feelings are strange sometimes, and the opposite of those which would seem the reward of noble deeds. Yosef promised Gustav not to see Pani Helena, the widow. Whether he loved her or not, that was a sacrifice on his part, for in his toilsome and monotonous existence she was the only bright point around which his thought loved to circle. Though thinking about her was only the occupation of moments snatched from hard labor and devoted to rest and mental freedom, to renounce such moments was to deprive rest of its charm, it was to remove a motive from life at a place where feeling might bud out and blossom.
Yosef, after thinking a little, did this without hesitation. He made a sacrifice.
Still, when Gustav had gone from the room, there was on Yosef's face an expression of distaste, even anger. Was that regret for the past, or for the deed done a moment before?
No.
When he extended his hand to Gustav, the latter hesitated in taking it. Not to accept a sacrifice given by an energetic soul is to cover the deed of sacrifice itself with a shadow of ridicule; and this in the mind of him who makes the sacrifice is to be ungrateful, and to cast a grain of deep hatred into the rich field of vanity.
But to accept a rival's sacrifice is for a soul rich in pride to place one's own "I" under the feet of some other man morally; it is to receive small coppers of alms thrust hastily into a hand which had not been stretched forth for anything.
Pride prefers to be a creditor rather than a debtor.
Therefore Gustav when on the street twisted his mouth in bitter irony, and muttered through his pressed lips.
Better and better. Favor, favor! Bow down now to Pan Yosef daily, and thank him. A pleasant life for thee, Gustav!
And he fell into bitter, deep meditation. He ceased even to think of himself, he was merely dreaming painfully. He felt a kind of gloomy echo in his soul, while striving to summon up the remembrance of even one happy moment. That echo sounded in him like a broken chord. The mind and soul in the man were divided. One tortured half cried hurriedly for rest; the other half, energetic and gloomy, strove toward life yet. One half of his mind saw light and an object; the other turned moodily toward night and nothingness. To finish all, there was something besides in this sorrowing man which made sport of its own suffering; something like a malicious demon which with one hand indicated his own figure to him, pale, ugly, bent, and pointed out with the other, as it were in the clouds in the brightness of morning, Helena Potkanski, in marble repose, in splendid beauty.
Torn apart with the tumult of this internal battle, he went forward alone, almost without knowing whither. Suddenly he heard behind a well-known voice singing in bass the glad song: —
"Hop! hop! hop! hop!
And the horseshoe firmly fastened."
He looked around – it was Vasilkevich and Augustinovich.
"Whither art thou hastening, Gustav?" asked the first.
"I? Ha! whither – " He looked at his watch. "It is too early to visit Pani Helena. I am going at present to the club."
"Well, go straight to the widow."
"What? Why?"
"Woe!" exclaimed Augustinovich, raising his hand toward heaven; and without noticing passers-by, he fell to declaiming loudly: —
"The castle where joyousness sounded
Is shrouded in mourning to-day;
On its wall the wild weeds are growing,
At its gate the faithful dog howls."
"Thou hast no reason to visit the club," added Vasilkevich.
"What has happened?"
"Gloom is there now incubating a tempest," replied Augustinovich.
"But say what has happened."
"Misfortune."
"Of what sort?"
"Ghastly!"
"Vasilkevich, speak in human fashion!"
"The University government has closed our club. Some one declared that students assemble there."
"When did this happen?"
"Two hours since."
"We must go there and learn on the spot."
"I do not advise thee to do so. They will put thee in prison."
"They will bind thy white palms with a rope – "
"Augustinovich, be quiet! Why did they not do this in the evening? They might have caught us all like fish in a net."
"Well, they cared more for closing the club than for seizing us; but were a man to go now, beyond doubt they would seize him."
"But whither are ye going?"
"We are going with a watchword of alarm; the clans send a fiery cross – "
"Speak low, I beg thee!"
"Yes, valiant Roderic."
"True, true," interrupted Vasilkevich; "we are on the way to warn others, so farewell, or go with us."
"I cannot."
"Where wilt thou go?"
"To Pani Helena's."
"Farewell."
"Till we meet again!"
When he was alone, Gustav rubbed his hands, a smile of satisfaction lighted up his gloomy face for a moment. He was pleased with the closing of the club, for he ceased to fear that Helena, on learning of Yosef's decision, might wish to visit the club to see him there. His fears were well founded. Gustav remembered that despite prayers and arguments he had barely, by the promise of bringing Yosef to her lodgings, been able to restrain her from this improper step. Now he had no cause for fear.
After a while he pulled the bell at the widow's dwelling.
"How is thy mistress?" asked he of the servant girl.
"She is well, but walking in the room and talking to herself."
Gustav entered.
Pani Helena's dwelling was composed of two narrow chambers, with windows looking out on a garden; the first chamber was a small drawing-room, the second she used as a bed-chamber, which Gustav now entered. The upper part of the window in the bed-chamber was divided by a narrow strip of wood from the lower part, and had colored panes arranged in the form of a flower, blue and red alternately. In one corner stood a small mahogany table covered with a soft velvet spread. On the table stood two portraits; one in an inlaid wooden frame represented a young man with a high forehead, blond hair, and handsome aristocratic features, – that was Potkanski; the other was Pani Helena. On her knees was her little daughter dressed in white. Before the portraits lay a garland of immortelles entwined with crape and with a sprig of dry myrtle.
At the opposite end of the room, between two beds divided by a narrow space, was a small cradle, now empty, once filled with the twittering and noise of an infant. Its cover, colored
