Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/81

Rh daughter and two or three servant-maids from the Ukraine. Such were Yosef's neighbors.

Soon they gave evidence of themselves, for all day in the engineer's rooms groaned a piano at which children were learning to play all the contra-dances ever danced up to that time in any land; at the general's were continual amusements, dances, and evening parties. Whole nights through there was stamping there, as in a mill, servants moving about on the stairway; there was no lack of noise and rattle.

The count alone lived quietly. There is nothing wonderful in this, that he and his daughter sat there meditating sadly over their own ruin like Jews over the ruins of Jerusalem. Yosef of course did not know them yet, but at times about dusk, by the clatter on the stairs and the heavy tread, he divined that the old count was taking his daughter to walk; but not being fond of titles or coronets, he had in truth no curiosity to look at them.

Once, however, he saw something which interested him more. A certain day, while going to his room, he saw between the first story and the second a certain bust bent over the banisters with a head altogether shapely, blue eyes, and dark hair. Those eyes, shaded by a hand,