On my return, I lie down on the drawing-room sofa, still in my riding-habit.
Martha, as usual, is journeying from pantry to cellar, Janusz has gone to dress for supper; “Grandfather” is probably asleep in some nook. I feel maddened with impatience at the thought of seeing Him again. I tear my hair, sobbing noiselessly and without tears.
My misery is at its height. And now, besides, I feel this: that I am sorry to go away—sorry for Janusz. Something there is within me, tearing at my soul—tearing it to bits, to shreds, to tatters.
I hear Janusz coming, take up an easy recumbent attitude, without rising from the sofa, and arrange my hair.
“What! you here already?” I remark in a peevishly flippant tone of inquiry.
He does not reply, but draws near with noiseless reverent steps, in an attitude of supreme worship, such as an idolator may pay to the idol he distractedly adores. Kneeling down before me, he gently takes my hands and presses them to his brow. I do not withdraw them. I lean forwards instinctively.
“Janka, listen,” he says tenderly, in a voice that trembles with suppressed emotion; “say that you will be my wife; say so, my dear. … You know what you have made of me. … You laughed at me for my sober-mindedness, my shallow outlook upon life, my thoughtless joie de vivre. Now I am quite different. … Now I am like you, and like the rest of your set. … Could I ever, in the old days, have thought it possible that I should become like a child—crying my eyes out at the thought of your going away, Janka? I have nothing in the world to console me but you … Janka, since you told me you were sorry for the hares I had killed, I have not gone out shooting any more. … Oh, I shall not struggle with you, I should not get the mastery; but as your slave, I beg you, I entreat you, be my wife! Oh, my adorable lady, my most sweet one, say but that you will! You will be happy; you will see me do everything, everything to please you. … You will live like a princess. … If you will not give me this assurance, I shall go to ruin, indeed I shall. Janka, I will leave the University without taking my degree. … I will follow you everywhere on earth. Martha, too; does she not love you? And does it matter to you if you say Yes now? Nothing hinders you from saying the word; I even think you love me just a little. … Oh, Janka, Janka!”
He ends with a burst of tears. My head bends down to his, and we both weep together. In turns I am rent by compassion for him and by my longing for Roslawski. I kiss his black silky curls, and we cry like children.
Finally we agree that I shall go to Warsaw “to take counsel with my family and with my own heart”; and I am to give him a definite answer in a month’s time.
By then I shall surely have seen Roslawski—and everything will have been settled: for life or for death.
Every morning, the trees in the park are now white with hoarfrost, and we find the threshing-floor in the barn covered with many a steel-blue swallow, lying frozen to death. The stoves are heated, the windows hermetically closed (for the time being), and, though autumn has but just commenced, we are in winter quarters already.
In the calm white country house, sleep reigns supreme.
The wild wind howls through the sombre shrubberies, and sweeps showers of drifting leaves, green but frostbitten, along the walls of the park. Through the windows I look out into the cold bleak night, a night of desolation and evil omen: such a night as one might expect to bring us mysterious half-frozen travellers who have lost their way; and on this very night they should come knocking at the door. The old, faithful, superstitious servants should mutter the saying: “Someone has hanged himself, the wind is so high,” and the dogs should howl together mournfully.
There is no light save in one window, by which, through the broad chinks in the shutters, its bright streaks filter out into the park. The maids are there, keeping vigil as usual; Janusz and the old man have gone to bed and have long been asleep.
Around there breathes that stillness and quiet sense of security which a winter night is wont to bring with it—an atmosphere of repose.
I am kneeling by the fire, in a plain dressing-gown, with my hands clasped behind my head, and my eyes fixed upon the flames. Flashes of red light up my dark face and my chestnut hair. Now and then I put big logs on the fire from the heap close at hand; I like to resemble a vestal virgin.
Martha, partly undressed and without her corset, lies dejectedly smoking a cigarette on a rose-coloured couch, not looking in my direction.
She absentmindedly strokes a cat, which lies close to her and purrs loudly, pretending to be pleased but cross in fact, because she wants to sleep, and Martha prevents her.
“I shall be so bored when you leave us, Janka,” she says. “There will be a sad void all over the place.”
“Then come with me to Warsaw.”
“Somebody must remain to keep house at Klosow; besides, Grandfather cannot be left alone. I shall not be free till after a year’s time, when Janusz has finished his course of agronomy.”
“Do you know, Martha, you remind me of a heroine in an old-fashioned novel and I don’t care for variety. You are too goody-goody. Such a pity as it is to waste a year of one’s youth. … You may quite well leave everything to the steward’s care. … Remember, you will soon be twenty-five, and life never goes back.”
“But I am glad—how glad!—that it does not.”
“That’s a pose, or a mere high-flown mood. You love life in spite of all.”
Turning
