Whirlpools

"Why does not the little lady want to agree that we should call each other 'associates'? Amongst us we all speak that way."

But she rebuffed him at once.

"I told you once I cannot endure that."

"Ah, if it is so, then it is hard."

Pauly began to prepare for home. Laskowicz on the leave-taking made a second departure from the customs governing his associates, for he kissed her hand. Previously he had noticed that this raised her in her own eyes; that it flattered her and brought her into a good humor. Although not by nature over-intelligent, he observed that the principles of the Party alone would not entirely hold her, and that he would have in that girl an aid capable of all extremes, but only so far as her own personality entered into the play. This lowered the opinion which he held of her and his gratitude to her. He nevertheless submitted to this despotism, remembering that he owed to her his life.

At present he had, besides, a favor to ask of her; so at the door he kissed her hand a second time and said:

"Panna Pauly-the same lot, the same wrong. Let the little lady answer yet one more question. Where can I see though from a distance-though from a distance-"

"Whom?" she asked, knitting her brows.

"Panna Marynia."

"If from a distance, then I will tell," she replied reluctantly. "The little lady is to play for the starving working people and at noon goes to the rehearsals."

"Alone?"

"No, with Pani Otocka or with my mistress; but sometimes with one of us servants."

"Thank you."

"But only from a distance-do you understand, sir, – for otherwise you will fare badly."

And after these words, which sounded like a menace, she left him. The next moment Laskowicz heard through the door Swidwicki's voice and laughter, after which something resembling a scuffle, a suppressed scream, and-the sound of hasty footsteps on the stairs; finally Swidwicki stumbled into the room, drunk.

"What were you doing here?" he asked.

"Nothing," answered Laskowicz.

And he began to scan the room, evidently desiring to satisfy himself whether he could not detect some signs of disorder, and repeated:

"Nothing!"

"I give you my word of honor," the student exclaimed with energy.

At this Swidwicki leered at him, fingering his disheveled beard and said:

"Then you are a fool!"

After which he flung himself upon the sofa, for he had partaken of a sumptuous breakfast and was sleepy.

III

Laskowicz's extreme fanaticism could not in reality harmonize with the extreme cynical scepticism of Swidwicki, who in addition took advantage of the situation not only beyond measure, but to the point of cruelty. He himself spoke of it and boasted about it to Gronski, when he met him in the restaurant, to which Gronski went after Krzycki's removal.

"I have enough of my revolutionary maggot," he said, "I have enough of him, especially since I have satisfied myself that personally he is honest and will not pilfer any money from my pocket-book. From that time he has bored me. As for harboring such a simpleton one might go to Siberia. I regarded it in the beginning as a species of sport. I thought I would have a permanent sensation of a certain anxiety and, in the meantime, I have not experienced anything of the kind. The only satisfaction which I have is to point out to him his own stupidity and that of his party. By that I drive him to rabidness."

"But that he cares to argue with you-"

"He does not want to but is unable to restrain himself. His temperament and fanaticism carry him away."

"At one time I met a similar individual," answered Gronski, "and not very long ago-out in the country, in Jastrzeb. He was a student, a tutor of Stas, whom Krzycki later discharged because he incited the field hands and was an agitator among peasants of the neighborhood."

"Ah," ejaculated, with a strange smile, Swidwicki, to whom it occurred that Pauly also was at Jastrzeb.

"What? Why do you smile?" asked Gronski.

"Oh, nothing. Speak further."

"I rode with him once to the city and on the way had quite a chat with him."

"According to your habit."

"According to my habit. Now among empty phrases, which only dull minds would accept as genuine coin, he said some interesting things. I learned a little about the angle from which they view the world."

"My maggot at times says interesting things. Yesterday I led him into the admission that socialists of the pure water regard as their greatest enemies the peasants and the radical members of the bourgeoisie. I began to pour oil on the fire and he unbosomed himself. An unsophisticated peasant aspires to ownership, and that aspiration the devil cannot eradicate, and as to the bourgeoisie he spoke thus: 'What harm,' he said, 'do these few nobles and priests who infest the world do to us? Our enemy is the bourgeois, rich or poor. Our enemy is the radical, who thinks that as soon as he shouts that he does not believe in God and priests that he buys us. Our enemy is that boaster, who speaks in the name of the common people and is ready to tickle us under the armpits, so that we should smile on him. He is the one who fawns on us, like a dog at a roll of butter, and preserves all the instincts of a bourgeois.' And he chattered further until I said: 'Hold on! Why, you are with the radicals "fratres Helenae!"' And he to this: 'That is not true! The radical, wealthy bourgeois, who from fear dyes in red and borrows the standard and methods from us, introduces confusion in minds and drabbles in the mud our idea; and the poor one, if he annually saves even the smallest amount, injures us for he offers to work at a lower price than the pure proletaire, who always is as poor as Job. We,' he said, 'will put the knife, above all things, to the throats of the bourgeois for latent treachery lurks in him.' Thus he chattered and I was willing to concede justice to him, if in general I believed in justice, but I did not concede it yet for another reason, and that is, he is too stupid to have reasoned out such things. It was evident that he repeated what others taught him. In fact I did not neglect to tell him so."

Further discussion was interrupted by the arrival of Dolhanski who, observing Gronski, approached him, although he disliked to meet Swidwicki.

"How are you?" he said, "My ladies took a trip to Czestochowo; so I am free. Will you permit me to be seated with you?"

"Certainly, certainly. Why, these are your last days."

"It would be worth while even for that reason to drink a little bottle," observed Swidwicki, "particularly as it is, besides, my birthday."

"If the calendar was a wine-cellar and the dates in it bottles, then your birthday would occur every day," answered Gronski.

"I swear to you upon everything at which I jeer, that, contrary to my habit and inclination, this time I speak the truth."

Saying this, he nodded to the waiter and ordered him to bring two bottles, calculating that afterwards more would be forthcoming. In the meantime Dolhanski said:

"I met Krzycki to-day. He looks poorly; somehow not himself, and he told me that he does not live with you but in a hotel. Did you by chance quarrel?"

"No. But he moved away from me and Pani Krzycki from Pani Otocka's."

"There is some kind of epidemic," exclaimed Swidwicki, "for my cutthroat is leaving me."

"Perhaps something has passed between Krzycki and Miss Anney," said Dolhanski. "I supposed that they were getting quite intimate. Did they part-or what?"

"A marchpane, that Englishwoman," interrupted Swidwicki; "but her maid has more electricity in her."

Gronski hesitated for a while; after which he said:

"No, they have not parted, but something has occurred. I do not know why I should make a secret of that which, sooner or later, you will find out. It has developed that Miss Anney is not the born, but adopted, child of the rich English manufacturer, lately deceased, Mr. Anney, and of his late wife."