Then gradually and quite imperceptibly the past changed into the present, the dream into a reality. Yosef, noting this, had promised Gustav not to visit her; to prepare Helena and announce this news to her pertained to Gustav.
It was easy to foresee the impression which this would make. She clasped her hands and threw back her head. A torrent of hair covered her shoulders with a rustle.
"Where shall I see him?" asked she, insistently.
"I must see him here or elsewhere. He is so like Kazimir--My God, I live entirely by that memory, Pan Gustav."
Gustav was silent. He was made almost indignant by that blind egotism of Pani Helena. The drama began to play in him again. She begged him to do everything to undermine his own happiness. No! to act thus he would have to be a fool. But on the other hand--it was Helena who made the prayer. He bit his lips till the blood came, and was silent. Moreover, something belongs to him even from life. Everything that in him made up the man opposed her prayers with desperate energy. Meanwhile she continued to urge,--
"Pan Gustav, you will arrange so that I shall see him? I wish to see him. Why do you do me such an injustice?"
Cold sweat covered Gustav's forehead; he stretched his hands to his face, and in a gloomy voice answered,--
"I do you no injustice, but"--here his voice quivered, he made an effort not to fall at her feet and cry out, "But I love thee, do not torture me!"--"he does not wish to come here," concluded he, almost inaudibly.
He would have given much to avoid this moment. Helena covered her face with her hands and dropped into the armchair. Silence continued for a while, and the rustling of leaves was heard outside the window; inside the soul of a man was writhing in a conflict with itself. To bring Yosef, to take Helena from him, was for Gustav to unbridle misfortune.
The struggle was brief; he knelt before Helena, and putting his lips to her hand, said in a broken voice,--
"I shall do what I can. He will come here. What am I to any one? He will come, but I cannot tell when--I will bring him myself."
Soon after, in leaving the widow's lodgings, he muttered through his set teeth,--
"Yes, he will come; but it is not I who will bring him--he will come in a month--in two months--perhaps I shall be at rest."