Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/80

68 done for Gustav; he has no real reason to dislike me; but still—"

Vasilkevich pressed his hand.

Yosef's new lodgings were in a house of several stories. They consisted of two large and good-looking rooms. Besides the money which he had brought from home, Yosef immediately after his arrival found means which permitted him to save his capital to the utmost. He began to think then of a more comfortable mode of life, and at last arranged things far better really than at the beginning. From the first glance one might note ease and plenty in the new dwelling. The bed was made in good order every day, the floor swept, and in the small porcelain stove a cheerful fire burned daily, toward evening—it was so comfortable there that the soul rejoiced!

For that matter, the whole house was far better arranged than the other, it was even elegant. On the first story lived some general with his wife and two daughters, as ugly as two winter nights; on the second story lived Yosef, and a French engineer from whom the rooms were hired; and on the third some reduced count, a man immensely rich on a time, perhaps, but at that moment bankrupt; he lived in three or four rooms with his grown-up