Grzesikiewicz hesitated in confusion and became even sadder.
"No. He neither said anything about it, nor gave me a letter for you," he answered, lowering his voice.
"So that is how much he loves me and how greatly he longs to see me?
Ha! ha! ha!" she laughed harshly.
"Don"t you know him yet? He will die of thirst rather than beg a gla.s.s of water. When I was leaving and told him where I was going, he did not say a word, but looked at me in such a way and gripped my hand so firmly that I understood him entirely. . . ."
"No, you did not understand him at all. My father is not at all concerned about me; he is only concerned over the fact that the whole neighborhood must be speaking about my departure and my joining the theater. . . . Surely, Krenska must have left no stone unturned. . . . He is concerned only about the gossip that is circulating. He feels disgraced through me. He would like to see me broken and begging forgiveness at his feet. That is what he is anxious about!"
"You do not know him! Such hearts . . ."
Janina hastily interrupted him: "Let us not speak of hearts where on one side they do not at all enter into the question, where they are entirely lacking and there is only an insane . . ."
"So then? . . ." he asked rising, for he was choking with a spasm of anger.
The bell in the hall rang sharply, evidently pulled violently by someone.
"I will never return," said Janina with final determination.
"Janina . . . have mercy . . ."
"I do not understand that word," she answered with emphasis, "and I repeat: never! unless it be . . . after I am dead."
"Don"t say that, for . . ."
He did not finish for the door suddenly swung wide open and Mimi with Wawrzecki came rushing in.
"Well, are you coming? Hurry and dress yourself, for we start immediately! . . . Ah, I beg your pardon, I did not know you had a visitor," cried Mimi, observing Grzesikiewicz who took his hat, bowed automatically, and, without looking at anyone, whispered.
"Good-bye."
And without more ado he left.
Janina sprang up as though she wished to detain him, but Kotlicki and Topolski were just then entering and greeted her jocularly.
After them came some third person.
"What sort of broad gentleman was that? As I live, it is the first time that I saw such a ma.s.s of meat in a surtout!" cried that third comer.
"This is Mr. Glogowski. In a week we are to present his play and in a month he will be famous throughout Europe!" said Wawrzecki, introducing him.
"And in three months my fame will reach Mars with all its appurtenances! . . . If you are going to bluff, at least let it be a good bluff" laughed Glogowski.
Janina greeted them all, and in a subdued voice answered Mimi who was asking her about Grzesikiewicz: "An old friend of mine and former neighbor, a very honest man . . ."
"He must be flushed with money, that youth . . . he looks it!"
exclaimed Glogowski.
"Yes, he is wealthy. His family owns the largest sheep-growing ranch in Congressional Poland . . ."
"A shepherd! . . . he rather looks as though he were a keeper of elephants! . . ." jested Wawrzecki.
Kotlicki only smiled and discreetly observed Janina.
"Something must have happened here . . . for her voice shows she is deeply moved," he thought. "Perhaps that was her former lover? . . ."
"Come, hurry, for Mela is waiting downstairs in a hack," cried Mimi impatiently.
Janina dressed hastily and they all went out together.
They rode to the bank of the Wisla and from there took a boat to Bielany.
All were in a springtime humor, except Janina. She sat gloomily rapt in thought.
Kotlicki chatted jovially, Wawrzecki jested with Glogowski and the women took part in the merriment, but Janina hardly heard a thing that was being said. She was still pondering her conversation with Grzesikiewicz and the heavy feeling it had left in her heart.
"Is anything troubling you?" Kotlicki asked with anxiety in his voice.
"Me? Oh nothing! . . . I was just musing upon human misery," she answered.
"It is not worth thinking of anything that is not pleasure, full of life and youth . . ."
"Don"t complete that nonsense. It is just as if you were to eat off the b.u.t.ter on a piece of bread and then muse over your dry crust that you did a foolish thing after all," interposed Glogowski, "I see you do not like to eat, only to lick at things."
"My dear sir, I have the honor of knowing that ever since I was a schoolboy," Kotlicki retorted sarcastically.
"That isn"t the point; the point is that you advocate downright silly things. For instance indulgence, while you have had ample opportunity to prove upon yourself the sad results of that jolly theory."
"Both in life and in literature you are always paradoxical."
"I"ll wager you have weak lungs, arthritis, neurasthenia and . . ."
"Count up to twenty."
They began to argue vehemently and then to quarrel.
The boat had pa.s.sed the railroad bridge and the vast calm of the open country enveloped them on all sides. The sun was shining brightly, but a chill dampness arose from the murky waters of the river. The small waves, saturated with light, like serpents with gleaming scales, splashed about in the sunlight. The long sand dunes resembled water giants, basking in the sun with yellow upturned bellies. A string of scows floated before them; the pilot in a small c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l boat rowed on in front and every now and then would raise his voice in a cry which echoed across the water and reached them in a confused medley of tones. A few boatmen plied their oars with automatic motion and their sad song was wafted to the party and floated above their heads. Afterwards a growing silence began to spread around them.
The mild verdure of the sh.o.r.es, the sunlit trail of the waters gleaming with the sheeny softness of satin, the gentle rocking of the boat, the rhythmical stroke of the oars unconsciously imposed a silence upon everybody.
"I will not return!" thought Janina, automatically repeating those words, while she gazed upon the blue expanse of waters and pursued with her eyes the waves that fled swiftly on before her, "I will not return!"
She felt that loneliness was embracing her with ever wider arms and surrounding her soul with an emptiness into which she gazed defiantly. Her sorrow, the thought of her father and Grzesikiewicz, all her former acquaintances and her whole past seemed to be flowing on far behind her so that she saw them dimly in the distant gray mist and only the faint echo of an entreaty or of weeping seemed to reach her now and then.
No! she would not have the strength to turn back and swim against that current that was bearing her onward. Nevertheless, she felt that tears were dropping upon her heart and burning it with bitterness.
They disembarked at the landing-stage at Bielany and began to wind their way up the hill.