"They are well, and are coming here after dinner," answered Pan Stanislav. Just before dinner Professor Vaskovski came, bringing Bukatski, who had returned to Warsaw the evening before. His intimacy with the Bigiels permitted him to come without being invited; and the presence of Pani Emilia was too great a temptation to be resisted. He met her, however, without a trace of sentiment, in his usual jesting fashion; she was glad to see him, for he amused her with his strange and original way of uttering ideas. "Were you not going to Monachium and Italy?" asked she, when they had sat down to dinner. "Yes; but I forgot a card-knife in Warsaw, and came back to get it." "Oh, that was a weighty reason." "It always makes me impatient that people do everything from weighty reasons. What privilege have weighty reasons, that every man must accommodate himself to them? Besides, I gave, without wishing it, the last services to a friend, for yesterday I was at the funeral of Lisovich." "What! that thin little sportsman?" inquired Bigiel. "The same. And imagine that to this moment I cannot escape astonishment that a man who played the jester all his life could bring himself to such a serious thing as death. Simply I cannot recognize my Lisovich. At every step a man meets disappointment." "But," said Pan Stanislav, "Pani Kraslavski told me that Ploshovski, he with whom all the women of Warsaw were in love, shot himself in Rome." "He was a relative of mine," said Plavitski. This news affected Pani Emilia mainly. She scarcely knew Ploshovski himself, but she had often seen his aunt, for whom her husband's elder brother was agent. She knew also how blindly this aunt loved her sister's son. "My God, what a misfortune!" said she. "But is it true? A young man so capable, so wealthy--poor Panna Ploshovski!" "And such a great estate will be without an heir," added Bigiel. "I know their property, for it is near Warsaw. Old Panna Ploshovski had two relatives: Pani Krovitski, though she was distant, and Leo Ploshovski, who was nearer. Neither are living now." These words moved Plavitski again. He was indeed some sort of a distant relative of Panna Ploshovski, and even had seen her two or three times in his life; but there remained to him merely the remembrance of fear, for she had told him the bitter truth each time without circumlocution, or rather, speaking simply, had scolded him as much as he could hold. For this reason, in the further course of his life he avoided her most carefully, and all communication between them was stopped, though on occasions he liked to say a word in society of his relationship with a family so well known and important. He belonged to that category of people, numerous in our country, who are convinced that the Lord God created for their special use an easy road to fortune through inheritance, and who consider every hope of that kind as certain. He cast a solemn glance, therefore, on the assembly, and said,--