Hania

Antek and I walk on in silence. The silence begins to weigh on me and soon becomes unendurable. I feel that I must talk to Antek, tell him something of my happiness, how handsomely all has passed, how I love Kazia —

I prepare, but it is of no use! At last when just near the studio I say, —

"Own up, Antek, that life is still beautiful."

Antek halts, casts a frowning glance at me, and says, —

"Poodle!"

That night we conversed no more with each other.

CHAPTER VIII

A WEEK after the evening of betrothal my "Jews" arrive for exhibition. The picture is placed in a separate hall, and a special fee is charged for admission. One half of the net proceeds is for me. At the exhibition there is probably a throng from morning till evening.

I see it only once; but as people look at me more than at the picture, I shall not go again, for why should I be angry for nothing. If my picture were a masterpiece, such as has never been seen in the world till this day, people would rather satisfy that curiosity in virtue of which they go to see "Krao" or the Hottentot who eats live pigeons.

Such a Hottentot am I at this moment. I should be satisfied were I really a poodle; but I am too much of a painter not to be enraged by such degradation of art before a fashionable peculiarity.

CHAPTER IX

THREE weeks ago few persons knew of my existence, but now I begin to receive tens of letters, for the greater part love-letters. I may wager that of five four begin with these words: "It may be that when you have read this letter, you will despise the woman who, etc. – " I will not despise the woman, on condition that she will keep away from me.

Were it not for Kazia, perhaps, to tell the truth, I shouldn't shrug my shoulders so much at such a torrent of feeling.

How can such an "unknown" hope that a man who has never seen her will answer the invitation of an invisible woman? This makes me specially indignant. Remove first the curtain, O fair unknown! and when I behold thee, I will say to thee – Oi! I will say nothing, because of Kazia.

I receive also an anonymous missive, from some gray-haired friendess, in which I am called master, and Kazia a little goose.

"Oh, master, is she a wife for thee?" inquires my gray-haired friendess. "Is that a choice worthy of him on whom the eyes of the whole country are turned? Thou art a victim of intrigue, etc."

A wonderful supposition, and a still more wonderful demand, that I should marry not to please my heart but the public! And poor Kazia is already in their way!

There are greater crimes surely than anonymous letters, but there is no greater – how can I express myself justly? But never mind!

The end of my betrothal is not fixed yet, but it will come before long. Meanwhile I shall tell Kazia to array herself famously, and I will escort her to the exhibition. Let the world see us together.

Antek's two corpses have come also from Paris. The picture is called "The Last Meeting," and represents a young man and a young woman lying on the dissecting-table. At the first glance the idea is interpreted perfectly. It is clear that those two dead ones loved each other in life, that misery separated and death united them.

The students bending over the corpses have come out in the picture somewhat rigid; there are faults in the perspective of the dissecting-room; but the "corpses" are painted superbly. Such corpses that icy cold comes from them! The picture did not receive even mention, perhaps for the reason that the subject is wonderfully unpleasant; but critics praised it.

Among our "painters" there are beyond doubt many talents. For instance, at the side of Antek's corpses Franek Tsepkovski exhibited "The Death of Koretski." Immense strength in it, and immense individuality.

Antek calls Franek an idiot: first, because Franek has a forelock, and wears his beard wedge-form; second, because he dresses according to the latest fashion; and, third, because he is terribly well-bred and ceremonious, and mentions rather frequently his high-born relatives. But Antek is mistaken. Talent is a bird that builds its nest where it pleases, at one time in a wild desert, at another in a trimmed garden.

I have seen, in Monachium and Paris, painters who looked like laborers in a brewery, then others like barbers or dandies, you would not give three coppers for the men; still one and the other beast of them had in his soul such exaltation, such uncommon feeling of forms and colors, and such a power of projecting that feeling out of himself onto canvas! Ostrynski, who has a trite phrase for everything, would have written in mentioning them in his "Kite," spiritus flat ubi vult (the spirit bloweth where it listeth).

In Antek's opinion, historical painting is "obscure barbarism." I do not paint historical subjects, and personally the question is all one to me, but I hear this opinion on every side as being progressive. People have made a saw of it, and it begins to annoy me.

Our Polish painters have one defect: they become wedded to certain doctrines touching art, live under their slippers, look at everything with the eyes of these doctrines, force art to them, and are rather apostles than painters. In contrast to painters mentioned above (in connection with Monachium and Paris), I have known others whose lips were worn off in talking of what art is, and what it should be; but when it came to the brush they could not do anything.

More than once I have thought that a theory of art should be framed by philosophers, and if they framed nonsense – let them answer; but painters should paint what the heart dictates to each man, and to know how to paint is the main thing. To my thinking, the most wretched talent is worth more than the most splendid doctrine, and the most splendid doctrine is not worthy to clean the boots of freedom.

CHAPTER X

I WAS with Kazia and the Suslovskis at the exhibition.

There are crowds before my picture at all times. They began to whisper the moment we entered; and this time they looked mostly, not at the picture, and not at me, but at Kazia. The women especially did not take their eyes from her. I saw that she was pleased with this fabulously; but I did not take it ill of her. I take it worse that she said of Antek's corpses, "that is not a decent picture." Suslovski declared that she had taken the words out of his mouth; but I was raging. To think that Kazia too should have such a view of art!

From anger I took farewell of them at once, on pretence that I must see Ostrynski. I went to his office, it is true, but to induce him to dine with me.

CHAPTER XI

I SAW a miracle, and that's the end of it.

Now for the first time I understand why a man has eyes.

Corpo di Bacco; what beauty!

I am walking with Ostrynski; I see on a sudden at the corner of Willow Street some woman passing quickly. I stand as if fixed to the earth; I become oak; I become stone; I stare; I lose consciousness; without knowing it I seize Ostrynski by the cravat; I loosen his cravat – and – save me, or I die!

What that she has perfect features? It is not the features, she is simply an artist's ideal, a masterpiece as outline, a masterpiece as coloring, a masterpiece as sentiment. Greuze would have risen from the dead in her presence, and hanged himself then for having painted so much ugliness.

I gaze and gaze. She is walking alone, – how alone? Poetry is walking with her; music, spring, splendor, and love are walking with her. I know not whether I should prefer to paint her immediately; I should rather kneel before her and kiss her feet, because such a woman was born. Finally, do I know what I would do?

She passes us as serenely as a summer day. Ostrynski bows to her; but she does not see him. I wake from my amazement and cry, —

"Let us follow her!"

"No," answers Ostrynski; "have you gone mad? I must tie my cravat. Give me peace! that is an acquaintance of mine."

"An acquaintance of yours? Present me."

"I do not think of it; look to your own betrothed."

I hurl a curse at Ostrynski and his posterity to the ninth generation; then I wish to fly after the unknown. To my misfortune, she has entered an open carriage. Only from a distance do I see her straw hat and red parasol.

"Do you know her really?" ask I of Ostrynski.

"I know all people."

"Who is she?"

"Pani Helena Kolchanovski of the house of Turno, otherwise Panna Vdova [Miss Widow], so called."

"Why Miss Widow?"

"Because her husband died at their wedding supper. If you have recovered, I will tell you her history. There was a rich, childless bachelor, Kolchanovski de Kolchanovo, a noble of the Ukraine. He had immensely honorable relatives who hoped to be his heirs, and an immeasurably short neck, which gave the greater hopes to the heirs. I knew those heirs. They were in truth perfectly honorable people; but what's to be done? The most honorable and the least interested of them could not refrain from looking at Kolchanovski's neck. This annoyed the old man so intensely that out of spite to the family he paid court to a neighbor's daughter, drew up a document, conveyed to her all his property, then married her; after the ceremony there was dancing; at the end of the dancing a supper; at the end of the supper apoplexy killed him on the spot. In that way Madame Helena Kolchanovski became Miss Widow."