Litka dropped into the depth of the seat, and appeared to be sleeping. Pan Stanislav threw a shawl, taken from Pani Emilia, over her feet, and they rode on a while in silence. Pani Emilia began to speak of Ploshovski, the news of whose death had impressed her deeply. "There is hidden in all that some unusually sad drama," said Pan Stanislav; "and Pani Kraslavski may be right in some small degree when she insists that these two deaths are connected." "There is in suicide," said Marynia, "this ghastly thing, that one feels bound to condemn it; and while condemning there is an impression that there should be no sympathy for the misfortune." "Sympathy," answered Pan Stanislav, "should be had for those who have feeling yet,--hence for the living." The conversation ceased, and they went on again for some time in silence. After a while Pan Stanislav pointed to the lights in the windows of a house standing in the depth of a forest park, and said,-- "That is Pani Kraslavski's villa." "I cannot forgive her for what she said of that unfortunate Pani Krovitski," said Pani Emilia. "That is simply a cruel woman," added Pan Stanislav; "but do you know why? It is because of her daughter. She looks on the whole world as a background which she would like to make as black as possible, so that Panna Terka might be reflected on it the more brightly. Perhaps the mother had designs sometime on Ploshovski; perhaps she considered Pani Krovitski a hindrance,--hence her hatred." "That is a nice young lady," said Marynia. "There are persons for whom behind the world of social forms begins another and far wider world; for her nothing begins there, or rather everything ends. She is simply an automaton, in whom the heart beats only when her mother winds it with a key. For that matter, there are in society very many such young ladies; and even those who give themselves out for something different are in reality just like her. It is the eternal history of Galatea. Would you believe, ladies, that a couple of years since an acquaintance of mine, a young doctor, fell in love to distraction with that puppet, that quenched candle. Twice he proposed, and twice he was rejected; for those ladies looked higher. He joined the Holland service afterwards, and died there somewhere, with the fever doubtless; for at first he wrote to me inquiring about his automaton, and later on those letters ceased to come." "Does she know of this?"