Greatly as I want to go home, and—like a child—have “a good cry” all by myself, I stay on there for some time. Obojanski offers me several books, dealing mostly with matters zoölogical. I of course try to excuse myself as best I can. At last, he lectures me on the way I am wasting my talents, and says that my mind, “if deprived of intellectual nourishment, will pine away.”
“But, Professor,” I point out, not without a touch of pride, “I really am not at all naturally fitted to be a woman of scientific attainments.”
“Ah, but have a little faith in yourself; you ought to. Truly, science is your exclusive vocation; but you must work; you need to work a good deal. With your abilities. …”
I go home, taking the books with me. My room is dark and dreary and solitary. I am most bitterly disappointed.
I have done a silly thing today.
A girl named Nierwiska works in the office with me. I like her best of all, because she is the prettiest. Both her looks and her getup are in rather consistent Japanese style; a style that makes her look limp and drooping under the burden of her own hair. Now, on my return from the holidays, I had noticed that she was much changed and extremely dejected.
Today, contrary to my custom, I left the office with her, and it turned out that our way home was the same for a good distance.
Our conversation runs at first on indifferent matters. Nierwiska answers briefly, in low tones, now and then casting a somewhat suspicious glance towards me. Women have intuition; and she, less cultured than Martha, is averse to purely objective curiosity. I feel that, at any question too bluntly put, she will shut her lips fast, shrink back into herself, and close up like a mimosa leaf; and this makes me doubly cautious. Our talk turns upon the general lot of women who earn their bread.
“Those who are forced to work for their livelihood,” she says in musical tones, “are apt to fall into a chronic state of dreariness, even when no real and tangible cause is there.”
“You are right. Certainly, there are people who cannot understand how it is possible to feel sad, so long as no harm is done them. But for us, life itself is an evil; it harms us.”
“Because of the work we have to do.”
“Then don’t you like your work?”
“On the contrary. I should like it, but. …”
“Well, but what?”
“In general, I can work with a pretty good will; but just now I am so weary and so upset. …”
We are now in front of the house where Nierwiska is living. As we take leave of each other, I draw her into the doorway, and ask her in a whisper:
“You are in love, are you not?”
She starts away from me in a flutter of shyness. I stroke her hand soothingly.
“And things don’t go smoothly, eh? Tell me.”
She hangs her head, and replies, in an earnest childlike tone:
“No, they do not.”
“What! does he not love you?”
“Perhaps he does—just a little. But I must tell you, with me, self-respect comes first of all. … I cannot. … Even should I be forced to break it all off, I will have nothing to blush for.”
I look at her attentively, not without surprise: till now, I had not known her to be of this stamp.
“As for me,” I suddenly burst out, “as for me—if the man who ruined my life, and took his leave without even a smile or a kind word of farewell, were only to beckon me to him today, I would at once follow him like a lamb!”
Then, in the rough, free and easy way of comrades at work, I bid her goodbye with a handshake, and walk swiftly away from her door, depressed and uncomfortable; humbled, in a word.
And now, I am in a most vile humour. She has shown herself far more clearheaded than I have. By means of a few commonplaces, she has forced from me an avowal that I never would have made, no, not even to Martha herself! … A pose—in part at least—that prodigious self-respect of hers. All the same, she is sacrificing her love to it.
Strange creatures they are! Take Martha’s case: purity! why, she was raving about it.
Nothing should stand in my way, if I loved; and therefore no doubt I cannot meet with love anywhere.
I often call upon Obojanski now, in the dim semiconscious hope that I may meet him there. And each of my visits is only a fresh disappointment.
This “hope deferred” is working me up beyond all bearing; and the bitterness of my suffering makes me long for him yet more impatiently and more fondly. Really, I begin to believe that I love the man.
I care no longer for songs, for dances, for flowers. I dream of a strange life, a cold out-of-the-way life—he and I together—nay, a life from which kisses should be shut out. I cannot tell why, but I somehow fancy I could not bring myself to kiss that hard, firm-set mouth. Nothing binds me to him—nothing but the sway of his keen, icy glance. And yet, I live in the belief that he is destined to be mine, that no one else shall be my husband.
I went to Obojanski today, in order to return to him (unread) a monograph about some species of insect.
From the anteroom I could hear a man’s voice.
My heart gave a bound of joy, mingled with trepidation; it was stilled again at once.
It was, as I presently found out, the voice of Smilowicz, a former pupil of Obojanski: an ugly little man, who makes people laugh a great deal, not by his wit, but by his queer, comical grimaces.
“I must begin by telling you quite frankly,” he says, turning to me, “that at first sight I thought you hateful; you had all the outward appearance of a fine lady. It was only when the Professor had explained to
