Kranitski grew as radiant as if a sun-ray had fallen on his face.

"Very well, my dears, very well, I will go with you; it will distract me, freshen me. A little while only; will you permit?"

"Of course. Willingly. We will wait." He hurried to his bedroom, and closed the door behind him. In his head whirled pictures and expressions: the theatre, songs, amus.e.m.e.nt, supper, conversation, the bright light--everything, in a word, to which he had grown accustomed, and with which he had lived for many years. The foretaste of delight penetrated through his grievous sorrows.

After the bitter mixture he felt the taste of caramels in his mouth. He ran toward his dressing-table, but in the middle of the room he stood as if fixed to the floor. His eye met a beautiful heliotype, standing on the bureau in the light of the lamp; from the middle of the room, in a motionless posture, Kranitski gazed at the face of the woman, which was enclosed in an ornamented frame.

"Poor, dear soul! n.o.ble creature!" whispered he, and his lips quivered, and on his forehead appeared the red spots. Maryan called from beyond the door:

"Hurry, old man! We shall be late!"

A few minutes afterward Kranitski entered the drawing-room. His shoulders were bent; his lids redder than before.

"I cannot--as I love you, I cannot go with you! I feel ill."

"Indeed, he must be ill!" cried Maryan. "See, Emil, how our old man looks! He is changed, is he not?"

"But a moment ago you looked well!" blurted out Emil, and added: "Do not become wearisome, do not get sick. Sick people are fertilizers on the field of death--and sickness is annoying!"

"Splendidly said!" exclaimed Maryan.

"No, no," answered Kranitski, "this is not important, it is an old trouble of the liver. Returned only to-day--you must go without me."

He straightened himself, smiled, tried to move without constraint, but unconquerable suffering was evident on his features and in the expression of his eyes.

"May we send the doctor?" asked Maryan.

"No, no," protested Kranitski, and the baron took him by the arm and turned him toward the bedroom. Though Kranitski's shoulders were bent at that moment, his form was shapely and imposing; the baron, holding his arm, seemed small and frail; he made one think of a fly. In the bedroom he said, with a low voice:

"It is reported in the city that papa Darvid is opposed to my plans concerning Panna Irene. Do you know of this?"

For some months the baron had spoken frequently with Kranitski about his plans, taking counsel with him even at times, and begging for indications. Was he not the most intimate friend of that house, and surely an adviser of the family? Kranitski did not think, or even speak, of Baron Emil otherwise than:

"Ce brave garcon has the best heart in the world; he is very highly developed and intelligent; yes, very intelligent; and his mother, that dear, angelic baroness, was one of the most beautiful stars among those which have lighted my life."

So through the man's innate inclination to an optimistic view of mankind, and his grateful memory of "one of the most beautiful stars," he was always very friendly to the baron and favorable to his plan touching Irene; all the more since he noted in her an inclination toward the baron. So, usually, he gave the young man counsel and answers willingly and exhaustively. This time, however, an expression of constraint and of suffering fell on his face.

"I know not, dear baron; indeed, I can do nothing, for to tell--for I--" A number of drops of perspiration came out on his forehead, and he added, with difficulty:

"It seems that Panna Irene--"

"Panna Irene," interrupted the baron, without noticing Kranitski's emotion, "is a sonnet from Baudelaire's Les fleurs du mal (The flowers of evil). There is in her something undefined, something contradictory--"

Kranitski made a quick movement.

"My baron--"

"But do you not understand me, dear Pan Arthur? I have no intention of speaking ill of Panna Irene. In my mouth the epithets which I have used are the highest praise. Panna Irene is interesting precisely for this reason, that she is indefinite and complicated. She is a disenchanted woman. She possesses that universal irony which is the stamp of higher natures. Oh, Panna Irene is not a violet unless from the hot-house of Baudelaire!

But, just for that reason she rouses curiosity, irritates, une desabusee--une vierge desabusee. Do you understand? There is in this the odor of mystery--a new quiver. But with natures of this sort nothing can ever be certain--"

"Hers is a n.o.ble nature!" cried Kranitski, with enthusiasm.

"You divide natures into n.o.ble and not n.o.ble," said the baron, with a smile; "but I, into annoying and interesting."

Beyond the door the loud voice of Maryan was heard:

"Emil, I will leave you and go to Tron-tron's. I will tell Lili Kerth that you remained for the night to nurse a sick friend."

These words seemed to them so amusing that they laughed, from both sides of the closed door, simultaneously.

"Good!" cried the baron. "You will create for me the fame of a good Christian. As the Brandenburger fears only G.o.d, I fear only the ridiculous, and go."

A few minutes later the two friends were no longer in the dwelling of Kranitski, who was sitting on his long chair again, with drooping head, turning in his fingers the golden cigarette-case. The street outside the window was lonely enough, so the rumble of the departing carriage was audible. Kranitski followed it with his ear, and when it was silent he regretted pa.s.sionately for a moment that he had not gone to where people were singing and jesting, and eating, and drinking in bright light, in waves of laughter. But, straightway, he felt an invincible distaste for all that. He was so sad, crushed, sick.

Why had not those two young friends of his remained longer? He had rendered them the most varied services frequently, he had simply been at their service always, and had loved them; especially Maryan, the dear child--and many others. How many times had he nursed them, also, in sickness, consoled them, rescued them, amused them. Now, when he cannot run after them, as a dog after its mistress, his only comrades are darkness and silence.

Darkness reigned in the little drawing-room, silence of the grave in the whole dwelling. A clatter of overshoes broke this silence; widow Clemens stood in the kitchen door. On her high forehead, above her gray eyebrows, shone the gla.s.s eyes of her spectacles; her left hand was covered with a man's sock which she was darning. She stood in the door and looked at Kranitski, bent, grown old, buried in gloomy silence, and shook her head. Then, as quietly as ever was possible for her, she approached the long-chair, sat on a stool which was near it, and asked:

"Well, why are you silent, and chewing sorrow alone? Talk with me, you will feel easier."

As he gazed at her silently, she asked in a still lower tone:

"Well, the woman? Did she love you greatly? Was her love real?

How did you and she come to your senses?"

After a few minutes' hesitation, or thought, Kranitski, with his elbows on the edge of the chair, and his forehead on his palms, said:

"I can tell all, mother, for you are not of our society, and you are n.o.ble, faithful; the only one on earth who remains with me."

Throughout the silent chamber was heard, as it were, the sound of a trumpet: that sound was made by widow Clemens, who had drawn from her pocket a coa.r.s.e handkerchief and held it to her nose.

Her eyes were moist. Kranitski quivered and squirmed, but continued:

"When we met the first time after parting, the spring season was around us. You know that we parted only because I had too little fortune to marry a portionless maiden, and my mother would not hear of my marrying a governess. Soon after, that rich man married her. Fiu! fiu! what became of that governess, that girl more timid than a violet? She became a society lady, full of life, elegance, style--but springtime breathed around us, memories of the village, of the flowers, of the fields, of our earliest, heartfelt emotions. Did she love her husband? Poor, dear, soul! It seems that at first she was attached to him, but he left her, neglected her, grasped after millions throughout the whole world. He was strong, unbending--she was ever alone. Alone in society! Alone in the house--for the children were small yet, and she so sensitive and weak, needing friendship and the fondling of a devoted heart. I fell on my knees in spirit before her--she felt that. He, when going away, left me near her as an adviser, a guardian for the time, even a protector, yes, a pro-tec-tor--the parvenu! the idiot! So wise, yet so stupid--ha!

ha! ha!"

Sneering, vengeful laughter contorted Kranitski's face, the red spots spread over his brows and covered half of his forehead, which was drawn now into thick wrinkles.

"Do not vex yourself, Tulek, do not vex yourself, you will be ill," urged widow Clemens; but once his confessions were begun he went on with them.

"For a year or more there was nothing between us. We were friends, but she held me at a distance; she struggled. You, mother, know if I had success with women--"

"You had, to your eternal ruin, you had!" blurted out widow Clemens.

"From youth I had the gift of reading; I owe much to it."

"Ei! you owe much to it! What do you owe to it? Your sin against G.o.d, and the waste of your life!" said the widow, ready for a dispute, but he went on without noting that.

"Once she was weak after a violent attack of neuralgia; it was late in the evening, the great house was empty and dark, the children were sleeping--I gave her the attention that a brother or a mother would give; I was careful; I hid what was happening within me; I acted as though I were watching over a sick child which was dear to me. I entertained her with conversation; I spoke in a low voice; I gave her medicine and confectionery.

Afterward I began to read. More than once she had said that my reading was music. I was reading Musset. You do not know, mother, who Musset is. He is the poet of love--of that love exactly which the world calls forbidden. She wanted something from the neighboring chamber; I went for it. When I returned our eyes met, and--well, I read no more that evening."

He was barely able to utter the last words; he covered his face with his handkerchief, rested his head on the arm of the long-chair, was motionless; wept, perhaps. Widow Clemens bent down, the corner of her coa.r.s.e handkerchief came from her pocket, and through the chamber that sound of a trumpet was heard for the second time. Then she drew her bench up still nearer, and, with her hand in the stocking-foot, touched Kranitski's arm, and whispered: