The strangely bewitching woman had stopped, coming to a sudden standstill to take leave of some of her companions. Her laughter resounded through the brightly lit, deserted street, with all the effrontery and witchery of Life itself.
Half-consciously, Owinski turned towards her, and so did we; a breath of the coming spring seemed blowing in our direction thence.
“Is she to your taste?” Gina asked her fiancé, with a curiosity in her tone of voice that she strove to make light of.
“What did you say?—oh, I don’t know, didn’t see her,” he returned, woolgathering as usual.
Wishing to please her, he again turned round to look; but the whole company had already disappeared in the doorway of a neighbouring restaurant.
Gina took his arm, with a gesture of famished and baffled desire. Laying her head on the sleeve of his greatcoat, she brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek.
“No,” she said to me in an undertone; “no, I cannot tell; I myself am ignorant of the end for which suffering exists; why must there always be suffering?”
Still Owinski heard not a word we said; so we could converse quite freely. For my part, I could not love a man so continually lost in thought.
“Seldom have I happened upon a type in such sharp contrast to all that I am,” she continued, alluding to the woman we had just seen.
Far down in Gina’s eyes, whose nervous energy was tired and worn out—somewhere very deep down—there shone a livid gleam of disquiet.
She gazed searchingly at her fiancé, but there was no change in the expression of his face. After a time, he was aware that her glance was upon him; then he bent forward to her, and, stroking her glove, said smiling:
“What is the matter with you, Gina?”
“Nothing—only love for you,” she whispered.
Afterwards, we sat with Mme. Wildenhoff almost till dawn.
“What’s to be done? If he loves her no longer, he cannot be forced to stay with her,” said Mme. Lola to me, speaking of Owinski, of course. “Changes in feeling have nothing in common with ethics and the sense of duty.” … And so on, and so on.
Gina approached us presently.
“Tomorrow I shall be living by myself,” she told us. “I am now in such a state that I can’t bear anyone, not even so amiable a person as Idalia. She will live in my studio, which she likes very much, and the room that she rented formerly will now be let. I should greatly like to find another tenant for her.”
Mme. Wildenhoff turned upon me directly with these unexpected words:
“Wouldn’t you like to lodge with Idalia? She plays so beautifully; and that family life must, I fancy, bore you by now.”
It then occurred to me that Mme. Wildenhoff’s intention was to get me away from Imszanski! Was I right? Possibly.
“I shall think it over,” I answered in a pleasant tone. “Though indeed I like just as much to hear Martha play.”
This staying up all night long nearly once every forty-eight hours or so fatigues me beyond measure. They—that is, all the others—have nothing to do; they rise at noon, and enjoy plenty of money and leisure; and their greatest enjoyment is talking interminably about the deepest problems of existence. But for me, what with having battle with sleep in the morning, to walk so very far to my office through mud and slush, and to sit motionless at my desk for so many hours, those nights charge me with a burden very hard to bear. I have, it is true, a frame of iron: but such a life would wear it out at length.
I am weary and miserable, and from time to time I feel almost distracted. My state is that of one who has an appointment, and waits, waits, waits, through the hours and through the years, although the time allotted to keep it has long since passed by. I experience the same fever of impatience, the same clutching at my heart, when in my delusion I think I can at last hear his footsteps; the same chill of terror, when for an instant I think he will never come.
All this is very banal, very “missish.” Yes, I know, I know. But now and then it is simply beyond my power to keep down, simply overwhelming. For the time assigned to me, the wonderful time of meeting with one whom I love, fled into the past so long, so long ago!
Ah, it has come, that time! It came yesterday. I had already felt it in the air for many a day; it was in Martha’s eyes; my own heart told me. And while I yearned for it constantly, yet did I fear it like a sentence of death.
Having returned long after Martha had fallen asleep, he noticed that there was a light in my room, and tapped gently. I did not answer: nevertheless he came in.
“How late you have stayed up reading!” he said in a whisper. And then, seating himself on the couch beside me, he remained silent.
Covering my eyes with my hands, I let my head droop as low as to his knees, and in an instant was possessed with a mad, frenzied effervescence of expectancy. I shivered all over as with the ague; then shook all over with soundless laughter. Something was leaping up in my breast, palpitating in my very throat, in my brain, in my hands that were covering my eyes. … Had this unparalleled excitement lasted but one moment more I should have cried out aloud with terror and agony.
Then in an instant I grew quiet, overwhelmed with a sense of sudden numbness: and I let my head droop yet lower. Witold bent over me, and kissed my hair and shoulders. And then he raised up my head, and showered kisses on my eyes and mouth and throat.
Not one word of love did we speak. Already, long before, we had understood one another. But there were a thousand thoughts rushing through my brain.
He bent his marvellously beautiful head
