Читать книгу Kobiety (Women). A Novel of Polish Life онлайн

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He ends with a burst of tears. My head bends down to his, and we both weep together. In turns I am rent by compassion for him and by my longing for Roslawski. I kiss his black silky curls, and we cry like children.

Finally we agree that I shall go to Warsaw “to take counsel with my family and with my own heart”; and I am to give him a definite answer in a month’s time.

By then I shall surely have seen Roslawski—and everything will have been settled: for life or for death.

Every morning, the trees in the park are now white with hoarfrost, and we find the threshing-floor in the barn covered with many a steel-blue swallow, lying frozen to death. The stoves are heated, the windows hermetically closed (for the time being), and, though autumn has but just commenced, we are in winter quarters already.

In the calm white country house, sleep reigns supreme.

The wild wind howls through the sombre shrubberies, and sweeps showers of drifting leaves, green but frost-bitten, along the walls of the park. Through the windows I look out into the cold bleak night, a night of desolation and evil omen: such a night as one might expect to bring us mysterious half-frozen travellers who have lost their way; and on this very night they should come knocking at the door. The old, faithful, superstitious servants should mutter the saying: “Some one has hanged himself, the wind is so high,” and the dogs should howl together mournfully.