Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/121

Rh sort of reversed sugar-pill; for in this case the sweetness is concealed within, and only the rind is bitter, so that the sufferer will go away feeling unaccountably lighter of heart, but unaware that he has received the first dose of that mighty elixir called hope.

Madame Wolska had been trying to frame her words in accordance with some such principles, and she had found her task a very difficult one. Filip's countenance, at all times stern, was hardened rather than softened by the expression of melancholy which now marked it, and she felt helpless to lighten his grief as yet, — the blow was too recent, the wound too fresh, to admit of palliatives. After dwelling at length on the virtues of the defunct Julka, Madame Wolska had endeavored, apparently unsuccessfully, to awaken the widower's interest in the pair of children that remained to him. She had promised him new winter clothes for the little orphans, and had given him cakes to take home to them.

These favors had been received apathetically, with scanty thanks; evidently the widower was as yet too much crushed to be touched by compassion or kindness.

Sophie Wolska had now exhausted all her resources in the way of condolence, and was desirous of terminating the interview. Seeing that Filip showed as yet no sign of departing, she rose from her seat and said, —

"You have nothing more to say, have you?"

"Yes, gracious pani, I have something to say; it was for that that I came up here."

"Very well," said Sophie, standing still, and with no inclination to sit down again — "very well. What is it?"

"Gracious pani," said Philip, speaking in a slow, measured voice, "I came up here to look for a wife."

"A wife!" repeated Sophie, after a pause of stupefied surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I came up here to look for a wife," said Filip again, very distinctly.

Madame Wolska now gazed on Filip with compassionate solicitude, slightly tinged by alarm. Evidently the poor man had gone mad! The blow of losing an adored wife had been too much for him. He was mad, and she was alone with him! What would his next words be? Was he going to summon her with violence to restore to him his lost Julka? Some such association of ideas might well have been hovering in his distorted brain, since it was here that poor Julka had come on that last evening of her life.

Madame Wolska moved cautiously nearer to the door, though she could as yet detect no lurking symptoms of violence about the man, and with her fingers on the handle, she said in a gentle, soothing tone, such as one uses towards an unreasonable feverish child, "You forget that your poor wife is dead. She is in heaven; she is praying up there for you and for your children."

"Julka is dead," said Filip, looking at Madame Wolska with some surprise, for he could not divine her train of thought. "I have just come from her grave, where I have been putting up a wooden cross, and it is because she is dead that I am seeking for another wife in her place."

This time there was no mistaking his words, and fear rapidly giving way to stupefaction, the lady sank down on a chair, while Filip further elucidated his meaning.

"It is not yet a week since you lost your wife!" Sophie stammered at last, feeling shocked and scandalized beyond measure. "Just so — a week on Tuesday," said Filip calmly. "I would have come up sooner to speak to the noble pani about this, but I had not time before to-day."

"But surely you cannot have forgotten your poor wife yet?"

"I shall never forget Julka, even if I live to be as old as old Josepha in the village," said Filip quietly; " but we poor people cannot afford to spend over-long time in mourning. I have two little children at home, and no one to mind them. The neighbors are kind enough to lend a hand occasionally, but every one has her own affairs to look to, and I do not care to ask favors of any one. Little Kasza scalded her legs with the boiling water only yesterday, and Kuba is always at the beehives. I must have a wife of my own to mind the house."

Madame Wolska now comprehended the situation, though she could not as yet familiarize herself with it. She was experiencing a strong feeling of repulsion for this new-made widower, who was already clamoring for another spouse. Intensely methodical, nay, almost pedantic in all her mode of life, she had always hitherto taken for granted that the course of grief was a thing to be determined by exact mathematical rules. A certain number of yards of black stuff had to be worn out in the deceased one's memory, a certain number of handkerchiefs (supposed to be