Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/61

Rh with the conviction that God must have pitied her, and, removing the child from the coffin, placed it back in the cradle.

In a word, those walls had seen much joy, lulled by the happiness of serene love, then tears as large as pearls, then despair, which was silent, deathlike, and finally stubborn, mad.

Such was the sleeping-room of that widow, and such were the thoughts which were roused at sight of the apartment. The little drawingroom, like all of its kind, had a sort of slight elegance and much emptiness. In that chamber, too, the echoes of past moments seemed to wander. It was well lighted, clean, but common; the room of the servant adjoined it,—a small dark closet with an entrance on the stairway and a wooden partition.

Such was the former residence of Potkanski. After his death it was difficult to understand whence the means came to keep up such lodgings; this, however, pertained to Gustav, he knew what he was doing. There were no claims on the part of the owner; how this was managed we shall explain somewhat later.

As often as Gustav entered that dwelling he trembled.

In a place which was full of her presence, where everything that was not she was for