moved, a rain of pearls was
scattered on the ground."
"Great God!" exclaimed Darvid, "marbles, alabasters, laces,
diamonds, pearls! But there was nothing of all this in fact!
There was nothing but dry trunks, branches, snow, and hoar-frost.
That is exaltation! And you see how destructive it may be! It
brought you acute inflammation of the lungs, the traces of which
are not gone yet."

"They are!" answered she, in passing, and then she spoke
seriously. "My father, is it exaltation to worship something
which is very beautiful, or to love some one greatly with all our
strength? If it is--then I am given to exaltation, but without
exaltation what could we live for?"

An expression of wonder, meditation, thoughtfulness filled her
eyes and covered her finely cut face with a freshness like that
of a wild rose. With a movement of wonder she opened her arms,
and repeated:

"What do we live for?"

Darvid laughed.

"I see that your head is turned a little, but you are a child
yet, and your trouble will pass."

Stroking her pale, golden hair, he continued:

"Homage, love, and like things of the sensational sort, are very
nice, very beautiful, but should not occupy the first place."

Cara listened so eagerly that her mouth was open somewhat, and
she became motionless as a statue.

"But what should stand in the first place, father?"

Darvid did not answer at once. What? What should stand in the
first place?

"Duty," said he.

"What duty, father?"

Again he was silent a while. What duty? Yes, what kind of duty?

"Naturally the duty of labor, hard labor."

The flush on Cara's face increased; she was all curiosity, all
eagerness to hear her father's words.

"Labor, for what, father, dear?"

"How? for what?"

"For what purpose? For what purpose? because no one labors for
the labor itself. For what purpose?"

For what purpose? How that child pushed him to the wall with her
questions! With hesitation in his voice, he answered:

"There are various purposes--"

"But you, father, for what are you working?" continued she, with
eager curiosity.

He knew very well for what purpose he wished now to undertake the
gigantic labor of erecting a multitude of buildings for the
residence of an army, but could he explain that to this child?
Meanwhile the dark eyes of the child were fastened on his face,
urging him to an answer.

"What is it?" said he. "I--labor gives me considerable, sometimes
immense profits."

"In money?" asked she.

"In money."

She made a motion with her head, signifying that she knew that
this long time.

"But I," began she, "if I wanted to work, should not know what to
work for, I should not know for what object I could work."

He laughed.

"You will not need to work; I will work for you, and instead of
you."
"Well, father!" exclaimed she, with a resonant laugh, "what can I
do? To worship, to love, is exaltation--duty is labor, but if I
may not labor, what am I to do?"

Again she opened her small hands with astonishment and inquiry;
her eyes were flashing, her lips trembling.

Darvid, with marks of disagreeable feeling on his face, reached
for his watch.

"I have no time," said he; "I must go to the club."

At that moment the servant announced from the antechamber,
through the open door:

"Prince Zeno Skirgello."

Delight burst forth on Darvid's face. Cara sprang up from her
knees, and looking around, called:

"Puff! Puff! Come, let us be off! doggy."

"Where is the prince?" asked Darvid, hurriedly. "Is he here, or
in the carriage?"

"In the carriage," answered the servant.

"Beg him to come in, beg him to come in!"

In the delight which the unexpected arrival of the prince caused
him at that time, he did not notice the expression of regret on
Cara's face. Raising the little dog from the floor and holding
him in her arms, she whispered:

"This is the third time, or the fourth--it is unknown which time
it is!" Darvid sprang toward her.

"You may remain! You know the prince--"

"Oh, no, father, I flee--I am not dressed!"

Her white robe with blue dots had the shape of a wrapper, and her
hair was somewhat dishevelled. With the dog on her arm she ran to
the door beyond which was darkness.

"Wait!" cried Darvid, and he took one of the candles which were
burning on the desk in tall candlesticks. The prince was coming
up the stairs slowly. "I will light you through the dark
chambers."

Saying this he walked with her to the second chamber, and when
passing through that, she, while going at his side with the dog
on her arm, and with her short step, which gave her tall form the
charm of childhood, repeated:

"This is the fourth time, perhaps--it is unknown how many times
it will be in this way!"

"What will be in this way?"

"Just when I begin to talk with you. Paf! something hinders!"

"What is to be done?" answered he, with a smile; "since your
father is not a hermit, nor a small person on this world's
chessboard."

They went hurriedly, and passed through the second chamber. The
flame of the candle which Darvid carried cast passing flashes on
the gold and polish of the walls, and the furniture. These were
like tricky gnomes, appearing and vanishing in the silence,
darkness, and emptiness.

Darvid thought:

"How dark it is here, and deserted!" Cara divined this thought,
as it were, and said:

"Mamma and Ira are invited to dine to-day at--"

She gave the name of one of the financial potentates, and added:

"After dinner they will come to dress for the theatre."

"And thou?" inquired Darvid.

"I? I do not go into society yet, and so far the doctor forbids
me to go to the theatre. I will read or talk with Miss Mary, and
amuse myself with Puff."

She stroked with her palm the silky head of the little dog.
Darvid halted at the door of the third chamber, and gave Cara the
light, from the weight of which her slight arm bent somewhat.

"Go on alone; I must hurry to the prince."

She bent down to his hands, covered them with hurried, ardent
kisses. With the flame of the candle before her rosy face, with
the dog at her breast, and the pale, golden hair pushed back on
her shoulders, she advanced in the darkness. Darvid returned
through that darkness in the opposite direction, and when he had
passed the two spacious chambers hastily, he felt in the twinkle
of an eye as if from behind, from that interior, some weight had
been placed on his shoulders. He looked around. There was nothing
but vacancy, obscurity, and silence.

"Stupid! I must have the house lighted!" thought Darvid, and he
hurried into the study, where, with movements a little too
vivacious, with a fondling smile, and with repeated declarations
that he felt happy, he greeted the prince, a man of middle age,
of agreeable exterior, affable and pleasant in speech. When they
had sat down in armchairs, the prince declared the object of his
visit, which was to invite Darvid to a hunt which was to take
place soon on one of his estates. Darvid accepted the invitation
with expressions of pleasure, a little too prompt and hearty. But
he was never so well able to measure his words and movements in
presence of those high-born people as in presence of others. He
felt this himself, still he had not the power to refrain. In
presence of them he found himself under the influence of one of
his passions, and it carried him too far. The prince spoke of the
sculptor, whose gifts he esteemed highly; the young man had gone
directly from Darvid to him and told of all that he had heard,
and what he had experienced.

"I was really affected by your kindness toward this youthful
genius, and am delighted that he found in you a patron so
magnanimous."

Darvid thought that in every case his arrows always struck the
mark. To that act of his he was surely indebted for this unusual
visit of the prince, and the invitation. With a smile, in which
honey was overflowing, he said:

"That young man seems very ill. A visit to more favorable
climates might save him. I must try that he does not reject the
means which I shall offer him for that purpose. I foresee
resistance, but I shall do what I can to overcome it, out of
regard for art, and through good-will for a young man who,
besides many sympathetic traits, has this on his side, that he
rejoices in the exceptional favor of Prince Zeno."

Had he been able, Darvid would have kissed himself for that
phrase, he felt so well satisfied with it; especially when the
prince answered with animation:

"This, in the full sense of the words, means speaking and acting
beautifully! You use the gifts of fortune in a manner truly
noble."

"Not fortune, prince, not fortune!" exclaimed Darvid, "but iron
labor."

"Such toilers as you are the knights of the contemporary world,"
answered the prince, with vivacity; "the Du Guesclins and Cids of
the present century."

He rose and, while pressing the hand of that Cid, fixed again in
his memory the date of the hunt, which was not distant. Prince
Zeno was an aristocrat of the purest blood, possessing a wide
popularity which was fairly well deserved.

Darvid was radiant. While accompanying the prince to the door of
the antechamber he looked as if no coil of serpents had ever
crawled up in his bosom, which was now beating with delight and
with pride. The prince halted still a moment at the door, as if
to recall something.

"Pardon me an indiscreet question, but this interests me
immensely. Is there truth in the reports which are circulating in
the city, that Baron Blauendorf is to have the honor in the near
future of receiving the hand of your elder daughter?"

The expression of Darvid's face changed quickly, it became sharp
and severe.

"Were there any truth in the report," answered he, "I should try
to destroy it together with the report."

"And you would be right, perfectly right!" exclaimed the prince.
Then he bent his lips almost to Darvid's ear and whispered:

"There is no Pactolus which such a young buck as Baron Emil would
not drink up. He is a genuine devourer of fortunes. He has
swallowed one already and the half of another."

He laughed and added at once, with immense affability:

"I see your son frequently--that worthy Kranitski presented him a
year ago to us; I and my wife are very, very thankful. He is
sympathetic, handsome, and a highly intellectual young man, who
does you honor."

He went out. Darvid stood at the round table sunk in thought,
with pins of irony in his smile and his eyes, with a cloud of
wrinkles between his brows. That young sculptor, the favorite of
Prince Zeno, with clothing almost in tatters, brought consumption
on himself unhindered, till a parvenu appeared with his money-bag
and rescued the pocket of the aristocrat, receiving in return a
visit and an invitation to hunt. "Behold the significance of
money! Almost infinite power--ha! ha! ha!"

Internal laughter bore him away, and in his brain sounded the
word: "Wretchedness! Wretchedness!"

What was it specially that he called wretchedness? He was not
clearly conscious himself of this, but the feeling of it
penetrated him. Again he heard the prince saying "that honest
Kranitski," and a wave of blood rushed to his forehead.
Everything that he had forgotten a moment earlier returned to his
mind; the prince's voice roared in his ears: "That honest
Kranitski." He repeated a number of times to himself, in a
hissing whisper, "honest! honest!" And then he said:

"Wretchedness!"

That Baron Emil, the young buck capable of gulping down many a
Pactolus! And he was to possess the hand of his daughter, with a
considerable part of that fortune won by iron labor. Is Irene in
love with him? But the baron is a vibrio and a monkey all in one.
There is need to think over this family matter, lest a misfortune
might happen. He cast a glance at the door behind which was
darkness, thick, silent, immovable. It resembled a window opened
into a great and impenetrable secret.

"I must have the house lighted up," thought he. At this moment he
heard the dull rumble of a carriage in the gateway as it entered.
He pressed the button of the electric bell.

"Is that the lady who has come?"

"Yes, serene lord."

"Tell the coachman to wait. He will take me to the club."

When the servant opened the door the rustle of silk came in like
the sound of wind. Two long silken robes passed over the floor of
the anteroom and farther on in the darkness of the chambers,
which was dispelled by the light of the lamp, borne by the
servant advancing in front of them.

The glittering gnomes called forth by that light sprang along the
gildings, polished walls, and furniture; ran out of the darkness,
ran into it again; were lighted up and quenched on the inclined
heads, drooping lids, and silent lips of the two women in rich
array and gloomy.



CHAPTER II

Malvina Darvid was one of those women to whom old age is very
tardy in coming, and whose beauty, modified in each season of
life, never leaves them. For this last she was indebted less to
the features of her face than to the immense charm of her
movements, her smile, her expression, her speech. She retained
yet the same pale, golden hair which she had years earlier, which
she arranged high above her low forehead, calling to mind the
statues of Grecian women. In contrast with that hair, and her
slightly faded but delicate complexion, shone, from under dark
brows, large eyes, also dark, with a very mild, warm expression,
now bright, now tempered by a deep inevitable cloud of
pensiveness. In a robe covered with lace, in the glitter of a
star of diamonds in the bright aureole of her hair, she greeted
the numerous acquaintances who entered her box at the theatre,
with the affability and freedom of a perfect society lady. She
was even celebrated in that great city for the qualities which
constitute so-called society personages, and which, in those who
knew her past, roused a certain wonder. It was known to all that
that past was very modest. Darvid in his youth, which was far
less brilliant than his present, married a poor orphan, a
teacher. But Malvina Darvid was of those women who need only a
golden setting to sparkle like diamonds. She shone in the great
world with a charm, an elegance, a power of speech which were the
same as if she had been its own daughter. She was radiant with
satisfaction, with serenity, often even with joyous animation,
and only now and then did a slight wrinkle, with a barely
discernible line furrowing her Grecian forehead, sink itself and
cast on her face an expression of weariness, or the corners of
her lips, still red and shapely, drop downward and make that
oval, white, delicate face ten years older than it seemed to be
usually. But those were only short and rare moments, after which
Malvina Darvid was again entirely flooded with the brilliancy of
her beautiful eyes, her splendid toilet, the sounds of her
metallic voice, warm and full of sweetness. She seemed barely a
few years older than her elder daughter. Sometimes guests left
her box with the words:

"She is more beautiful than her daughter."

And offener still: "She is more charming and sympathetic than her
daughter."

Still nature had been no stepmother to Irene Darvid; but life,
though so short thus far, had stamped on her exterior a mark
which, while it astonished and discouraged, repelled.

If the younger sister seemed a living portrait of her mother, the
elder recalled her father, with her high forehead, thin lips,
and--a thing wonderful at such a tender age--the mark of irony
drawn over them. Her hair, too, like her father's, changed with
fiery gleams of gold and bronze, while the pale complexion of her
face, which was too long, was lighted by the frequent sharp
glitter of her eyes, which, as those of her father, were not
large, and had gray pupils with a cold glance, penetrating and
reasoning. Her shapely form was somewhat too slender; her posture
and movements too stiff and ceremonious. She passed in society
for a haughty, cold, unapproachable, original, and even eccentric
young lady.  On the stage was presented a play which had been
preceded by immense praise; in the theatre had collected all that
bore the name of high and fashionable society in the city. The
boxes were filled, except one, which only just before the
beginning of the second act was opened with a rattle and filled
with loud, free, and bold conversation. It was occupied by a
number of young men of elegant dress and manners; they, as it
seemed, were connected by similarity in position, habits, and
pleasures. Prom the higher to the lower rows of the theatre all
eyes and glasses were turned toward that box, with its princes,
young nabobs, sons of ancient families, or heirs to immense
fortunes. Through boxes, armchairs, galleries, passed names
notorious through deeds of originality, witty sayings,
astonishing excesses; names interwoven with anecdotes about money
and love-passages; the substance of the love-passages could be
repeated only in whispers, while the amounts of money were
mentioned with eyes widely opened in amazement.  Two among these
young men occupied public attention beyond others that winter:
Baron Emil Blauendorf, and Maryan Darvid, both of families
recently, but greatly, enriched. The Blauendorf house was older
by some generations, and had become widely connected; on the
other hand, their fortune in possession of the present descendant
was vanishing quickly; in comparison with the entirely new
edifice of the Darvids, it seemed a ruin. On these two general
attention was concentrated with the greatest curiosity; for
during that winter and the preceding one the most numerous
anecdotes touching them were in circulation among those who
frequented that theatre. They were so young, and still so noted!
But Baron Emil was considerably older than Maryan; he was thirty
and little favored in looks. Small, weakly, with red, closely-cut
hair, with features which were too small, and injured by a faded
complexion, with small eyes, which, because of nearsightedness,
were either covered with eyeglasses, or blinked at the light from
behind yellow lids, which gave them an expression of pride and
weariness. An unshapely exterior, unimposing, slight, bent,
sickly. But through those small, yellowish, thin hands had passed
already the fortune of the old baron, who was dead some years,
and now a second fortune was passing through them--a fortune left
scarcely a year before to her son by the baroness, who was famous
for her idolatrous love of him. People looked, and wondered how
such a great river of gold could flow through a creature so small
and insignificant. With Maryan it was different. He astonished
also, but he roused general sympathy. Such a child! And such a
perfectly beautiful fellow at the same time! He was not twenty
three years of age yet; of fine stature; his manners were elegant
and pleasing; he had the head of a cherub, with bright curling
locks; a noble fresh face from which gazed eyes as blue as
turquoise; and wise, too wise, perhaps, in so youthful a
countenance, for these eyes seemed not to confide but to jeer, or
to be wearied and seeking something through the world without
finding it. Women whispered into one another's ears that that
lad, when in England, had joined the Salvation Army; but after he
had remained a short time in its ranks, he became, in Paris, a
member of the Hashish Club, and brought away the habit of using
narcotics to rouse dreams in himself and unusual conditions. If
the city at that moment had temporary possession of Bianca
Bianetti it was thanks to that lad, who, in a remote land, had
won the heart of the singer. Some insisted that he had spent
fabulous sums on her; others contradicted, declaring that not
Bianca, the singer, had consumed them, but Aurora, that noted
Amazon of the circus, for whose favor princes of blood royal had
striven in various capitals. That shapely little nabob had come,
seen, and conquered; and when he had got his prize at an
incredible outlay, he threw it aside and brought home Bianca. But
is that all that may be told of him? He and Baron Emil are
fountains of histories of this sort. The baron is considerably
older, but this lad has a father. That father himself is a source
of unbounded credit. Young Darvid has as many debts as there are
golden curls on that cherub head of his. What will his papa say?
What? Not long since that papa returned from the ends of the
earth, after a long absence; will he put an end to the tricks of
the boy? will he be able to do so? The white forehead of the
youth has an expression of maturity, and at times of something
else--namely, weariness--and in his blue eyes gleams of firmness,
resolve, and contempt. He looks as if he despised the whole world
then. He and the baron occupy themselves much with art and
literature. They expend almost as much on art as on women and
joyous suppers. They are highly cultured. The baron plays like an
artist; Maryan translates poetry into various languages.  In the
box were a number of others resembling these two, but the others
had places elsewhere in the theatre: they had come for a brief
time and left the box afterward, then there remained only the
baron and young Darvid. Behind their chairs sat some third man,
very quietly, as if to attract the least attention possible. This
was Pan Arthur Kranitski. People were accustomed to see him here
and elsewhere with these two young men, and with others also, but
with these two most frequently; his hair curled, freshened; his
black mustache, pointed at the ends above his red lips, in the
fashion of young men. But to-day he looks considerably more
retiring and older than usual. With much bold conversation, with
laughter which cast his head back, with movements full of grace
and animation, he generally strove to equal, and did equal, those
two young nabobs, whose Mentor he seemed to be, and at the same
time their comrade and continual guest, as well as their gracious
protector. This time he was weighed down and gloomy, with spots
on his aged forehead. He was sitting in a corner of the box,
turning his attention neither to the play nor the audience; and,
what was more, not striving to attract the attention of anyone.
But from behind the shoulders of the young men in the front of
the box, his hand, as if directed by an irresistible impulse,
turned the opera-glass, from moment to moment, toward Malvina
Darvid. He felt that he ought not to look so persistently at that
woman with the gleaming star above her forehead, so he dropped
his hand to raise it again and turn it in the same direction.  As
if imitating Kranitski, though really he did not even think of
his existence, Baron Emil was acting in the same way with
reference to Irene, gazing through his opera-glass at her face,
which showed indifference and even weariness.  He did this with a
perfect disregard for the rest of the audience, and beginning at
the second act, with an insolence which might have confused or
angered another woman. But Irene, indifferent for some time,
raised her glass also, and turned it on the baron. With these
glasses the two people brought their faces near each other; they
looked each other straight in the eyes, separated themselves from
the audience, and gazed from the height of their two boxes in
full disregard of everything happening around them. These two
opera-glasses, planted in permanent opposition, attract the
attention of all; but Irene and the baron do not heed that, do
not care to know anything what ever about the audience, or the
love scenes and tragedy represented in that theatre. They gaze
long at each other with such indifference that one might ask. Why
do they do that? Perhaps because it is original, perhaps to rouse
the curiosity or the censure of the audience. But, after a long
time, there appeared on their faces a jeering, self-willed smile,
with a tinge of friendly comradeship, mixed in the baron's case
with a passing gleam of the eyes; and in Irene's a pale flush,
which covered her lofty forehead for a moment and then vanished.
Dropping his hand with the opera-glass the baron turned to
Maryan: "Tres garconniere ta soeur!" said he. "She is bold and
looks down on every thing; she is disenchanted. Une desabusee!
Very interesting, and grows more and more so."

"Does she rouse a new shiver in you?" laughed Maryan.

"Yes, an entirely new shiver. That is a type of woman which is
barely beginning. Twenty years old, and a perfectly distinct
individuality! Twenty years old, and knows painted pots
thoroughly!"

"That is a family trait with us," retorted Maryan.

"Your mother," continued the baron, "has undying beauty. Such
splendid hair and eyes! But hers is another type entirely."

"A past one," put in Maryan.

"Yes, that is true, a past type, a simple one. But Panna Irene is
new and intricate; yes, that is the word, intricate! We are all
intricate now, full of contrasts, dissonances, and vexations."

In the theatre a thunder of applause was heard. The two young men
looked at each other and laughed almost loudly.

"What are they playing?" asked the baron, indicating the stage
with his head. "Ma foi! I have not heard one word."

"Well old man," said Maryan, turning to Kranitski, "what are they
doing on the stage?" Kranitski dropped his hand with the
opera-glass quickly and blurted out:

"What is the question, Maryan?" His eyes, which were fine yet in
their prolonged lids, were glazed with a tear.

"Ho, ho! romantic, there is a tear in your eye. The subject must
be affecting! Let us listen!" They began to listen, but quite
differently from others. When passions exhibited on the stage
quickened the beating of all hearts, or poetry, pulsating in
lofty words, brightened faces with enthusiasm, Maryan and the
baron laughed inattentively and with contempt; when stupidity,
selfishness, or wit called out laughter, or ridicule, they were
immovable in cold importance, puffed up and insolent; when the
curtain came down at the end, and a deafening, prolonged thunder
of applause was heard, their hands rested ostentatiously on the
edge of the box. This opposition to the impressions and opinions
of the audience might seem a childish wish for distinction; but
one could feel besides in it, a bold throwing down of the
gauntlet to common taste, and an estimate of the various elements
and values in life directly in conflict with that of others.

Toward the end of the last act Kranitski entered Malvina Darvid's
box, and saluting each woman silently he stood motionless.
Malvina bowed toward him slightly, then a shadow came out on her
face; this shadow seemed to have torn itself from an internal
cloud. She frowned--a deep wrinkle appeared on her forehead, the
corners of her mouth drooped somewhat, and her face, with that
brilliant star in the aureole of bright hair above, had an
expression of pain when seen on the drapery of the box as a
background.

But that did not last long. The box was filled with an assembly
of brilliant and agreeable men, one of whom, with his gray hair
and bearing of an official, made a low obeisance before the wife
of Darvid, and seemed to lay at her feet smiles full of homage.
Hence she grew affable, pleasant, vivacious, elegant in gestures,
and in the modulation of her beautiful voice, she answered
politeness with politeness, requests with promises, and gave
opinions in return for questions touching the piece just played.

Baron Emil meanwhile approached Irene and, indicating the excited
audience with his eyes, inquired:

"How do those shouting Arcadians please you?"

Taking on her shoulders the wrap which he held for her, she
answered:

"They are happy!"

"Why?"

"Because they are naive!"

"You have described the position famously!" cried he, with
enthusiasm. "Only Arcadians could be so happy--"

"As to believe in those painted pots--"

"As their great-grandfathers did," added he.

"Who knows," said she, as it were, with deep thought, "whether
the great-grandfathers really believed in them, or only--"

"Pretended belief! Ha! ha! ha! Beyond price! excellent! How you
and I converse, do we not? This is harmony!"

"Not without dissonance."

"Yes, yes, not without vexation. But that is nothing. That even
rouses-"

During this interchange of opinions, which was like the glitter
of cold and sharp steel, Kranitski, in the crowd which surrounded
Malvina, was able to whisper to her:

"To-morrow at eleven." Without looking at him, and with a quiver
of her brows, which drooped a little, she answered:

"It is too early."

"Absolutely necessary. A catastrophe! A misfortune!" whispered he
in addition.

She raised to him a glance which showed that she was tortured to
her inmost soul by fear, but at the same moment Maryan gave her
his arm, and said:

"To be original, to edify the Arcadians, and to give myself
pleasure, I shall be to-day a virtuous son, conducting his own
beautiful mamma downstairs!"

Adroit, with almost childish delight in his blue eyes, but with a
sarcastic smile which seemed to have grown to his lips, which
were shaded by a minute mustache, this youth led through the
theatre corridor that woman not young, but whose beautiful and
original head, and whose rich toilet drew all eyes to her.

"I am proud of you, dear mamma. To-day I have heard whole odes
sung in your honor; even Emil declares that you are eclipsing
Irene with your beauty."

She was smiling and also angry. Her dark gleaming eyes rose with
love to the shapely face of her son, but, striving to be
dignified, she said:

"Maryan, you know that I am displeased at hearing you talk to me
in such a tone."

He laughed loudly.

"Then, my dear mamma, you should grow old as quickly as possible,
put on a cap, and sit in a jacket at the fireplace. I should be
filled then with timid respect, and would hurry away with all
speed from such an annoying mamma!"

"But since I am not annoying you will be good and come home with
us. We shall drink tea together."

"Au desespoir, chere maman! But that cannot be. The rest of this
day, or night, I have promised to friends."

"Is to-day the only time promised?" asked she, with a shade of
sadness.

"For the true sage to-morrow and yesterday have no existence,"
answered Maryan.

They were at the open door of the carriage; Maryan bent and
kissed his mother's hand.

"Be not angry, mamma dear! But you are never angry. If there is
anything on earth that I worship yet it is your marvellous
sweetness of temper."

"It is excessive," answered Malvina. "If I only knew how to
dominate--"

He interrupted her, with a laugh:

"I should avoid you in that ease; but now, all relations between
us are excellent, though they are constitutional or even
republican."

"I go for anarchy!" put in Baron Emil, helping Irene to a seat in
the carriage.

He spoke somewhat through his nose and teeth, it was difficult to
say whether by nature or habit, but that gave to his speech a
character of contemptuousness and indolence.

"But of dissonances to-morrow n'est ce pas?" asked he.

"And of vexations!" concluded Irene with a smile, wherewith her
hand remained on the baron's palm a few seconds longer than was
necessary.

Soon after, Malvina Darvid was sitting at a small table covered
with a tea service, in a study which was like the lined and
gilded interior of a costly confectionery box. Massive silver
artistically finished, expensive porcelain, exquisite tid-bits,
enticing the eye by their ornamentation, and the taste by the
odor from them, tempered, however, by the strong fragrance of
hyacinths, syringa, and violets which were blooming at the window
and the walls, and on largo and small tables everywhere.

The dress worn at the theatre was replaced now by a wrapper,
composed of lace and material soft as down. Her posture in the
low and deep armchair, the very manner even in which she arranged
the folds of her robe seemed to exhale the luxury of rest; but
her mind was at work, and filled her eyes with an expression of
disquiet.

"'Catastrophe! Misfortune!' What could that be?" Marks of pain
had begun to wind around her mouth; her hands were firmly clasped
on her knees. "It may be that lost letter? A man must have a head
filled with exaltation, and a character as weak as Kranitski's to
write such a letter. It may be--it is even sure to be so, for
during a number of days she has felt in the air a catastrophe.
But if?--Well! Is that a misfortune? Oh, rather the opposite?"
The supposition that the dark, grievous truth of her life might
be discovered by him who would seek vengeance because of it
roused no fear in her; it caused her to hope for a thing
disagreeable and yet desired. Let that horrid knot in which her
life was involved be untied or torn apart sometime, in any way
whatever. Alone she would never have strength to untie or to cut
it, she is such an eternally weak, weak, weak creature! And still
anything would be better than the present condition.

Two glittering tears rolled slowly down her cheeks; above the
drooping eyelids a deep wrinkle cut a dark line across her
forehead. The diamond star flashing rainbow gleams from her hair,
and the flowers, which dotted the room thickly with their pale
colors, gave a background of wealth to that woman's life tragedy.

With a teacup in her hand Irene stood in the opposite door and
looked at her mother uneasily, keenly, with such attention that
her eyelids blinked repeatedly. Far from her now were those dry
and sneering smiles in conversation with the baron. But she
passed through the room calmly and sat in front of her mother.

"It seems that the play of to-night did not amuse you much,
mamma." She looked into the teacup so steadily that she could not
see her mother's tears or expression of face. But that face grew
bright on a sudden and was covered with an unrestrained smile.

"Is Cara sleeping?" inquired she.

"Of course; her room is quite silent, and so is Miss Mary's. Why
do you not drink tea, mamma?"

Malvina raised the spoon slowly to her lips, and Irene began to
speak calmly:

"I heard very unexpected news to-day. It seems that father has
told Prince Zeno, who inquired about the matter, that he will not
consent to my marriage with Baron Blauendorf."

"Why call that news unexpected?" asked Malvina, looking at her
daughter.

Irene shrugged her shoulders slowly.

"I did not suppose that father would devote his precious time to
things so trivial. This is unexpected and may bring trouble."

"What trouble?" inquired Malvina, with alarm.

"Father's opinions and mine may be in opposition."

"In that case your opinion will yield."

"I doubt that. I have my plans, my needs, my tastes; of these
father can know nothing."

They were silent rather long; during this time Malvina raised her
eyes to her daughter repeatedly, with the intent to say
something, but she was unable, or at least she hesitated. At last
she inquired in irresolute, almost timid, tones:

"Irene, do you love him?"

"Do I love the baron?"

These words coming from the lips of the young girl expressed
immense astonishment.

"If Baron Emil should hear that question he would be the first to
call it Arcadian or great-grandfatherly." And she laughed. "That
is one of those things which do not exist, or which, at least,
are changeable, temporary, dependent on the state of the nerves
and the imagination. I have a cool imagination and calm nerves. I
can do without painted pots."

As these words came slowly and coldly from the lips of her
daughter, Malvina straightened herself, and her face was covered
with a faint blush. She had preserved the rare, and at her age
even wonderful, faculty of blushing.

"Ira!" cried she, "I hear these opinions not for the first time,
and they give me such pain!"

She clasped her hands.

"Love, sympathy, when a choice is made--"

The voice broke in her throat all at once. Her eyelids drooped;
her shoulders fell back on the chair; she was silent.

Irene laughed and made a gesture of despair with her hands.

"What can I do with the situation?" began she in a jesting tone.
"It was not I who made this world, and cannot reconstruct it. I
might like to do so, perhaps, but I cannot." Then she grew
serious, and continued: "Love and sympathy may be very charming.
I admit even that most assuredly they are when they exist; but
usually if they exist it is for a short period, they flash up and
quench--a few years, a few days, most frequently only days, and
they pass--they are as if they had never been. Why illusions,
when after them disenchantment must conic? They merely cause
useless exertion in life, disappointment, and suffering."

Irene's words and sententious, hard tones were in marvellous
contrast with the maiden-roundness of her arms, which were bare
in the broad sleeves of her dressing-gown, with the fresh red of
her delicate lips, and the gleam of her blue eyes.

"Besides," added she, "I feel a sympathy for the baron; a certain
kind of sympathy." Malvina, after a moment's silence, asked in a
low voice:

"What kind of sympathy is it?"

After a little hesitation Irene answered with a harsh, abrupt
laugh:

"What kind of sympathy? A kind very common, it seems known
universally. Sometimes his way of looking at me, or his pressure
of the hand, moves me. But he pleases me most by his sincerity;
he makes no pretence. He has never told me, like those three or
four other suitors of mine, that he loves me. He has for me, as I
have for him, a certain kind of sympathy; he considers me
financially an excellent match, and for these two reasons he
wishes to share with me his title of baron, and his relationship
with certain families of counts and princes. And as I, on my
part, need independence at the earliest, and my own house, so one
thing for another, the exchange of services and interests is
accomplished. We do not hide from each other these motives of
ours, and this creates between us sincere and comrade-like
relations, quite agreeable, and leading to no tirades or elegies
in which there is not one bit of truth, or to any exaltation or
despair which has no title to the future. This is all."

"Ira!" whispered Malvina after a long silence.

"What, mamma?"

"If I could--if I had the right--" Both were silent.

"What, mamma?"

"If I could believe in spite of--"

The gilded and artistic clock ticked among the pinks and lilies:
tick-tack, tick-tack.

"What is it, mamma?"

"A cake, Ira!"

As Irene took a cake from the silver basket with her trembling
hand, she cried, with glad laughter:

"At last you will eat even a cake! You have changed immensely,
mamma. I cannot call you now as I once did, a little glutton,
since for some time past you eat so little that it is nearly
nothing."

Malvina smiled fondly at the name which on a time her daughter
had given her jestingly, and Irene continued in the same tone:

"Remember, mamma, how you and I, with one small assistant in
Cara, ate whole baskets of cakes, or big, big boxes of
confectionery. Now that is past. I notice this long time that you
eat almost nothing, and that you dress richly only because you
must do so. At times, were it possible, you would put on
haircloth instead of rich silks, would you not? Have I guessed
rightly?"

While a faint blush covered her forehead and cheeks again,
Malvina answered:

"Rightly."

Irene grew thoughtful; without raising her eyes to her mother she
inquired in a low voice:

"What is the cause of this?"

"Returning currents of life are the cause," answered Malvina
after a rather long silence, and she continued, thoughtfully:
"You see, my child, currents of a river when once they have
passed never come back again, but currents of life come hack. My
early youth was poor, as you know, calm, laborious, brightened by
ideals, from which I have deviated much! That was long ago, but
it happened. In life so many years pass sometimes, that events
which precede those years seem a dream, but they are real and
come back to us."

Irene listened to this hesitating, low conversation with drooping
eyelids and forehead resting on her hand. She made no answer.
Malvina, sunk in thought, was silent also.

A few minutes later the tea things vanished from the table,
removed without a sound almost, and borne out by the young
waiting-maid.

With eyelids still drooping, as if she were finishing an idea
circling stubbornly in her head, Irene said with pensive lips:

"A haircloth!" She rose then, and, suppressing a yawn, said: "I
am sleepy. Good-night, mamma, dear!" She placed a brief kiss on
her mother's hand: "Shall I call Kosalia?"

"No, no! Tell her to go to sleep. I will undress myself and go to
bed unattended."

"Good-night!"

Stepping quietly along the carpet Irene passed out. Malvina
followed the young lady to the door with her eyes, and the moment
she was alone she threw her arm over her head, turned her face
upward, and repeated a number of times, audibly: "God! God!" Then
she rested her elbows on the arms of the chair, covered her face
with both palms, the broad sleeves of her dress fell from her
arms like broken wings. Thus, altogether motionless, she dropped
into an abyss of regrets, reminiscences, and fears. The night
flowed on. The clock among the flowers in that study struck the
first hour after midnight, then the second hour, and each time in
the darkness of the drawing-rooms another clock answered in tones
which were deeper and more resonant. The syringa and hyacinths
gave out a still stronger odor, though the cold increased in that
chamber. The frosty winter night was creeping in, even to
dwellings which were carefully heated, and was filling them with
darkness penetrated with cold; along Malvina's shoulders, which
were bent over the arm of the chair, shivers began to pass.

In the darkness and cold a slight rustle was heard, and on the
background of this darkness, in the doorway, appeared Irene. She
wore a short, embroidered dress of cambric, and her fiery tresses
were on her shoulders. She stood in the doorway with neck
extended toward her mother, then walking in soft slippers
silently she passed through the room like a shadow, and vanished
beyond the opposite door. There was something ghostlike in those
two women; one passed, without the slightest rustle, by the
other, who was sleeping in a low chair, without making the least
movement. Outside that mansion the streets of the city were
entering into a deeper and longer silence.

The clock in the study struck three, in the darkness three
strokes, remote and deep, answered. In the air the volatile and
languid odor of syringas was overcome by the narcotic and
stronger odor of hyacinths. The increasing cold flowed around
them with painful contrast. In the door, beyond which she had
vanished, Irene appeared again, just as silently as before. She
passed through the room and placed a shawl upon her mother's
shoulders. Malvina, feeling the soft stuff, woke as if from a
dream.

"What is this?" exclaimed she, raising her face, the cheeks of
which were gleaming in the light of the lamp; but when she saw
her daughter she smiled with relief immediately.

"That is you, Ira? Why are you not asleep?"

"I cannot sleep, and I came for the book which we began to read
together. It is growing cold, so I brought a shawl. Good-night."

She went aside but did not leave the room. She had no book in her
hand; perhaps she was looking for it in the beautifully carved
ease filled with books, for she opened the case and stood before
it with arms raised toward the upper shelves, her hair lying
motionless on the white cambric covering her shoulders.

Malvina was looking at her daughter, in her eyes was impatience;
she was waiting for her to go.

"Is it late?" asked she.

"Very late," answered Irene, without turning her head.

"Does Cara cough to-night?"

"I have not heard her cough to-day." Malvina rose, but tottered
so much that she was forced to rest her hand on the edge of the
table. She seemed greatly wearied.

"Go to sleep. Good-night!" said she, passing her daughter.

Irene looked at her tottering step and followed her quickly a
number of paces.

"Mamma!" cried she.

"What, Ira?"

Irene stood before her mother a moment, her lips were quivering
with words which she withheld, till she bent, kissed her mother's
hand gently, and said in her usual manner:

"Good-night!"

Then she stood a while longer before the open case, listening to
the rustle made by her mother while going to bed, and when that
had ceased she closed the case and moved quietly into the
darkness behind the outer door.

At that same time a carriage thundered in the silence and passed
through the gateway. Restrained movement rose in the antechamber
from which one servant ran out into the dimly lighted stairway,
and another rushed to the study and bedroom of the master of the
mansion to increase quickly the light of the lamps there. Darvid
went up the stairs quickly and with sprightliness; he threw into
the hands of the servant his fur, which was costly and original,
since it was brought from the distant North, and began at once to
read at the round table, through an eyeglass, that which he had
jotted down recently in his pocket notebook. The book was in
ivory binding with a gold monogram, and a pencil with a gold
case. While reading Darvid put a brief question to the servant:

"Has Pan Maryan returned?"

The answer was negative. Large and heavy wrinkles appeared
between Darvid's brows, but he continued to read his notes.
Almost a quarter of an hour later he wrote something more while
bending over the desk, and standing. Soon in the bedchamber,
furnished by the most skillful decorator of the capital, a
night-lamp on the mantel of a chimney illuminated a bed adorned
with rich carving; a white and lean hand stretched out on a silk
coverlet, and a face also, which was like ivory, and shining with
two blue sleepless eyes, keenly glittering. Darvid cast an
inattentive glance through the room, over which, in the pale
lamplight, two beautiful female heads seemed to hover, reflected
and multiplied in mirrors standing opposite each other. This was
a most beautiful work--a genuine Greuze. To win this masterpiece
Darvid outbid a number of men of high standing; he triumphed and
was delighted. But now his sleepless glance passed over that
pearl of art inattentively. His night at the club instead of
diverting and calming had bored and irritated. His honorable
partner was annoying, and rude in addition. Never would he have
forced himself to play with the man, had not that relation been
an honor, and--what was more--had it not been needful. Women say:
one must suffer to be beautiful; men need to change only the last
word and say: one must suffer to be powerful. But that was
beginning to be repulsive, and, above all, to be wearisome. Only
when in bed did he feel that he was weary. He could not sleep. He
had slept badly for some weeks--since the time of that wretched
letter. At thought of that letter the serpents stirred in
Darvid's breast, but he shut them down in their den by hissing:
"Stupidity!" And he fell into long and uneasy thought about that
man whom he had sent on weighty business, but who had not
returned yet.

Perhaps chance will not favor him this time, and another hand
will seize the field of action and the great profits. He knows
that he has enemies and rivals who envy, who undermine him. Well,
he will win also in this case, only he would like something
afterward--what? He himself does not know what--perhaps rest. To
go for a time to Switzerland or Italy. For what purpose? He is
not over curious about art and nature, he has no time to fall in
love with them. Without occupation he would be bored in all
places, and besides he must finish these family questions. He
must tame Maryan, and hinder Irene's marriage to the baron. He is
fighting a battle with his own son and daughter. Cara is the only
one with whom he has no trouble. She is mild and beautiful. Her
head is turned also, but in another, a more agreeable direction.
She is greatly attached to him, the dear child! She is frail. He
must speak to the doctor about her. Perhaps send her to Italy.
With whom? With her mother? He would never permit that. The child
is his. He will go himself with Cara. But in that case what will
become of his enterprise?

In the interior of the mansion were heard deep, metallic sounds.
The clock struck five.

In that same mansion, at the distant end of it, in a chamber
lighted by a blue night-lamp, was heard a low, dry cough, and a
frail, tall maiden, in night-clothing covered with lace, sat up
in a blue and white bed.

"Miss Mary! Miss Mary!" cried she, with fear in her voice.

From the adjoining chamber came a voice of agreeable tone and
somewhat drowsy:

"You are not asleep, Cara?"

"I have slept. The cough woke me, but that is well, for I had a
dreadful dream. I dreamed that papa and mamma--"

She stopped suddenly, and, though no one was looking at her, she
hid her delicate face in the blue coverlet. So only in a whisper
did she tell the end of her dream:

"They were angry at each other--so awfully angry--Ira put her
arms around mamma--Maryan went away hissing. I hung to papa, and
cried so, and cried."

In fact her eyes were then filled with tears from the dream. But
she stretched in the bed, and, with her head on the pillows,
thought, till she called again:

"Miss Mary! Are you sleeping?"

"No, dear; do you wish anything?"

Cara began in a loud voice:

"I wish immensely, immensely, Miss Mary, to go with you to
England, to your father and mother. Oh, how I should like to be
in that parsonage a while, where your sisters teach poor children
and nurse the sick, and your mother makes tea at the grate for
your father when he comes home after services. Oh, Mary, if you
and I could go to that place! It is so pleasant there." In the
blue light and in the silence her thin voice recalled the
twittering of a lark.

"We will go there sometime, dear. Your parents will permit, and
we will go. But sleep now."

"Very well, I will sleep. Good-night, Miss Mary--my dear, good
Miss Mary."

She lay some minutes quietly thinking, till she sat up again in
bed coughing. When the cough had passed, she called in a low
voice:

"Miss Mary! Miss Mary!"

There was no answer.

"She is sleeping," whispered Cara, and after a while she looked
around, and, in a lower voice, called:

"Puffie! Puffie!"

At this call the little dog sprang from a neighboring chair, and
in the twinkle of an eye was on the bed.

Cara stroked the silken coat of the dog, and bending toward him
whispered:

"Puffie! Puffie! dear, little dog! lie here, sleep for thyself!"

She put him on her breast almost at her chin; with her hand on
his coat, and with the whisper: "Puffie! good Puffie!" she fell
asleep.

Then was heard the sound of a drozhky, coming quickly, with
uproar in front of the house, and again there was an end to
voices and movement. Two men ascended the stairway, one much
older than the other, with a carefully brushed, but somewhat worn
hat, in a fashionable but somewhat worn fur. He spoke in a low
voice:

"Yes, yes! c'est quelque chose d'inoui! he commanded me to break
off all relations with you, and to stop visiting his house."

"A thousand and one nights! Why is it? What is it for?" exclaimed
the other.

Suddenly he stopped part way on the stairs, and asked with a half
jeering, half pitying look at his companion:

"If he should find out?"

Kranitski turned his face away.

"My Maryan--with you--of that--"

"Painted pots!" laughed Maryan. "Do you take me for my
great-grandfather? Well, has he found it out?"

With red spots on his cheeks and forehead Kranitski blinked
affirmatively.

"Sapristi!" imprecated Maryan, and immediately he laughed again.
"And why? for what reason? Did he also believe in painted pots? I
thought him modern."

"Alas!" sighed Kranitski.

They advanced in silence, passed the first story of the house.
Maryan's bachelor chambers were on the second story.

"My dear old man, I am sorry for you, enormously sorry," began
young Darvid again. "I have grown so accustomed to you. You will
have to suffer, and poor mamma, too. Where did he get all this? A
man of such sense! I thought that his head was better
ventilated--"

He could not finish, for Kranitski threw himself on his neck at
the very door of his apartments. He wept. Drying his eyes with
his perfumed cambric handkerchief, he said:

"My Maryan, I shall not survive this blow! I love you all so
much--you are--for me--as a younger brother--"

He tried to kiss him, but Maryan broke away from his embrace, and
his tears, the moisture of which he felt on his face, with
discomfort.

"But it is absurd!" exclaimed he. "Are we to break our relations
because they displease someone? Are we slaves? Laugh at that, my
dear. Come to me as before, but pass the night now with me, for
it would be difficult for you to go home at this hour."

He touched the button of the electric bell, and when the door
opened at once, he said to his companion on the threshold:

"Bianca sings that aria from the 'Cavalier' gloriously, does she
not? La, la, la----"

He tried to give the music, but his voice failed. So he
disappeared behind the closing door, humming the aria of the
splendid singer which he had just heard at supper.

Below, two clocks, one after the other, sounded out six. Through
the great windows light began to enter from the snow-covered
streets. That seemed the gradual and slow drawing aside of a dark
curtain, from behind which came out with increasing distinctness,
furniture, pictures, mirrors, candlesticks, vases, rugs, plushes,
velvets, polish, gilt, mosaics, ivory, porcelain. Until all
standing forth in the full light of that winter morning began
like a pearl shell to interchange various colors and lustres, and
to drop from the walls and ceilings reflections of gold on the
shining floor.



CHAPTER III

Kranitski ascended a carpeted stairway, which was adorned with
lamps and statues. His fur coat with a costly collar was over
worn somewhat; his hat was shining; his step free, and there was
a cheerful smile under his mustaches, which were turned up at the
ends carefully. The stairway was almost a street. People were
passing up and down on it, and whenever you met them and caught
their eyes you noted freedom, self-confidence, elegance; you saw
the eleventh commandment of God, which Moses, only through some
inconceivable forgetfulness, neglected to add to the Decalogue.

Entering the antechamber he threw the servant his fur, from which
issued the odor of excellent perfumes. From the pocket of his
coat peeped the edge of a handkerchief. He arranged before a
mirror his hair, thick yet above his forehead, but showing from
behind a small, circular, bald spot. Hat in hand, and with a
springy, self-confident tread, he entered the drawing-room. Only
two red spots above his brow interrupted the whiteness of his
forehead, which was slightly wrinkled; his eyes, usually gleaming
or affable, were mist-covered.

In a door, opposite that by which Kranitski entered, stood Irene,
under a crimson drapery of curtains, with an open book in her
hand. Kranitski, with that light-swaying of the body, with which
elegants are accustomed to approach ladies, approached Irene and,
bending easily before her, kissed her hand.

"May one enter?" inquired he, indicating with his eyes the door
of an adjoining; chamber.

"I beg you to enter, mamma is in her study."

The inclination of head, and sound of Irene's voice, contained
only that measure of cordiality which was absolutely demanded by
politeness, but that was her way always and with every one. Cold
radiated from her, and such indifference that it was sometimes a
contemptuous disregard for people and things. But when Kranitski,
hat in hand, passed two drawing-rooms she followed him with her
glance, in which, besides disquiet, there was a kindly feeling,
and more, perhaps, a feeling of pity. She was accustomed from
childhood to see him; he was gentle, as ready as a slave to
render service, as ready as a friend to oblige; he noted the
wants not only of the lady of the house, but of each of her
children. He had the subdued manner and pliancy of people who do
not feel that they merit what they have, and are ever trembling
lest they lose it. He had, besides, the gift of reading
beautifully in various languages. For a number of years Irene
could not remember pleasanter evenings than those which, free
from society demands, she had passed in her mother's study when
Kranitski was present. Sometimes Cara and her governess took part
in these domestic gatherings; sometimes, also, though more and
more rarely, they were enlivened by the presence of Maryan, who,
in the intervals of reading, chaffed with his sister and mother,
and argued with Kranitski about various tendencies in taste and
literature. Most frequently, however, Cara was occupied with
lessons, and Maryan by society, and only she and Malvina, with
artistic work in hand, listened in silence and thoughtfully to
that resonant, manly voice, which rendered masterpieces of
thought and poetry with perfect appreciation and feeling. During
such evenings Irene was seized at moments by a dream of certain
grand solitudes, pure, surrounded by cordial warmth, remote from
the uproar of streets, the rustle of silks, the noise of vain
words, whose emptiness and falsehood she had measured; but
straightway she said to herself: "Painted pots, ideals! these
have no existence!" and she made a gesture, as if driving from
above her head a beautiful butterfly, feeling convinced that that
butterfly was merely a phantom. To-day, from minute observation,
the conjecture rose in her that something uncommon had happened,
and that something more must happen, also; she was colder and
more formal than ever, with a burning spark of fear in the depth
of her blue, clear eyes. Her dress was of cloth, closely fitting,
somewhat masculine in the cut of the waist, and on the top of her
head was a Japanese knot of fiery hair, pierced by a pin with
steel lustres. In her hand was an open book, and she walked along
slowly through the two spacious drawing-rooms. She did not raise
her eyes from the book, though she did not turn a page in it. At
one door she turned immediately, at the other, which was closed,
she stopped for a few seconds when she caught the sound of
conversation, carried on beyond the door, in low voices, by two
people. She did not wish to hear that conversation. Oh, she did
not! How long ago was it since she had striven to be deaf as well
as blind, and frequently so deal that no glance of the eye, no
movement of the face might betray that she had sight or hearing.
But now, as often as a louder sound struck her ears from beyond
the closed door she stood immovable, and her eyelids quivered
like leaves stirred by wind. For a long time it had seemed to her
that something terrible might happen in that house some day,
something to which she would not be able to remain deaf and
blind. Might it not happen just that day? With slow, even step
along the gleaming floor, between purple, azure, and various
shades of white, which filled the drawing-rooms, she walked, in
her closely-fitting dress, from one door to the other, her eyes
fixed on the book, her manner colder, more formal than ever, her
delicate motionless face, above which the long pin threw out
metallic gleams. Suddenly an outburst of silver laughter was
heard at another door. Till that moment two female voices had
been heard, speaking English, beyond this door, now thrown open
with a rattle. Golden strips of light, cast in by the winter sun,
were lying on the purple and white of the drawing-room. Into this
drawing-room rushed a strange pair; a maiden of fifteen, in a
bright dress, golden-haired, rosy, and tall, bent low; she held
by the forepaws a little ash-colored dog, and with him went
waltzing around the furniture of the room, humming as she moved
the fashionable: La, la, la! La, la, la! A pair of small feet, in
elegant slippers, and a pair of shaggy, beast paws, whirled over
the gleaming inlaid floor, around long chairs, tables, columns
holding vases; swiftly, swiftly did she go till she met Irene at
the door of the next drawing room. Cara raised the little dog
from the floor, straightened herself, her eyes met the strange
glance of her sister. Irene blinked repeatedly, as if some
disagreeable light had struck her eyes.

"Always so gladsome, Cara!"

"I?" cried the girl. "Oh, so! Puffie made me laugh--and--the sun
shines so nicely. The day is beautiful, isn't it, Ira? Have you
noticed how diamond sparks glitter on the snow? The trees are all
covered with frost. Let us go with Miss Mary for a walk. I will
take Puffie, but I will cover him with that blanket which I
finished embroidering yesterday. Is mamma well?"

"Why do you ask about mamma?"

"Because, when I gave her 'good-morning,' I thought that she was
ill, she was so pale--pale. I asked her, but she said: 'Oh, it is
nothing, I am well.' Still it seems to me--"

"Let nothing seem to you!" Irene interrupted her almost angrily.
"The surmises of children like you have no sense in them most of
the time. Where are you going?"

"To father."

She pointed with her eyes to her mother's rooms.

"Is that--that man there?"

It was not to be discovered why she spoke in lowered tones, but
Irene's voice sounded almost harsh when she inquired:

"What man?"

"Pan Kranitski."

Now Cara's red, small lips, in the twinkle of an eye, formed a
crooked line in spite of her; then, bending toward her sister,
she said, almost in a whisper:

"Tell me, Ira, but tell the truth. Do you like that
man--Kranitski?" Irene laughed aloud, freely, almost as she had
never laughed.

"Ridiculous! Ah, what an amusing baby you are! Why should I not
like him? He is our old and good acquaintance." And returning to
her usual formality, she added: "Besides, you know that I do not
like anyone very much."

"Not me?" asked Cara, fondly touching with her red lips the pale
cheeks of her sister.

"You? A little! But go away. You hinder my reading."

"I will go. Come Puffie--come!" And with the dog on her arm she
went off, but she stopped at the door, and turning to Irene, she
bent forward a little, and said, in a low voice: "But I do not
like him--I do not know why this is. First I liked him, but for
some time I cannot endure him--I do not know myself why."

At the last words she turned away, capriciously, and went on.

"She does not know! does not know!" whispered Irene over her
book. "That is why she dances with the dog. What happiness in
Arcadian life!"

The little one, going on, began to hum again, but near the door
of her father's study she grew silent and stopped. The sound of a
number of men's voices in conversation reached her. She dropped
her hand, and whispered:

"Father has visitors! What shall we do now, Puffie? How shall we
go in there?"

After a moment's thought and hesitation she stepped in very
quietly under the drapery of the portiere, and in the twinkle of
an eye was sitting on a small, low stool which stood behind a
tall case of shelves filled with books, which, placed near the
door, formed with two walls a narrow, triangular space. That was
an excellent corner, a real asylum which she could reach
unobserved, and which she had selected for herself earlier. The
books on the shelves hid her perfectly, but left small cracks
through which she could see everyone. Whenever there were guests
with her father she entered directly from the door, with one
silent little step she pushed in, waited longer than the guests,
and when they were gone she could talk with her father.

At the round table, which was covered with books, maps, and
pamphlets, in broad armchairs were sitting, hat in hand, men of
various statures and ages. They had not come on business, but to
make calls of longer or shorter duration. Some were giving place
to others, who came unceasingly, or rather flowed in as wave
follows wave. Some went, others came. The pressing of hands, bows
more or less profound, polite and choice phrases, conversation,
interrupted and begun again, conversation touching important and
serious questions of European politics, local questions of the
higher order, and problems of society, especially financial and
economic.

Darvid's voice, low but metallic, filled the study, it was heard
by all with an attention almost religious; in general, Darvid
seemed to ride over that ever-changing throng of men, by his
word, by his gestures, by his eyes, with their cold and
penetrating gleam, from behind the glasses of his binocle. He was
radiant with a certain kind of power, which made him what he was,
and the world yielded to the charm of this power, for it created
wealth, that object of most universal and passionate desire. He
himself felt all its might at that moment. When at the door of
the study were heard, announced by the servant, names famous
because they were ancient, others known for high office, or for
the reputation which science and mental gifts confer, he
experienced a feeling like that which a cat must feel when
stroked along the back. He felt the hand of fate stroking him,
and the delight caused by this became very pleasing. He was
eloquent, he was gleaming with self-confidence, judgment, and
ease of utterance. Not the least pride was to be observed in him,
only the gleam of glory issuing from his smooth forehead, and the
mysterious sensation of apotheosis, which pushed an invisible
pedestal under the man, and made him seem loftier than he was in
reality.

At a certain moment a number of men entered, they seemed almost
sunk in humility, and at the same time filled with solemnity.
That was a delegation from a well-known philanthropic society in
the city; they had come to Darvid with a request to take part in
their work by a money contribution and by personal assistance. He
began by the gift of a considerable sum, but refused personal
assistance. He had not the time, he said, but even had he time,
he was opposed in principle to all philanthropic activity.
"Philanthropy gives a beautiful witness touching those who engage
in it, but it cannot prevent the misfortunes which torture the
race; nay, it strengthens them needlessly, and offers premiums to
sloth and incompetence. Only exertion of all forces in untiring
and iron labor can save mankind from the cancer of poverty which
tortures it. Were there no help behind any man's shoulders, no
hands would drop down unoccupied; each man would exercise his own
strength, and misery would vanish from this earth of ours."

Among those present, a guarded and immensely polite opposition
rose, however.

"The weak, the cripples, lonely old men and children?"

"Philanthropy," answered Darvid, "cannot stop the existence of
these social castaways, it merely continues and establishes
them."

"But they have hungry stomachs, sad souls and hearts--like our
own."

"What is to be done," inquired Darvid, with outspread palms which
indicated regret. "There must be victors and vanquished in the
world, and the sooner the latter are swept from existence the
better for them and for mankind."

A look of displeasure was evident on the faces of some, but they
were silent, the oldest man rose, and smiling most agreeably,
ended the argument:

"But if philanthropy had many patrons like you its activity would
correct the injustice of fate very frequently."

"Let us not call fate unjust," retorted Darvid with a smile,
"because it favors strength and crushes incompetence. On the
contrary its action is beneficent, for it strengthens all that is
worthy of life, and destroys that which is useless."

"It has been just to you, and in this case we all owe it
gratitude," concluded the oldest man in the delegation, ending
the dispute hurriedly. Holding, meanwhile, Darvid's hand in his
two palms he shook it with a cordial pressure, and his gray head,
and face, furrowed with wrinkles, were bent in a profound
obeisance. For those whom his honest heart pitied he carried a
gift so considerable that, in spite of words which were not to
his mind, the homage and gratitude which he gave came from
perfect sincerity.

At last Darvid's study was deserted, and on his lips was fixed a
smile which resembled a pricking pin. Why had he poured out such
a great handful of money for an object which to him was
indifferent, the need of which he did not recognize? Why? Habit,
relations, public opinion, expressed orally, and by the printed
word. A comedy! Misery! He frowned, the wrinkles between his
brows were growing, when he heard a slight rustle behind. He
looked around, and exclaimed:

"Cara! How did you come in? Ah! you were sitting in the corner
behind the books! Only a reed such as you are could squeeze in
through that cranny! What is your wish, my little daughter?"

He smiled at his daughter, though his glance turned to the clock
standing in the corner of the room. But Cara, with seriousness on
her rosy face, stretched out to him the little dog, which had
just wakened and was still sleepy.

"First of all, I beg father to stroke Puffie--Puffie is pretty,
and he is good, stroke him just once, father."

Darvid drew his palm a number of times, absent-mindedly, over the
back of the dog.

"I have stroked him. But now if you have nothing else to say--"

"I have no time!" added she, finishing her father's sentence. She
laughed, and dropping Puff on the armchair, she caught her father
in both her arms:

"I will not let you go!" cried she; "father must give me a
quarter of an hour, ten minutes, eight minutes, five minutes, I
will speak quickly, quickly. 'If I have nothing more to say.' I
have piles of things to say! I was sitting in the corner looking
and listening, and I don't understand, father, why so many men
come to you. When one looks at it all from a corner, it is so
funny! They come in and bow--"

Here she ran to the door and began with motions and gestures to
enact that of which she was talking. Puff sprang after his
mistress, and, stopping in the middle of the room, did not take
his eyes from her.

"They come in, they bow, they press your hand, father, they sit
down, they listen."

She sat on the chair in the posture of a man, and gave her
delicate features an expression of profound attention. Puff fixed
his eyes on her and began to bark.

"Or in this way." She changed her expression from attention to
gaping. Next she sprang up from the chair. Puff sprang up, too,
and caught the end of her skirt in his little teeth. "They rise,
they bow again, they all say the same things: I have the honor! I
shall have the honor! I wish to have the honor!"

She bowed man-fashion, knocking her heels together, and then
pushing apart her little, slippered feet, and Puff tugged at the
edge of her dress, sprang away, barked repeatedly, and seized her
dress in his teeth again.

"Puffie, don't hinder me! Puffie, go away! Some go out, others
come. Again: 'I have the honor! I wish to have the honor!'
Puffie, go away! They press your hand, father. Oh, I have tired
myself!"

Her breath had become hurried from quick motions and rapid
speaking, a bright flush covered her face, she coughed and
coughed again, she seized her father's arms.

"Do not run away, father! I have much to tell you. I will talk
quickly."

Darvid had been standing in the middle of the room, and following
her quick movements with his eyes, at first with an indulgent,
and then with a more gladsome smile. That child was beaming with
exuberant life, with wit also, which had the power to penetrate
things and people; a most delicate sensitiveness, which made her
an instrument of many strings, and these never ceased quivering.
She reminded him marvellously of Malvina in her youth. When she
began to cough he caught her, and said:

"Do not hurry so; do not speak so much; talk less; sit down
here."

"I have no time, father, to talk slowly--I cannot sit down--for
you will run away that moment. I must hold you and hurry. I want
you to tell me why so many men come to you, and why you go to
their houses. Do you love them? Do they love you? Is it agreeable
and pleasant for you in their company? What do they want? What
comes of these visits, pleasantness or profit? And whose profit,
theirs or yours? or the profit of someone else, perhaps? What is
all this for? Do not these visits remind you of the theatre?
Though I have never been in the theatre. Here, as in the theatre,
every man plays some part, pretends, puts on a face, does he not?
Why does he do so? Do you like this, father? I beg you to tell,
but only tell me everything, everything; for father, I want you
to be my master, my light--you are so wise, so respected, so
great!"

"Enthusiasm put sparks into her dark eyeballs which were turned
up to her father's face. Darvid stroked her pale, golden hair.

"My dear child," said he, "my little one!" After a while he
added: "Are you a wild girl from Australia or Africa to ask me
such questions? You have seen visits from childhood. Have you not
seen your mother receiving many visitors, also?"

"Yes, yes, father; but mamma amuses herself with them, and is
taking Ira into society. But what are visits to you? Are you
amusing yourself, also?"

"How amuse?" laughed Darvid, "they annoy me oftenest of all,
though an odd time they give me pleasure."

"What pleasure?"

"You do not understand this yet. Relations, position in the
world, significance."

"What do you want of significance, father; why do you wish for a
high position in society? What profit does significance give?
Does it give happiness? See, father, I know one little
history--Miss Mary's father, an English clergyman, has a parish
in a poor, far-away corner, where there are no people of
significance, and no rich men, but there are many poor and
ignorant people there; and he has significance only among those
poor people--that is, he has no significance whatever, still he
is so happy, and all those people are so happy. They love one
another, and live together. It is so warm and bright in that
pastor's house, there, among the old trees. Miss Mary came away
from there to get a little money for her youngest sister, whom
she loves dearly. She lives pleasantly here, but she yearns for
her family, and has told me so much of them; and some time,
father, I will beg you to let me go with Miss Mary to England, to
that poor country parish, and see that great, warm, bright
happiness which exists in it."

Tears glittered like diamonds in her gleaming eyes, and Darvid,
with his arm around her slender waist, stood silent, in deep
meditation. That child, by her questions, had let his thoughts
down, as if by a string, to the bottom of things, at which he had
never looked before--he had had no time. He might tell her that
high significance in the world tickles vanity, flatters pride,
helps, frequently, to carry business to a profitable
conclusion--that is to pecuniary profit. He might confess to
himself, also, that that English clergyman, in his quiet
parsonage, under his ancient trees, seemed to him a very happy
man all at once in that moment. After a while, he said:

"It must be so. Happiness and unhappiness are one thing for poor
people, and another for the rich."

He looked at the clock.

"But now--"

"Now, I have no time!" laughed Cara. "No, no, father, two minutes
more, a minute more--I will ask about something else."

"You will ask more!" exclaimed he, with such a laugh as he had
hardly ever given.

"Yes, yes--something even more important than the last. I am
troubled about it--it pains me so--"

She changed from foot to foot, and embraced her father with all
her strength, as if fearing that he might run away.

"Did father mean really to say that one should not uphold the
poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, the sad, nor comfort them; that
it is only necessary to leave them so that they may die as soon
as possible? When father said that I felt sick in some way. Mamma
and Ira this long time support two old men, so gray and nice,
whom Miss Mary and I visit often. Do mamma and Ira do badly?
Should we let them die as soon as possible from hunger? Brrr! it
is terrible! Does father think so really, or did he only say what
he did to get rid of those gentlemen the more quickly? Father you
are good, the best, a dear, golden father. Do you really believe
what you said, or was it to get rid of those men? I beg you to
answer me, I beg you!"

This time her eyes were fixed on his face, with a gleam which was
almost feverish, and again he stood in silence, filled with
astonishment. Why could his mouth not open to tell that girl his
profoundest conviction?

With all the wrinkles between his brows, he said, without a
smile:

"I said that to get rid of them; I wished to be rid of those
gentlemen as quickly as possible." The soles of Cara's feet
struck the floor time after time with delight.

"Yes, yes! I was sure of that! My best, dearest father--"

Stroking her hair, he added:

"We must be kind. Be kind always. Keep the life in gray-haired,
nice old men. You will never lack money for that."

She kissed his hands; suddenly her glance fell on her father's
desk, and she cried:

"Puffie! Puffie! where have you climbed to? There you are, you
have crawled on to the desk and done so much mischief!"
The ash-colored little dog was on the great desk of the
celebrated financier, on the top of a huge pile of papers; he was
sitting with his nose against a window pane, growling at crows
that were flying past and cawing. In that study, which was so
dignified as to be almost solemn, Cara's laughter was heard in
silver tones:

"Look, father, how angry he is! He is angry at the crows! Oh, how
he sticks his little nose up when one of them flies past. Do you
see, father?"

"I see, I see! Never has such a dignified assistant been in
charge of my desk. Oh, you little one!"

He put his arm around her and pressed her to his bosom, briefly,
but heartily. Through his head passed at that moment the
recollection of something unimportant which he had seen on a
time: a golden sun-ray, which, flashing from behind clouds, had
torn them apart, and disclosed a strip of clear azure beyond. He
saw this through a window of a railroad car, mechanically, as we
see things to which we are indifferent. Now he remembered it.

"The carriage is ready!" called the servant from the anteroom.

"You are a little giddy-head," said Darvid, looking at the clock.
"I should have left the house a quarter of an hour ago."

She ran to bring his hat, and gave it with a low bow. Stooping
quickly she raised a glove which he had dropped.

"Don't forget to leave Puffie here to keep my papers in order!"

With this jest on his lips he went to the antechamber, but, while
putting on his fur and descending the stairway, he thought of the
auction, where he was to buy a house sold for debt--an excellent
investment.

"Is Pan Maryan at home?" asked Darvid of the Swiss at the street
door.

The Swiss learned from servants that the young master was
sleeping yet.

"What a miserable method of life! I must put a curb on this wild
buck immediately. Well, lack of time, a chronic lack of time!"

"Quickly! as quickly as possible!" called he to the driver, while
entering the carriage.

He had left the house too late, his daughter had broken in on him
with her twittering and fondling--but she is a ray of sunlight!

Cara removed Puff from her father's papers, and, putting him on
her breast, almost under her chin, as usual, passed through the
drawing-rooms hurriedly. She was late for her lessons with Miss
Mary. In one of the drawing-rooms she passed Irene. The slow
promenade of the tall and formal young lady, with an open book in
her hand, continued yet. Cara, while passing, and without
stopping, said, with evident gladsomeness:

"But I talked long with father to-day, long."

"You have done that trick!" answered Irene, indifferently.

Cara stopped as if fixed to the floor. In the careless voice of
her sister she heard irony; she seemed ready for conflict; her
brows contracted suddenly; her eyes were full of sparks. But
Irene, absorbed in reading, was already a good number of steps
away. After a few seconds, Cara vanished behind the door of her
own room and Miss Mary's.

Irene's features, rather meagre and elongated, continued
motionless; her paleness increased their formality. But as time
passed, weariness settled the more deeply on her drooping
eyelids. Whenever she passed a window of the drawing-rooms, the
pin in her hair east quick, sharp gleams in the sunlight.

At last the door of Malvina's room opened and out came Kranitski,
quite different from what he had been at his arrival. His
shoulders were bent; his head drooping; on his cheeks were red
spots; his forehead was greatly wrinkled. He looked as though he
had been weeping a moment before. Even his mustaches were hanging
in woefulness over his carefully shaven chin. Irene stopped, and
with the book in her two hands, which she had dropped, gazed at
the man approaching her. He hastened his step, took her hand, and
said in a low voice and hurriedly:

"I am the most wretched of beings! I was not worthy of such great
happiness as--as--your mother's friendship, so I lose it. Je suis
fini, completement et cruellement fini. I take farewell of you,
Panna Irene--so many years! so many years! I loved you all so
greatly, so heartily. Some people call me a romantic old dreamer.
I am. I suffer. Je souffre horriblement. I wish you every
happiness. Perhaps, we may never meet again. Perhaps, I shall go
to the country. I take farewell of you. So many, so many years! O
Dieu!" His eyelids were red; he was bent more than ever as he
passed out. On Irene's face great alarm appeared.

"It is true, then. It is true!" whispered she. Springing forward
like a bird she passed through the drawing-room, quickly and
silently. Invisible wings bore her toward the closed door of her
mother's room; when entering, her manner was calm and
distinguished, as usual, but her eyes, in which there was anxious
concern, beheld the form of a woman lying in a deep armchair, her
face covered with her hands. Malvina was weeping in silence; her
sobs gave out no sound, they merely shook her shoulders at
regular intervals. These shoulders were drooping forward, and it
seemed as though an unseen weight were crushing them to the earth
and would crush them down through it.

Irene hurried, silently; brought a vial from the adjoining
bedchamber, poured some liquid on her palm, and touched her
mother's forehead and temples with it, delicately. Malvina raised
her face, which was deeply agitated by an expression of dread. At
that instant one might have thought the woman feared her
daughter. But Irene, in her usual calm voice, said:

"Insomnia always harms you, mamma. Again you have that horrible
neuralgia!"

"Yes, I feel a little ill," answered Malvina in a weak voice.

She rose, and tried to smile at Irene, but her pale lips merely
quivered, and her eyelids drooped; they were swollen from
weeping. With a step which she strove to make firm and steady she
went toward her bedroom.

Irene followed some steps behind.

"Mamma?"

"What, my child?"

Irene's lips opened and closed repeatedly; it seemed as though
some cry would come from them, but she only said in low tones:

"A little wine or bouillon might be brought?"

Malvina shook her head, advanced some steps, looked around:

"Ira!"

The daughter stood before her mother, but now Malvina in her turn
was speechless. She inclined her forehead, which covered slowly
with a blush; at last she inquired in a low voice:

"Is your father at home?"

"I heard him drive away some moments ago."

"On his return, should he wish to see me, say that I am waiting
for him."

"Very well, mamma."

In the door she turned again:

"Should someone else come--I cannot--"

Irene halted a number of steps from her mother in the formal
posture of a society young lady, and said:

"Be at rest, mamma; I shall not go a step away, and I shall not
let anyone interrupt you. Not even father if you wish--perhaps
to-morrow would be better?"

"Oh, no, no!" cried Malvina, with sudden animation. "On the
contrary, as soon as possible--beg your father to come, and let
me know at the earliest."

"Very well, mamma."

Malvina closed the bedroom door, advanced a few steps, and fell
on her knees at her richly covered bed. Amid furniture, finished
in yellow damask, on a downy bed, covered with cambric and lace,
she raised her clasped hands, and said, in whispers broken with
sobs:

"O God! O God! O God!"

She was of those weak beings who to live need heartfelt love as
much as air, and who are infected by this love without power of
resisting it. To such a love had she yielded once in the chill
and emptiness of rich drawing rooms. That was a happening of long
ago; she was the weaker at that time because she was caught by a
breeze from the spring of her life, passed in the company of that
man who was casting himself at her feet then. In that moment of
yielding a pebble had dropped on her, the weight of which
increased with the course of years and the growth of her
children. She had not thought for an instant that she was the
heroine of a drama. On the contrary, she repeated, with a face
always blushing from shame: "Weak! weak! weak!" and, from a time
rather remote, it was joined with another word, "Guilty." She was
weak, still to-day she had found strength at last to cut one of
those knots in which her life had been involved so repulsively.
Oh, that the other might be torn apart quickly; then she could go
far from the world into lone obscurity, an abyss occupied only by
her endless penitence. In her head a plan had matured. She wished
to speak with Darvid as soon as possible, and she doubted not
that in the near future he would agree with her. Her daughters?
Well, was it not better that such a mother should leave them,
vanish from their eyes?

Irene pushed to the window a small table, on which were painting
materials; she took her place at the table, and with fixed
attention in her eyes began to outline a cluster of beautiful
flowers. They were chrysanthemums, and seemed to be opening their
snowy and fiery petals to mystic kisses. Deep silence reigned in
the mansion, and only after a certain time had passed did the
sound of glasses and porcelain come from a remote apartment, and
at the door of the study a servant appeared, announcing that
lunch was served. Irene raised her head from her work:

"Tell Panna Caroline and Miss Mary that mamma and I will not come
to the table."

She added a command to bring two cups of bouillon and some rusks.
A while later she stood with a cup in her hand at her mother's
door.

"May I come in?"

She held her ear to the door; there was no answer. Her lids
blinked anxiously; she repeated the question, adding:

"Mamma, I beg--"

"Come in, Ira!"

Covered with silken materials Malvina was like a glittering wave
on the bed. Irene entered with the bouillon and the rusks, then
slipped through the room quietly and let down the shades. A mild
half-gloom filled the chamber.

"This is better. Light when one has the headache is hurtful." She
went to the bed. "You cannot sleep in these tight boots, try as
you like, and without some hours of sleep the neuralgia will not
leave you."

Before these words were finished, her slender hands had changed
the tight boots for roomy and soft ones. She bent down, and with
a touch of her fingers unfastened a number of hooks at her
mother's breast.

"Now, it will be well!" Irene dropped her arms on her dress and
smiled a little. Despite her fashionable robe and fantastic
hairdressing there was in her at that moment something of the
sister of charity, she seemed painstaking and cautious.

"And now, mamma, be a little glutton," added she with a smile;
"you will drink the bouillon and eat the rusk; I will go to paint
my chrysanthemums."

She was at the door when she heard the call:

"Ira!"

"What, mamma?"

Two arms stretched toward her, and surrounded her neck; and lips,
so feverish that they burnt, covered her forehead and face with
kisses. Irene in return pressed her lips to her mother's forehead
and hand, but for a few seconds only, then she withdrew from the
embrace with a gentle movement, moved away somewhat, and said:

"Be not excited, for that may increase the neuralgia."

At the door she turned again:

"Should anything be needed, just whisper; you know what delicate
hearing I have; I shall hear. I shall be painting in your study.
Those chrysanthemums are beautiful, and I have a new idea about
them which interests me greatly."

In the tempered winter light from the window, in that study full
of gilding, artistic trifles, syringas, and hyacinths, Irene sat
at the table with painting utensils, sunk in thought and idle.
From beneath her brows, which had each the outline of a delicate
little flame, her fixed eyes turned toward the past. She had in
mind a time when she was ten years old, and was fitting a new
dress on her doll with immense interest. At first she did not
turn attention to her parents' conversation in the next chamber,
but afterward, when the dress was fitted to the doll as if melted
around it, she raised her head, and through the open door began
to look and listen. Her father, with a jesting smile, was sitting
in an armchair; her mother, in a white gown, was standing before
him, with such an expression in her eyes as if she were praying
for salvation.

"Aloysius!" said she, "have we not enough? Is there nothing in
the world except property and profits--this golden idol?"

"I beg you to consider that there is something else," interrupted
he, with a slight hiss of irony; "this luxury which surrounds you
and becomes you so well."

Then she seated herself opposite him, and, bending forward, spoke
somewhat quickly, disconnectedly:

"Do we live with each other? We do not by any means. We only see
each other. There is nothing in common between us. You are
swallowed up by business, I by society. I have taken a fancy, it
is true, for amusement, but in the depth of my heart I am often
very gloomy. I feel lonely. My early life, as you know, was
modest, poor, toilsome, and often it calls to me reproachfully.
You do not know of this, for we have no time to exchange ideas. I
am of those women who need to feel guardianship, to have near
them an ear which might listen to their hearts, and a mind which
would direct their conscience. I am weak. I am full of dread. I
fear that in view of your frequent, almost continual absence, I
shall not be able to rear the children properly. I only know how
to love them, I would give my life for them, but I am weak. I beg
you not to leave me and them so frequently; that is, almost
continuously--rather let this luxury decrease--I shall be glad,
even, for the decrease will bring us nearer together. I beg you!"

She seized his hands, and it seemed as though she kissed them;
but it was certain that the pale, golden wave of her dishevelled
hair fell on them. Irene, though she was only ten years old then,
felt pity for her mother, and waited with intense curiosity for
her father's answer.

"What do you wish in particular?" asked he. "I listen, I listen,
still I do not know exactly what the question is. Is it this,
that I should stop work, which I love and which succeeds with me?
You must be in a waking dream. Those are ideas from another
society, mere childish fancies."

 Here Irene's thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of Cara.

"Ira, is mamma sick, since she did not come to luncheon?"

"Mamma has neuralgia often; you know that well." Cara turned to
the door of her mother's bedroom, but Irene stopped her.

"Do not go; she may be sleeping." The girl approached her sister:

"It seems to me--" she whispered and stopped.

"What seems to you a second time?"

"That there is something going on in this house--"

Irene frowned.

"What an imagination you have! You are ever imagining something
uncommon. Now all these uncommon things are painted pots, or
illusions. Life rolls on always in a common, prosaic movement.
Stop making painted pots, and go out to walk with Puff and Miss
Mary."

Cara listened attentively, but with an incredulous expression of
eyes, which were fixed on her sister's face.

"Very well, I will go to walk, but what you have said is not
true, Ira. It is not painted pots that mamma is suffering and
sick, that father goes out to dine for a whole week, and does not
come to her at all; even that--man, going out to-day, began to
cry in the antechamber--I saw him by chance--he wanted to say
something to me, but I ran away--"

Irene shrugged her shoulders.

"You will be a poetess, perhaps, you exaggerate everything so
terribly. Mamma is not troubled, she only has neuralgia. Father
does not dine with us because he has so many invitations, and Pan
Kranitski struck his nose against something which you, in poetic
imagination, took for crying. Men never cry, and sensible girls,
instead of filling their heads with painted pots, go to walk
while good weather lasts and the sun shines. The doctor tells you
to walk every day, not in the evening, but about this hour."

"I am going, I am going! You drive me away!"

She went on a number of steps, and turned again toward her aster:

"Father is angry at Maryan--I see that very clearly. Everything
in this house is, somehow, so strange."

She went out, but Irene clasped her hands, and for some seconds
squeezed them with all her might, and thought:

"That child will soon look at life just as I have been looking at
it for some time past. It is necessary to foresee, absolutely
necessary!" She returned to her reminiscences. Her mother said to
her father:

"Our fortune is now considerable."

"In that direction," answered her father, "it never can be too
great, nor even sufficient."

Then, playing with her beautiful hair, he asked:

"But do you believe that I love you?"

After some hesitation she answered:

"No. I have lost that faith, I lost it some time ago."

Later there were many other words, some of which Irene
remembered:

"The very best guardianship in this world," said her father, "is
wealth. Whoso has that will never lack mind, even; since, in ease
of need, he can buy mind from other men.

"In the training of our children you will expend all that is
requisite. You will rear for me our daughters to be grand ladies;
will you not? Educate them so that when mature they may feel as
much at home in the highest social circles as in their own
father's household. As to you, amuse yourself, make connections,
dress, be brilliant. The more you elevate the name which you
bear, by beauty, wit, knowledge of life, the more service will
you render me in return for the services which I render you.
Besides, if you have any difficulty with the house, with
teachers, with social relations, you have that honest Kranitski,
who will serve you with great good will. I am very much pleased
with that acquaintance. Just such a man did I need. He has
extensive and very good connections; he is perfectly well-bred,
obliging, polite. Foreseeing that he might be very useful to us,
I became familiar with him. It is true that he has borrowed money
a number of times of me, but he has rendered a number of
services. Pay in return for value, that is the best method."

He walked up and down through the room repeatedly; on his
forehead, in his look, in his movements, he had an expression of
perfect confidence in himself, his rights, and his reason.
Suddenly, turning toward the door of remoter rooms, he cried with
delight:

"Speak of the wolf, and he is before you! I greet you, dear sir."

With these words he extended his hand to the guest who was
entering. This was Kranitski, at that time in his highest manly
beauty; petted, and a favorite in the best social circles because
of it, and for other reasons also.

He gave a hearty greeting of Darvid, who met him with delight,
and then he stood before Malvina in such a posture, and with such
an expression on his face, as if he desired only one thing on
earth, to be able to drop on his knees before her.

That conversation and scene remained fixed in Irene's memory. She
drew from it formerly, extensive conclusions, then she ceased
altogether to recall it; now she thought again of it, forgetting
her painted chrysanthemums, which, on the blue satin, seemed to
gaze at her, having as subtle and enigmatical a look as she
herself had.

A servant at the door announced: "Baron Emil Blauendorf!"

"Not at ho--" began she at once; but, halting, instructed the
servant to ask him to wait. At her mother's desk she wrote on a
narrow card of Bristol-board, in English:

"Mamma is ill with neuralgia; I am nursing her, and cannot see
you to-day. I regret this, for the talk about dissonances began
to be interesting. Bring me the continuation of it to-morrow!"

She gave this card, in an envelope addressed to the baron, to a
servant, and sat down again to her chrysanthemums, this time with
a smile both malicious and gladsome. With his appearance in that
house, though unseen by her, Baron Emil had lent form in her head
to a certain whimsical idea. She knew that it was whimsical, but
just for that reason it pleased her, and must also please the
baron. She began quickly, almost with enthusiasm, to paint dark
outlines of imps among the flowers. She disposed them so that
they seemed to separate the flowers and keep them apart from one
another. Some imps were climbing up, others were slipping down;
they peeped out from behind petals, climbed along stems, but all
were malicious, distorted, capricious, and pushed the tops of the
flowers apart in such fashion that they did not let the
half-bending petals meet in kisses. Painting quickly, Irene
laughed. She imagined Baron Emil saying at sight of this work:
"C'est du nouveau! It is not a painted pot! it is an individual
thought. There is a new quiver there. It bites."

The expressions "painted pots," "Arcadians," "it bites," "new
quivers," "rheumatism of thought," and many more she had from
him. And she was not the only one who borrowed. These expressions
had spread in a rather largo circle of people who despised
everything existing, and were seeking everything which was new
and astonishing. Baron Emil was cultured, had read much. He read
frequently Nietsche's "Zarathustra," and spoke of the coming
"race," the super-humans. He spoke somewhat through his nose and
through his teeth.

The superhuman is he who is able to will absolutely and
unconditionally.

When Irene thought that perhaps she would soon become the baron's
wife, and leave that house, her brows contracted and her jeering
smile vanished. Oh, she would not let him escape her! She had an
absolute condition to put before the baron; he would accept it
most assuredly, through deference to the amount of her dower.
Energy glittered in her blue eyes. She turned her face toward the
door of her mother's room with so quick a movement that the
metallic pin in her hair cast a gleam of sharp steel above her
head.

"One must know how to will," whispered she.



CHAPTER IV

When Kranitski entered his own lodgings, after passing the night
with Maryan, and after the long conversation with Malvina, old
widow Clemens looked at him from behind her great spectacles, and
dropped her hands:

"Are you sick, or what? Arabian adventure! Ah, what a look you
have! What has happened? Maybe those pains have come; you have
had them a number of times already. Why not take off your fur?
Wait! I will help you this minute. Oh, you will be sick in
addition to everything else."

She was a squatty woman, heavy, with a striped kerchief on her
shoulders, and wearing a short skirt, from under which appeared
flat feet in tattered overshoes. She was seventy years old, at
least; her large, sallow face was much withered. Bordered by gray
hair and a white cap that face was bright with the gleam of dark
eyes, still fiery, and quickly glancing from under a wrinkled,
high forehead. Her whole figure had in it something of the
fields, something primitive, which seemed not to have the least
relation to that little drawing-room and its owner. That room
contained everything which is found usually in such apartments,
therefore: a sofa, armchairs, a table, a mirror with a console, a
low and broad ottoman with cushions in Oriental fashion,
porcelain figures on the console, old-fashioned shelves with
books in nice bindings, a few oil paintings, small but neat, on
the walls, a number of photographs, tastefully grouped above the
ottoman, a large album on the table before the sofa. But all this
was a collection brought together at various seasons, and injured
by time. The covering of the cushions had faded, the gilding on
the mirror frame was worn here and there, the leather covering on
the furniture was worn and showed through cracks the stuffing
within, the album was torn, the porcelain base of the lamp was
broken. At the first cast of the eye the little drawing-room
seemed elegant, but after a while, through spots and rents mended
carefully, want was observed creeping forth. This want was hidden
chiefly by perfect and minute cleanliness, in which one could
recognize active, careful hands, industrious, untiring sweeping
out, rubbing out, sewing, mending--those were the lean, aged
hands, with broad palms and short fingers, which were now helping
Kranitski to remove his fur coat. Meanwhile, a scolding, harsh
voice, with tenderness at the base of it, continued:

"Again a night passed away from home. Surely off there with
cards, or with madams of some sort! Oi, an offense against God!
And this time you come home sick. I see that you are sick, your
whole face is covered with red spots, you are hardly able to
stand on your feet. Arabian adventure!"

"Give me rest!" answered Kranitski in a complaining voice. "I am
sick, the most wretched of men. Everything is past for me--I beg
you to look to the door, so that no one may enter; I am suffering
too much to let in impertinent people."

There were tears in his eyes, and his appearance was wretched. No
one was looking at him then, except his old servant, who was as
faithful as a dog, so he let the fetters of artificial youth and
elegance drop from him. His shoulders were bent, his cheeks
pendant, above his brows were red spots and thick wrinkles. He
vanished then beyond the half-closed door of his bedroom, and
widow Clemens went back to the work interrupted by his coming. In
the middle of the drawing-room, on an open card-table, lay,
spread out, a dressing gown of Turkish stuff. That gown,
beautiful on a time, was then faded; moreover, its lining was
torn. Widow Clemens while repairing that lining and patching it
had been interrupted by Kranitski's return; and now, wearing
great steel-rimmed glasses, and with a brass thimble on her
middle finger, she sat down again. She examined a rent through
which wadding peeped out on the world, cautiously. But in spite
of her attention fixed on the work she whispered, or rather
talked on in a low and monotonous mutter:

"'Look to the door, let no one in!' As if anyone ever comes here.
Long ago, comrades and various protectors used to come; they came
often at first, afterward very seldom; but now it is perhaps two
years since even a dog has looked in here. He could not bear
impertinent people. Oh, yes! they come here, many of them,
princes, counts, various rich persons. Oh, yes! while he was a
novelty and brilliant they amused themselves with him as they
would with a shining button, but when the button was rubbed and
dull they threw it into a corner. The relations, the friends, the
companions! Arabian adventure! Oh, this society!"

She was silent a while, put a piece of carefully fitted material
on the rent, raised her hand a number of times with the long
thread, and again muttered:

"But is that society? It is sin, not society! Roll in sin, like
the devil in pitch, and then scream that it burns! Oi, Oi!"

Silence reigned in the room; only the clock, that unavoidable
dweller in all houses, that comrade of all people, ticked
monotonously on the shelf, beneath the mirror, among the
porcelain figures. Widow Clemens, while sewing, industriously,
muttered on. Her unbroken loneliness, the store of thoughts put
away in her old head, and the care in her heart had given her the
habit of soliloquy.

"And it will be worse yet. He has debts beyond calculation. He
will die on a litter of straw, or in a hospital. Oh, if his dead
mother could see this! Arabian adventure! Unless Stefanek and I
drag him out of this pit!"

She stopped sewing and raised her spectacles to her forehead,
their glass eyes gleamed above her gray brows, and she fell into
deep thought. She moved her lips from time to time, but did not
mutter. By this movement of the lips, and by her wrinkles, it
could be seen that she was forming some plan, that she was
imagining. Just then Kranitski's voice was heard from the
bedroom.

She sprang up with the liveliness of twenty years, and, with a
loud clattering of old overshoes, ran to the door.

"Give me the dressing-gown, mother; I am not well; I will not go
anywhere to-day."

"Here is the dressing-gown; but if the lining is torn?"

"Torn or not, give it here, and my slippers, too; for I am not
well."

"Here they are! Not well? I have said not well! O beloved God,
what will come of this?"

But, while helping him to put on the dressing-gown, she inquired,
with incredulity:

"Is it true, or a joke, that you will not leave the house
to-day?"

"A joke!" answered he in bitterness. "If you knew what a joke
this is! I will not leave the house to-day, or to-morrow, or
perhaps ever. I will lie here and grieve till I grieve to death.
Oh, that it might be very soon!"

"Arabian adventure! Never has it been like this! It is easy to
see that the pitch has burnt!" whispered widow Clemens to
herself. But aloud she said:

"Before you grieve to death we must get you some dinner. I will
run to the town for meat. I will lock the door outside, so that
impertinent counts, and various barons should not burst in,"
added she, ironically.

Kranitski, left alone, locked up in his lodgings, robed in his
dressing-gown, once costly, now faded, its sleeves tattered at
the wrists, lay on the long-chair in front of his collection of
pipes, arranged on the wall cunningly. In the society in which he
moved collecting was universal. They collected pictures,
miniatures, engravings, autographs, porcelain, old books, old
spoons, old stuffs. Kranitski collected pipes. Some he had
bought, but the greater number, by far, he had received on
anniversaries of his name's-day, in proof of friendly
recollection, and as keepsakes after a journey. During years many
were collected, about a hundred; among them some were valuable,
some poor but original, some even ridiculous, some immense in
size, some small, some bright colored, some almost black; they
were arranged on shelves at the wall with taste, and effectively.

Besides these pipes there were in the bed-room other objects of
value: a writing-desk of peculiar wood, a porcelain frame, with
Cupids at the top, surrounding an oval mirror, at which were
bottles, vials, toilet boxes, and a rather long cigarette-case of
pure gold, which Kranitski kept with him at all times, and which,
as he lay now in the long-chair, he turned in his fingers,
mechanically. This cigarette-case was a precious memento. He had
received it soon after his arrival in the city, twenty and some
years before, from Countess Eugenia, his mother's aunt. Prom
their first meeting the countess was simply wild about him.
Society even insisted, notwithstanding her more than ripe years,
that she was madly in love with that uncommonly beautiful and
blooming young man, who had been reared by his mother with
immense care, and trained to appear successfully in that society
to which she had been born. Kranitski's mother, through various
causes, had become the victim of a mesalliance; she grieved out,
and wept away secretly; her life, in a village corner, after
marrying a noble who was perfectly honorable, but neither a man
of the world, nor the owner of much property. She desired for her
only son a better fate than she herself had had, and prepared him
for it long beforehand. He spoke French with a Parisian accent,
and English quite well; he was versed in the literatures of
Western Europe; he was a famous dancer; he was obliging; he had
an inborn instinct of kindness toward people; he was popular,
sought after, petted; when the money with which his mother
furnished him proved insufficient he obtained a small office,
through the influence of wealthy relatives, which, besides
increasing his revenue, gave him a certain independent aspect. He
passed whole days in great and wealthy houses, where he read
books, aloud, to old princesses and countesses, and for young
princesses and countesses; he held skeins of silk on his opened
hands. He carried out commissions and various small affairs; at
balls he led dances; he amused himself; fell in love, was loved
in return; he passed evenings and nights in clubs, and in private
rooms at restaurants, at theatres, and behind the scenes in
theatres, where he paid homage to famous actresses of various
degrees and qualities. Those were times truly joyous and golden.
At that period he was served not by widow Clemens, but by a man;
he dined--if not with friends or relatives--at the best
restaurants. At that time, too, he did something magnanimous,
which brought reward in the form of great mental profit: He
passed a whole year in Italy with Count Alfred, his relative, who
was suffering from consumption; Kranitski nursed, amused, and
comforted his cousin with patience, attachment, and tenderness
which were perfectly sincere, and which came from a heart
inclined to warm, almost submissive feelings. In return that year
gave him skill in the use of Italian, and a wide acquaintance
with the achievements and the schools of art, of which he was an
enthusiastic worshipper. Soon after he went with Prince Zeno to
Paris, learned France and its capital well, and on his return
remained for some time as a reader with the prince, whose eyes
were affected. His power of beautiful reading in many languages
brought him a wide reputation; he was distinguished in
drawing-rooms by the ease of his speech and manners; to some he
became a valued assistant in entertaining guests, and a pleasant
companion in hours of loneliness; to others he was a master in
the domain of amusements, and elegance in the arts of politeness
and pleasure. At this period also he made the acquaintance of
Darvid, and met his wife, whom he had known from childhood, and
who had been his earliest ideal of womanhood. Thenceforth, his
relations with other houses were relaxed considerably, for he
gave himself to the Darvid house soul and body. Though Malvina's
children had many tutors, he taught one of her daughters Italian,
and the other English; he did this with devotion, with delight;
and, therefore, that house became, as it were, his own, and was
ever open to him. Moreover, during the last ten years great
changes had happened in that society of which he was the adopted
child, and so long the favorite.

Countess Eugenia had given her daughter in marriage to a French
count, and resided in Paris; Count Alfred was dead; dead, also,
was that dear, kindly Baroness Blauendorf from whom he had
received as a gift that mirror with porcelain frame and Cupids.
Others, too, were dead, or were living elsewhere. Only Prince
Zeno remained, but he had cooled toward his former reader,
notably because of the princess, who could not forgive Kranitski;
since, as was too well known by all, he was occupied with the
wife of that millionaire--the eternally absent.

There were still many acquaintances, and more recent relations,
but these had neither the charm nor the certainty of those which
time had in various ways broken, brought to an end, or relaxed.

His mother, the foundress of his destiny, had ceased to live some
time before that.

"Pauvre maman! pauvre maman!"

How tenderly and unboundedly he had loved her. How long he had
hesitated and fought with himself before he left at her
persuasion, the house in which she had given birth to him. He
regretted immensely the village, the freedom, and that
bright-haired maiden in the neighborhood. But the wide world and
the great city took on, in his mother's narrative, the outlines
of paradise, and his worthy relatives, the forms of demi-gods.

When at last, after long hesitation and struggles, he resolved to
go away, how many were the kisses and embraces of his mother! how
many were her maxims and advices; how many her predictions of
happiness. He began to look at his own form in the mirrors, and
to feel in his own person the movement of desires, hopes,
ambitions. Once he caught himself bowing and making gestures,
almost involuntarily, before the mirrors. He laughed aloud, his
mother laughed also, for she had caught him in the act
red-handed.

"Pauvre maman! pauvre, chere maman!"

And on the background of that domestic gladness, of those
wonderful hopes, only one person by her conduct had raised a
cloud on that heaven, beaming serenely. That was widow Clemens,
an old servant of the house, and once his nurse, not young even
at that time, and a childless widow.

She was morose, grumbling, peevish, but for a long time she said
nothing; she did not hinder the thin, gray-haired mother, nor the
youth, beautiful as a dream, from rejoicing and imagining; till
at last she spoke when alone with the petted stripling. It was
the end of an autumn day, twilight had begun to come down on the
yard in Lipovka, and the linden grove, in a black line, cut
through the evening ruddiness glowing in the western heavens.
Widow Clemens, with her eyes fixed on the grove and the red of
evening, said:

"Oi! Tulek, Tulek! how will this be? You will go away; you will
take up and go away; but the sun will rise and set; the grove
will rustle; the wheat will ripen; and the snow will fall when
you are gone."

He sat on the bench of the piazza, and said nothing. But in the
distant fields, in the growing darkness, a shepherd's whistle
gave out clear tones, simple, monotonous, they flew along the
field like the weeping of space.

"Why go; do you know why--God alone knows. What are you throwing
away? The beauties of God. What will you bring back? Perhaps the
mud people cast at you."

A cow bellowed in the stable; a belated working-woman muttered a
song somewhere behind in the garden. The evening red was
quenched; and above the roof the crescent of the moon came out,
thin and like silver.

Widow Clemens whispered:

"Ill-fated! ill-fated boy!"

He was immensely far from considering himself ill fated, but
something in his heart felt pain at leaving that village where he
was born, at leaving Malvina, and it seemed to him that he ought
to stay.

But he went. The Argonaut, of twenty and some years of age, went
out into the world, slender, adroit, with eyes dark and fiery as
youth, with cheeks shapely and fresh as peaches, with a forehead
as white and pure as the petal of a lily; he went for a wife with
a fortune, for the pleasures of the world--for the golden fleece.

Now he wrapped himself closely in the skirt of his faded
dressing-gown, and let his head droop so low that the bald spot
seemed white on the top of it; his lower lip dropped; the red
spots came out over his dark brows on his wrinkled forehead. In
his hand he held the cigarette-case presented by Countess
Eugenia, now living in Paris, and at times he turned it in his
fingers, with an unconscious movement, and that glittering object
cast on the tattered sleeve of his dressing-gown, on his
suffering face, on his long, thin fingers, its bright, golden
reflection.

Meanwhile widow Clemens had returned to the kitchen, and there,
not without a loud clattering of overshoes, had begun to cook the
dinner. But Kranitski neither heard nor saw anything. From time
to time the head, with its great cap, looked in through the
kitchen door, gazed on him unquietly and pushed back to look in
again soon.

"Will you have dinner now?" inquired she at last. "It is ready."

In a low voice he asked for dinner, but he ate almost nothing;
the woman had never yet seen him so broken, still she made no
inquiry. When the moment came he would tell all himself. He was
not of those who bear secrets to the grave with them. She waited
on the man, gave him food, brought tea, cleared the table in
silence. Once she fell into trouble: Passing hurriedly through
the room she lost one of the overshoes which she had on her feet:

"Ah! may thou be!--they fall off every moment!" grumbled she, and
for some minutes she struggled with that overshoe, which,
dropping from her foot, slipped along the floor noisily.
Kranitski raised his head:

"What is that?" inquired he.

She made no answer, but when she was near the kitchen door, he
cried:

"What have you on your feet that clatter so? It is irritating!"

She stopped at the door:

"What have I on my feet? Well, your old overshoes! Am I to wear
out shoes every day, and then buy new ones? 'Irritating!' Arabian
adventure! God grant that you never have worse irritation than
overshoes clattering on the floor!"

And she grumbled on in the kitchen while going with an empty
glass to the samovar:

"You wouldn't have a pinch of tea in the house if I went around
in new shoes all my time!"

Darkness came down. Kranitski smoked cigarettes one after
another, and was so sunk in thought that he trembled throughout
his body. When widow Clemens brought in a lamp, with a
milk-colored globe, which filled the room with a white, mild
light, Kranitski looked at the head of the old woman in the white
lamp-light, and, for the first time in a number of hours, he
spoke:

"Come, mother, come nearer!" said he.

When she came he seized her rude fist in both his hands and shook
it vigorously.

"What could I do; what would happen to me now, if you were not
with me? No living soul of my own here! Alone, alone, as in a
desert."

The onrush of tenderness burst through all obstructions.
Confidences flowed on. He had loved for the last time in life, le
dernier amour, and all had ended. She had forbidden him to see
her. That decision of hers had been ripening for a long time.
Reproaches of conscience, shame, despair as to her children. One
daughter knew everything; the other might know it any day. She
had let out of her hands the rudder of those hearts and
consciences, for when she was talking with them her own fault
closed her lips, like a red-hot seal. She thought herself the
most pitiful of creatures. She did not wish to make further use
of her husband's wealth, or the position which it give her in
society. She wished to go away, to settle down in some silent
corner, vanish from the eyes of people.

Kranitski was so excited that he almost sobbed; here his speech
was interrupted by a rough, sarcastic voice:

"It is well that she came to her senses at last--"

"What senses? What are you weaving, mother? You know nothing.
Love is never an offense. Ils ont peche, mais le ceil est un
don."

"You are mad, Tulek! Am I some madam that you must speak French
to me?" Still he finished:

"Ils ont souffert, c'est le sceau du pardon. I will translate
this for thee: They have sinned, but heaven is a gift-----They
have suffered; suffering is the seal of pardon."

"Tulek, let heaven alone! To mix up such things with
heaven--Arabian adventure!"

"Are you a priest, mother? I tell you of my own suffering and the
suffering of that noble, sweet being--" In the antechamber, the
door of which widow Clemens, in returning from the city, had not
locked, was heard stamping, and the youthful voice of a man
called:

"Is your master at home?"

"Arabian adventure!" muttered widow Clemens.

"Maryan!" exclaimed Kranitski with delight, and he answered
aloud:

"I am at home, at home!"

"An event worthy of record in universal history," answered the
voice of a man speaking somewhat through his nose and teeth.

"And the baron!" cried Kranitski; then he whispered:

"Close the drawing-room door, mother; I must freshen up a
little," and from behind the closed door he spoke to those who
were in the drawing-room:

"In a moment, my dears, in a moment I shall be at your service."

In the light of the lamp, placed by widow Clemens in the
drawing-room, he appeared, indeed, after a few minutes, dressed,
his hair arranged, perfumed, elegant with springy movements and
an unconstrained smile on his lips. Only his lids were reddened,
and on his forehead were many wrinkles which would not be
smoothed away.

"A comedian! There is a comedian!" grumbled widow Clemens,
returning to the kitchen, with a terrible clatter of overshoes.

The two young men pressed his hand in friendship. It was clear
that they liked him.

"Why did you avoid us all day?" inquired Baron Emil. "We waited
for you at Borel's--he gave us an excellent dinner. But maybe you
are fasting?"

"Let him alone, he has his suffering," put in Maryan. "I am so
sorry, mon bon vieux (my good old man), that I have persuaded the
baron to join me in taking you out. I cannot, of course, leave
you a victim to melancholy."

Kranitski was moved; gratitude and tenderness were gazing out of
his eyes.

"Thanks, thanks! You touch me."

He pressed the hands of both in turn, holding Maryan's hand
longer than the baron's, with the words:

"My dear-dear--dear."

The young man smiled.

"Do not grow so tender," said he, "for that injures the interior.
You are, however, a son of that generation which possesses an
antidote for melancholy."

"What is it?"

"Well, faith, hope, charity, with resignation and--other painted
pots. We haven't them, so we go to Tron-tron's, where Lili Kerth
sings. We are to give her a supper tonight at Borel's. Borel has
promised me everything which the five parts of the world can
give."

"As to the problematic nature of that Lili," remarked the baron,
"there are moments in which she takes on the superhuman ideal."

"What an idea, dear baron!" burst out Kranitski. "Lili and
superhumanity, the ideal! Why, she is a little beast that sings
abject things marvellously."

"That is it, that is it!" said the baron, defending his position,
"a little beast in the guise of an angel--the singing of
chansonettes with such a devil in the body--and at the same time
a complexion, a look, a smile, which scatters a kind of mystic,
lily perfume. This is precisely that dissonance, that snap, that
mystery with which she has conquered Europe. This rouses
curiosity; it excites; it is opposed to rules, to harmony--do you
understand?"

"Stop, Emil!" cried Maryan, laughing. "You are speaking to the
guardian of tombs. He worships harmony yet."

Kranitski seemed humiliated somewhat. He passed his palm over his
hair, and began timidly:

"But that is true, my dears; I see myself that I am becoming
old-fashioned. Men of my time, and I, called a cat a cat, a rogue
a rogue. If a Lili like yours put on the airs of an angel we
said: 'Oh, she is a rogue!' And we knew what to think of the
matter. But this confounding of profane with sacred, of the
rudest carnalism with a mystic tendency--"

The baron and Maryan laughed.

"For you this is all Greek, and will remain Greek. You wore born
in the age of harmony, you will remain on the side of harmony.
But a truce to talk. Let us go. Come, you will hear Lili Kerth;
we shall sup together."

"Come, we have a place in the carriage for you," said the baron,
supporting young Darvid's invitation.

Kranitski grew as radiant as if a sun-ray had fallen on his face.

"Very well, my dears, very well, I will go with you; it will
distract me, freshen me. A little while only; will you permit?"

"Of course. Willingly. We will wait." He hurried to his bedroom,
and closed the door behind him. In his head whirled pictures and
expressions: the theatre, songs, amusement, supper, conversation,
the bright light--everything, in a word, to which he had grown
accustomed, and with which he had lived for many years. The
foretaste of delight penetrated through his grievous sorrows.
After the bitter mixture he felt the taste of caramels in his
mouth. He ran toward his dressing-table, but in the middle of the
room he stood as if fixed to the floor. His eye met a beautiful
heliotype, standing on the bureau in the light of the lamp; from
the middle of the room, in a motionless posture, Kranitski gazed
at the face of the woman, which was enclosed in an ornamented
frame.

"Poor, dear soul! Noble creature!" whispered he, and his lips
quivered, and on his forehead appeared the red spots. Maryan
called from beyond the door:

"Hurry, old man! We shall be late!"

A few minutes afterward Kranitski entered the drawing-room. His
shoulders were bent; his lids redder than before.

"I cannot--as I love you, I cannot go with you! I feel ill."

"Indeed, he must be ill!" cried Maryan. "See, Emil, how our old
man looks! He is changed, is he not?"

"But a moment ago you looked well!" blurted out Emil, and added:
"Do not become wearisome, do not get sick. Sick people are
fertilizers on the field of death--and sickness is annoying!"

"Splendidly said!" exclaimed Maryan.

"No, no," answered Kranitski, "this is not important, it is an
old trouble of the liver. Returned only to-day--you must go
without me."

He straightened himself, smiled, tried to move without
constraint, but unconquerable suffering was evident on his
features and in the expression of his eyes.

"May we send the doctor?" asked Maryan.

"No, no," protested Kranitski, and the baron took him by the arm
and turned him toward the bedroom. Though Kranitski's shoulders
were bent at that moment, his form was shapely and imposing; the
baron, holding his arm, seemed small and frail; he made one think
of a fly. In the bedroom he said, with a low voice:

"It is reported in the city that papa Darvid is opposed to my
plans concerning Panna Irene. Do you know of this?"

For some months the baron had spoken frequently with Kranitski
about his plans, taking counsel with him even at times, and
begging for indications. Was he not the most intimate friend of
that house, and surely an adviser of the family? Kranitski did
not think, or even speak, of Baron Emil otherwise than:

"Ce brave garcon has the best heart in the world; he is very
highly developed and intelligent; yes, very intelligent; and his
mother, that dear, angelic baroness, was one of the most
beautiful stars among those which have lighted my life."

So through the man's innate inclination to an optimistic view of
mankind, and his grateful memory of "one of the most beautiful
stars," he was always very friendly to the baron and favorable to
his plan touching Irene; all the more since he noted in her an
inclination toward the baron. So, usually, he gave the young man
counsel and answers willingly and exhaustively. This time,
however, an expression of constraint and of suffering fell on his
face.

"I know not, dear baron; indeed, I can do nothing, for to
tell--for I--" A number of drops of perspiration came out on his
forehead, and he added, with difficulty:

"It seems that Panna Irene--"

"Panna Irene," interrupted the baron, without noticing
Kranitski's emotion, "is a sonnet from Baudelaire's Les fleurs du
mal (The flowers of evil). There is in her something undefined,
something contradictory--"

Kranitski made a quick movement.

"My baron--"

"But do you not understand me, dear Pan Arthur? I have no
intention of speaking ill of Panna Irene. In my mouth the
epithets which I have used are the highest praise. Panna Irene is
interesting precisely for this reason, that she is indefinite and
complicated. She is a disenchanted woman. She possesses that
universal irony which is the stamp of higher natures. Oh, Panna
Irene is not a violet unless from the hot-house of Baudelaire!
But, just for that reason she rouses curiosity, irritates, une
desabusee--une vierge desabusee. Do you understand? There is in
this the odor of mystery--a new quiver. But with natures of this
sort nothing can ever be certain--"

"Hers is a noble nature!" cried Kranitski, with enthusiasm.

"You divide natures into noble and not noble," said the baron,
with a smile; "but I, into annoying and interesting."

Beyond the door the loud voice of Maryan was heard:

"Emil, I will leave you and go to Tron-tron's. I will tell Lili
Kerth that you remained for the night to nurse a sick friend."

These words seemed to them so amusing that they laughed, from
both sides of the closed door, simultaneously.

"Good!" cried the baron. "You will create for me the fame of a
good Christian. As the Brandenburger fears only God, I fear only
the ridiculous, and go."

A few minutes later the two friends were no longer in the
dwelling of Kranitski, who was sitting on his long chair again,
with drooping head, turning in his fingers the golden
cigarette-case. The street outside the window was lonely enough,
so the rumble of the departing carriage was audible. Kranitski
followed it with his ear, and when it was silent he regretted
passionately for a moment that he had not gone to where people
were singing and jesting, and eating, and drinking in bright
light, in waves of laughter. But, straightway, he felt an
invincible distaste for all that. He was so sad, crushed, sick.
Why had not those two young friends of his remained longer? He
had rendered them the most varied services frequently, he had
simply been at their service always, and had loved them;
especially Maryan, the dear child--and many others. How many
times had he nursed them, also, in sickness, consoled them,
rescued them, amused them. Now, when he cannot run after them, as
a dog after its mistress, his only comrades are darkness and
silence.

Darkness reigned in the little drawing-room, silence of the grave
in the whole dwelling. A clatter of overshoes broke this silence;
widow Clemens stood in the kitchen door. On her high forehead,
above her gray eyebrows, shone the glass eyes of her spectacles;
her left hand was covered with a man's sock which she was
darning. She stood in the door and looked at Kranitski, bent,
grown old, buried in gloomy silence, and shook her head. Then, as
quietly as ever was possible for her, she approached the
long-chair, sat on a stool which was near it, and asked:

"Well, why are you silent, and chewing sorrow alone? Talk with
me, you will feel easier."

As he gazed at her silently, she asked in a still lower tone:

"Well, the woman? Did she love you greatly? Was her love real?
How did you and she come to your senses?"

After a few minutes' hesitation, or thought, Kranitski, with his
elbows on the edge of the chair, and his forehead on his palms,
said:

"I can tell all, mother, for you are not of our society, and you
are noble, faithful; the only one on earth who remains with me."

Throughout the silent chamber was heard, as it were, the sound of
a trumpet: that sound was made by widow Clemens, who had drawn
from her pocket a coarse handkerchief and held it to her nose.
Her eyes were moist. Kranitski quivered and squirmed, but
continued:

"When we met the first time after parting, the spring season was
around us. You know that we parted only because I had too little
fortune to marry a portionless maiden, and my mother would not
hear of my marrying a governess. Soon after, that rich man
married her. Fiu! fiu! what became of that governess, that girl
more timid than a violet? She became a society lady, full of
life, elegance, style--but springtime breathed around us,
memories of the village, of the flowers, of the fields, of our
earliest, heartfelt emotions. Did she love her husband? Poor,
dear, soul! It seems that at first she was attached to him, but
he left her, neglected her, grasped after millions throughout the
whole world. He was strong, unbending--she was ever alone. Alone
in society! Alone in the house--for the children were small yet,
and she so sensitive and weak, needing friendship and the
fondling of a devoted heart. I fell on my knees in spirit before
her--she felt that. He, when going away, left me near her as an
adviser, a guardian for the time, even a protector, yes, a
pro-tec-tor--the parvenu! the idiot! So wise, yet so stupid--ha!
ha! ha!"

Sneering, vengeful laughter contorted Kranitski's face, the red
spots spread over his brows and covered half of his forehead,
which was drawn now into thick wrinkles.

"Do not vex yourself, Tulek, do not vex yourself, you will be
ill," urged widow Clemens; but once his confessions were begun he
went on with them.

"For a year or more there was nothing between us. We were
friends, but she held me at a distance; she struggled. You,
mother, know if I had success with women--"

"You had, to your eternal ruin, you had!" blurted out widow
Clemens.

"From youth I had the gift of reading; I owe much to it."

"Ei! you owe much to it! What do you owe to it? Your sin against
God, and the waste of your life!" said the widow, ready for a
dispute, but he went on without noting that.

"Once she was weak after a violent attack of neuralgia; it was
late in the evening, the great house was empty and dark, the
children were sleeping--I gave her the attention that a brother
or a mother would give; I was careful; I hid what was happening
within me; I acted as though I were watching over a sick child
which was dear to me. I entertained her with conversation; I
spoke in a low voice; I gave her medicine and confectionery.
Afterward I began to read. More than once she had said that my
reading was music. I was reading Musset. You do not know, mother,
who Musset is. He is the poet of love--of that love exactly which
the world calls forbidden. She wanted something from the
neighboring chamber; I went for it. When I returned our eyes met,
and--well, I read no more that evening."

He was barely able to utter the last words; he covered his face
with his handkerchief, rested his head on the arm of the
long-chair, was motionless; wept, perhaps. Widow Clemens bent
down, the corner of her coarse handkerchief came from her pocket,
and through the chamber that sound of a trumpet was heard for the
second time. Then she drew her bench up still nearer, and, with
her hand in the stocking-foot, touched Kranitski's arm, and
whispered:

"Say no more, Tulek; despair not! Let God up there judge her and
you. He is a strict judge, but merciful! I am sorry for you, but
also for her, poor thing! What is to be done? The heart is not
stone, man is not an angel! Only drive off despair! Everything
passes-, and your sorrow also will pass. You may be better off in
the world than you now are. You may yet enjoy pleasant quiet in
Lipovka, in your own cottage. Stefanek and I may think out
something, so that you will escape from the mud of this city."

Kranitski made no answer; the woman spoke on:

"I have had another letter from Stefanek."

"What does that honest man write?" asked Kranitski.

The widow flushed up in anger:

"It is true that he is honest, and there is no need to call him
that--as if through favor, or sneering. Arabian adventure! He is
only my godson, but better than men of high birth. He writes that
management in Lipovka goes well; that again he has set out a
hundred fruit-trees in the garden; that in four weeks he will
come and bring a little money."

"Money!" whispered Kranitski; "but that is well!"

"It is surely well, for that Jew would have taken your furniture
if I had not pushed him down the steps, and a second time begged
him to wait." She laughed. "To push him down was easier than to
beg, for I am strong, and he is as small as a fly. Well I almost
kissed his hands, and he promised to wait. 'For widow Clemens I
will do this,' said he, 'because she is a servant who is like a
mother.' Indeed, I am like a mother! I have no children, I have
no one of my own in the world--I have only you."

Kranitski looked at her and began to shake his head with a slow
movement. She, too, fixing her fiery and gloomy eyes on his eyes,
shook slowly her head, which was covered with a great cap.

The lamp burning on the bureau threw its white light on those two
heads, which, discoursing sadly, continued their melancholy
converse without words; it shone also on the varied collection of
pipes at the wall, and cast passing gleams on the golden
cigarette-case which Kranitski turned in his hand.



CHAPTER V

Darvid was in splendid humor--he had bought at auction a house
and broad grounds very reasonably. He cared little for the
house--it was a rubbishy old pile which he would remove very
soon--but the grounds, covered then with an extensive garden,
represented an uncommonly profitable transaction. Situated near
one of the railroad stations, he would, of course, receive a high
price for it, because of the need to put there a great public
edifice.

Darvid would sell the ground to those who needed it, and then
make proposals to build the edifice. This was the third
undertaking which had fallen to him since his return, a few
months before. What of that, when the most important, for which
he would have given the other three willingly, had not fallen yet
to him, and he did not know well what had been done concerning
it? This affair did not let him sleep sometimes, still it did not
disincline him from working at that which he had begun already.

The day was clear, slightly frosty, myriads of brilliants were
glittering in the white rime which covered the trees, and in the
snow which lay on the extensive garden. Darvid, in company with a
surveyor, an engineer, and an architect, walked through the
garden, but the object of his walk was in no way the
contemplation of nature bound up under marbles, and alabasters
sprinkled with brilliants. The engineer brought him a plan for
the purchase of the place, and supported the interests of his
employers energetically; the surveyor and the architect spoke of
their part, pointed out with gestures the proportions and various
points of the open area. Darvid, in a closely fitting fur coat,
finished with an original and very costly collar, with a shining
hat on his head, walked over the ground with even tread; he
listened rather than spoke, there was a silent satisfaction in
his smile, when suddenly an immense brightness reflected from a
tree, directly in front, dazzled his eyesight. The tree, which
resembled a lofty pillar, had on each of its branches a plume,
cut as it were delicately from alabaster, every feather of this
plume flamed like a torch lighted in a rainbow. Sheafs of rainbow
gleams shot out of that wonderful carving, and from that fountain
of many-colored light. Darvid put his glasses on his nose
suddenly, and said with a painful twist of the mouth:

"What unendurable light!"

The architect looked at the tree and said, with a smile:

"No man, not even a Greek master, has ever finished a pillar like
that."

"The only pity is that it cannot be used," replied Darvid,
smiling also.

"You are not a lover of nature, that is true; while I--" began
the engineer.

"On the contrary, on the contrary. During intervals I have looked
at nature here and there," said Darvid, playfully. "But to become
her lover, as you say, I have not had leisure. To love nature is
a luxury which iron toil does not know--a luxury which must have
leisure."

With these words he turned from the beautiful work of nature and
intended to go on, but again he halted. He found himself at the
picket fence, which divided the garden from the street, and in
the movement of the street he saw something which occupied him
greatly.

It was the hour of departure for one of the railroad trains. The
street was wide, and the ground on both sides of it was not
entirely occupied yet with houses, many carriages on wheels, and
a multitude of sleighs were hastening toward the near railway
station. The sleighs shot forward with clinking harness, the snow
under wheels squeaked complainingly, the drivers uttered brief
shouts. The hats of men and women, various kinds of furs, the
liveries of coachmen, the horses puffing steam, covered here and
there with colored nets, formed a motley, changing line, moving
forward with a rattle and an outcry along the white snow, in an
atmosphere glittering from frost and sunlight.

One of the carriages looked like a flower garden. Roses,
camelias, pinks, and violets were creeping out--simply pouring
out--through its windows. The carriage was filled with bouquets,
garlands, baskets. Among these, as in a flood of various colors,
appeared in the heart of it the broad-rimmed hat of a woman.
Immediately behind the carriage rushed a sleigh drawn by a pair
of grand horses, the driver wearing an enormous fur collar, and
in the sleigh were two young men, at whose feet again was a
basket of flowers, but the finest and costliest, very rare and
expensive orchids. The carriage and sleigh shot forward through
the many-colored crowd of the street, as if some enchanted vision
of spring had risen through the snow and then vanished.

"Who is that lady in the carriage filled with flowers?" asked
Darvid, turning to his companions.

"Bianca Biannetti."

That was a name which needed no commentary. Darvid smiled, with
satisfaction. It was not wonderful that Maryan and the little
baron were escorting to the station that woman of European fame,
and were taking flowers to her. Of course, of course. He himself
a number of times in his life--and if it was not offener, it was
because time had failed him.

"There will be an amusing history to-day at the station," said
the engineer. "A special train for Bianca; it is to leave five
minutes after the regular one."

"For what purpose?" asked the architect.

"It is easy to divine: to have five minutes longer to enjoy the
society of the great singer."

"An extra train! That is madness!" said Darvid. "Who did this?"

The engineer and architect exchanged significant glances, and the
former answered:

"Your son."

The skin on Darvid's face quivered, but he answered with perfect
composure:

"Ah, true! I remember Maryan told me something of this. I
persuaded him a little, but he insisted. What is to be done? Il
faut que la jeunesse se passe (youth must have its day)."

Then he gave his hand to the three men in farewell:

"I am sorry that we cannot finish our discussions to-day, but I
remember an important affair. I beg you, gentlemen, to come
to-morrow at the usual hour of my receptions."

He raised his hat and left them.

"To the station! Hurry!" said he to the driver while entering the
carriage.

At the station stood a row of cars with a locomotive sending up
steam. A throng of people were moving toward the snow-covered
platform, and hurrying to the train. Darvid came out also,
searching with his eyes for a youthful face which filled his
sleepless nights with care. At first he could not find it, but
when many people had entered the train, those assembled for the
passive role of spectators formed a group and turned their
glances toward one point upon the platform. There in the hands of
a number of people bloomed a garden of beautiful flowers, and
near them two persons were conversing with great animation. The
opera singer was an Italian, a beautiful brunette, with eyes
blazing like dark stars. Conversing with her in her own language
was a young man, younger than she, very youthful, light haired,
shapely, elegantly dressed. At some steps from this pair, in a
careless posture, with an unoccupied air, stood Baron Emil,
fragile and red-haired.

The bell, summoning passengers, was heard in the frosty air for
the second time. The lady, with a charming smile, bowed in sign
of farewell, and made a step toward the train, but the young man
barred the way with a movement made adroitly, talking meanwhile,
and holding her under the determined glance of his blue eyes.
Without showing alarm she delayed, smiled, and listened.

Darvid stood on the platform, lost in that crowd of the curious,
and snatches of conversation struck his ear.

"She will not go!" said one man.

"She will! There is time enough yet!" said another.

"He detains her purposely, so that she may not go."

"He does, for she is beautiful. Her smile is as charming as her
song."

"He is a daring boy," said some third man near Darvid's other
ear. "Look, look, how he talks her down purposely--poor woman,
she will go back to the city beaten."

"But no! That would be an impoliteness on his part."

"Who is this handsome young man with golden hair?" asked some
woman.

"Young Darvid. The son of the great financier. How young! He is a
child."

"A man with millions ripens quickly, like a peach in sunlight."

"What language are they speaking? I cannot hear, but it is not
French."

"Italian; she is Italian."

"But he chatters in that language as if he were her compatriot."

"Millions are like the tongues at Pentecost," said the man who
had mentioned peaches, "whoever is touched by them speaks every
language on earth right away."

All the passengers had vanished in the cars, the doors of which
were fastened now with loud clinking. This time the opera singer
stepped forward quickly, but young Darvid spoke a few words which
brought to her face astonishment and the most beautiful smile in
the world; she nodded, agreed to something, gave thanks for
something in the same way that kindly queens consent to receive
marks of the highest honor from their subjects.

In the crowd surrounding Darvid someone laughed:

"Ah, he is a stunning fellow! he will not let her go!"

"How handsome he is, that young Darvid!" said a woman.

"He looks like a young prince," added another.

"But what will come of this? She will not go."

"She will go!"

"She will not go!"

"I will bet!"

"I will bet!"

In a moment a number of bets were made behind Darvid as to
whether the woman, who was talking to his son, would go from the
city that day or not. On his thin lips a smile of satisfaction
appeared, the eyes from behind his glasses looked at his son with
an expression which was almost mild. A young prince! Yes, that is
true. What freedom of manner, what grace! What fine disregard for
the common throng gazing at him! Triumphant even with women! That
woman, famous throughout Europe, is simply devouring him with
those black eyes of hers.

The bell was heard on the platform for the third time, and at the
same moment a prolonged whistle pierced the air. The wheels of
the train began to turn with a slow, measured movement.

"It is over!" cried someone in the crowd. "She has not gone!"

"I have lost the bet!" said a number of voices.

"How splendid that that handsome youth has carried his point,"
said a woman.

Meanwhile, from the remotest end of the platform, new whistling
of a locomotive came up, and the measured beat of wheels on the
rails was heard; at some distance a certain black mass appeared,
it pushed forward faster and faster, until under the smoke came
out clearly the cylinder of a locomotive, drawing behind it a
short row of wagons. This was the train, and small, fresh,
elegant. This train glittered in the sunlight with its yellow
brass fittings, gleamed in its sapphire-colored varnish. Its rich
interior, with cushions of purple velvet, was visible through the
windows. A conductor opened the door of a car and stood near it
in an expectant position. Maryan, with a motion of request,
indicated it to the celebrated singer.

Now the people standing on the platform understood everything,
and fell into enthusiasm. The spirit, which rose to that plan and
threw out a large sum of money for the sake of it, struck the
imagination and roused the sympathy of people inclined to gold
and strange acts, without reference to their object or value. On
the platform was heard the sharp clapping of some tens of hands,
and soon after the locomotive whistled once more, and that small,
special train pushed forward into space, only five minutes later
than the regular train which preceded it.

Darvid stood near the door of the station whence he could see his
son, who passed with slow step along a part of the platform. And
he looked at him with unquiet curiosity, for something unexpected
in Maryan astonished him. In contradiction to what one might
expect, and which seemed natural, there was not in the expression
of face and the movements of. Maryan either the pleasure of youth
at something accomplished, or sorrow at the departure of the
woman, for whom he had accomplished it. When a moment before
applause was heard on the platform, he looked around and cast on
the hand-clapping crowd a passing glance, as indifferent as if
they were an object not worthy of contempt, even. Now, too, his
whole person expressed perfect indifference, nay, even annoyance,
which contracted his lips, and yellowed the rosiness of his round
cheeks somewhat. In his blue eyes, fixed glassily on the
distance, was depicted something like dissatisfaction, or a
feeling of disappointment, a dreaming, or a pondering in vain
over deceitful visions which pass over space, but which no one
can seize upon. He did not see his father, for his glassy eyes
were looking far away at some point. Even the baron did not see
Darvid; he was searching for something in his pocketbook
carefully, till he took out a ten-rouble note and threw it at the
porters who had borne in the baggage and flowers of the
primadonna. At the same time he cast these words through his
teeth at them:

"I have no small money!"

Maryan, without rousing himself from thought, said, as if
mechanically:

"It is wonderful!"

"What?" asked the baron.

"That everything in the world is so little, so little."

"Except my appetite, which is immense at this moment," cried the
baron.

"But those fabulous sums which Maryan must expend!" thought
Darvid going to his carriage; before he reached it he heard other
snatches of conversation:

"To throw away so much money for a few moments' talk with a
beautiful woman--that is a character!"

"It promises trouble, does it not?"

"Especially for papa."

"He has as many debts, no doubt, as curly hairs on his head."

"He borrows, of course, on the security of papa's pocket."

"Or his death."

Others said:

"In such hands ill-gotten gains will go to the devil quickly."

"Why ill-gotten gains?"

"Well, can you imagine Saint Francis of Assisi making millions?"

While his carriage was rolling along the streets of the city,
Darvid's head was full of conflicting ideas. True, true; that
green youth had a special capacity for devouring the golden sands
of Pactolus! But in what a charming and princely fashion he did
that! Darvid was proud of his son, and at the same time greatly
dismayed and troubled; for this could not last. That lad was
making debts in view of--his father's death. And this absolute
idleness! What good was a man who did nothing? The results also
of idleness were evident in him: a certain premature withering, a
certain dreaming without object--a handsome fellow! He looked as
if born to a princely coronet. As Darvid was ascending the marble
steps of his mansion he said to the Swiss:

"When Pan Maryan comes home say that I request him to come to
me."

Darvid passed an hour or more in his study, alone, over papers,
writing, taking notes, examining various accounts, and letters;
but over his face, from time to time, ran a disagreeable quiver,
and the nervous movements of his hand caused sheets of paper to
rustle unpleasantly. At last the door of the antechamber opened
and Maryan appeared, hat in hand.

"Good-day, my father," began he on entering. "I am glad that you
invited me, for it is long since I have had the pleasure of
talking with you. We both have been greatly occupied. For some
weeks Bianca Biannetti has taken all my time."

He was perfectly unconstrained, though not at all gladsome in his
manner. Darvid, standing at the round table, looked at his son
quickly.

"Are you in love with that singer?" asked he.

Only then did Maryan laugh unaffectedly, almost loudly.

"What a question, my father; love is a sanctuary, built on a
poppy-seed; love then is sacred; while my fancy for that
beautiful Bianca--"

"Is a poppy-seed which you are transporting through the world on
special trains," finished Darvid.

"Have you heard of that, father?"

"I have seen it."

"Ah, you were at the station! Strange that I did not see you."

He made a gesture of contempt with his hand.

"I was disappointed. I planned that surprise for Bianca, and felt
sure of a lively pleasure. When the time came I convinced myself
that the affair was a trifle, not new, and, like everything,
stupid. So it is always: what imagination builds up in a long
time, criticism overturns in a twinkle. It is impossible to
invent anything important. The world is so aged that it has come
to us a worn-out old rag."

He took a seat on one of the armchairs surrounding the table, and
put his hat on the carpet. Darvid replied without changing his
posture:

"Nothing wonderful; when imagination builds up stupidities
criticism overturns the building in a twinkle--"

"Who can be sure that he is building up wisdom?" interrupted
Maryan.

Then, taking a cigarette-case from his pocket, he asked:

"Do you permit, father?" Then, handing the cigarette-case, with
great politeness, to Darvid, he added:

"But, perhaps, you will smoke also?"

Darvid, with thick wrinkles between his brows, shook his head and
sat down.

"Why did you leave the university soon after I went away?" asked
he. "I inquired of you touching this several times by letter, but
you have never given me a definite answer."

"I beg pardon for that, father, but I am wonderfully slow in
writing letters. I will explain all to you willingly in words--"

Darvid interrupted:

"I have no time for long talk, so tell me at once. Have you no
love for science?"

Maryan let out a streak of smoke from his lips, and spoke with
deliberation:

"I feel no repugnance whatever toward science. I read much, and
mental curiosity is just one of the most emphatic traits of my
individuality. In childhood I swallowed books in monumental
numbers, but I have never learned school lessons. All were
astonished at this, and still the thing is simple, it lies quite
on the surface. Common individualities yield to rules, but
energetic and higher ones will not endure them. Rules and duty
are stables in which humanity confines its beasts, to prevent
them from injuring fields under culture. Cattle and sheep stand
patiently in the enclosures, higher organisms break them down and
go out into freedom. I need absolute freedom in all things;
and,-therefore, I stopped going to inns of science, which give
out this science at stated hours, in certain sorts and doses.
Though, even in this regard, I showed many good intentions, owing
to the entreaties and persuasions of mamma. From legal studies I
betook myself to the study of nature, and turned from that to
philosophy, thinking that something would occupy me, and that I
should be able to still that real storm of desperation which
seized poor mamma. But I was not able. The professors were
contemptible, my fellow-students a rabble. Society relations
amused me in those days, and occupied me: imagination swept me
farther and higher. So I stopped a labor which was annoying and
irritating, and which, moreover, had no object."

He quenched his cigarette stump in the ash-pan, and, sinking
again into the deep armchair, continued:

"So far as I have been able to observe, people study science
regularly for one of two purposes: either they intend to devote
themselves to what is called the salvation of mankind, or they
need to win a morsel of bread for their stomachs. Neither of
these objects could be mine; for, as to the first, I hold the
principle of individuality carried quite to anarchy. The
so-called salvation of society is, for our decadent epoch, a
fable, quite impossible; and the naked truth is, that each man
lives for himself, and in his own fashion. The man whom fate
serves well passes his life in a manner more or less agreeable;
if it serves him ill--he perishes. Luck, and the chance meeting
of causes, arranges everything. It is impossible to turn the
earth into a general paradise, just as it is to change a small
planet into an immense one. The salvation of society is one of
the narcotics invented to lull the sufferings of people.
Altruists possess a whole drug-shop of these narcotics; whoever
wishes has the right to use them; but, as for me, I prefer not to
be lulled to sleep. I am an individualist, and do not understand
why Pavel must suffer for the purpose of decreasing the pains of
Gavel. Let Gavel, as well as Pavel, think of himself; and, if
they are clever, they will both help themselves somehow without
turning to labelled bottles. This is my conviction about one of
the objects for which people make regular studies in science. As
to the other--"

He took out his cigarette-ease again, and, lighting a cigarette,
finished:

"As to the other object, that is a simple thing; since being your
son, my father, I shall not need to bake my own bread. Such is my
confession of faith which I have laid down before you; all the
more readily since I have long cherished a genuine reverence for
your strength of mind and independence. I am certain, too, that
by no one could I be understood better than by you, my father."

He was mistaken. The man to whom he was talking so fluently and
politely did not understand him in any sense.

For the first time in his life, perhaps, Darvid did not
understand the person with whom he was talking. The millionnaire
was astounded. He had expected to find a frivolous youth, whom
passions had pushed into extravagance and idleness; meanwhile, a
reasoning, disenchanted sage sat before him, with bitterness on
his lips and irony in his speech and eyes. That sour wisdom, the
measureless belief in himself and his opinions, with the
independence which accompanied it, were found in a slender,
delicate, and rosy-faced youth, with eyes as blue as
forget-me-nots, and came from lips slightly faded, but marked by
a tiny, youthful moustache. Besides, the perfect elegance of
manner, the aestheticism and irreproachable grace in movements,
in voice, in compliments, the utterance of which he rounded very
beautifully.

Darvid was astounded. He had found no time in his life to observe
the new directions which thought and character were taking in the
world; nor for observing the changed forms in which time moulds
the various generations of mankind. He was dumbfounded,
speechless, and only after a while did an ironical smile appear
on his lips--that lad with his theories was absurd!

"All that you have said is simply ridiculous. You are making a
principle out of a thorough absence of principles. At your age
such opinions and such coolness are incredible. At your age,
which is almost that of a child, and with your scant training,
they are, out and out, ridiculous."

Maryan, with a quick movement, raised his head and looked with
astonishment at his father. He, too, had expected something
entirely different.

"Ridiculous!" cried he; "what does this mean, father? This is not
argument. I felt sure that we should agree perfectly. With the
profoundest astonishment I see that this is not the case. How is
it, my father, then, you do not take up the motto: each for
himself, and in his own way? Still, it is impossible for any man
to carry contempt for all painted pots farther than you do; than
you have carried it all your life. But, perhaps, this difference
in our opinions is only apparent? I beg you to give me argument.
The charge of ridiculousness is not argument. I may be
ridiculous, and be right. A lack of principles? Very well;
principles form one of the most b

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