"Gantovski's brichka, Zazimski's coach, Yamish's carriage, and a
number of others are there. Thou must remember the Yamishes. She is
an uncommon woman; he pretends to be a great agriculturist and a
councillor, but he is an old dotard, who never did understand her."
At that moment the bell began to sound in the church tower.
"They have seen us, and are ringing the bell," said Plavitski; "Mass
will begin this moment. I will take thee, after Mass, to the grave of
my first wife; pray for her, since she was thy aunt. She was an honest
woman; the Lord light her."
Here Plavitski raised his finger again to rub his right eye. Pan
Stanislav therefore asked, wishing to change the conversation,--
"But was not Pani Yamish once very beautiful? or is this the same one?"
Plavitski's face gleamed suddenly. He thrust out for one moment the
end of his tongue from his blackened little mustaches, and patting Pan
Stanislav on the thigh, said,--
"She is worth a sin yet,--she is, she is."
Meanwhile they drove in, and after walking around the church, entered
the sacristy at the side; not wishing to push through the crowd, they
sat on side seats near the altar. Plavitski occupied the collator's
place, in which were also the Yamishes. Yamish was a man very old in
appearance, with an intelligent face, but weighed down; she was a woman
well toward sixty, dressed almost like Panna Marynia,--that is, in a
muslin robe and a straw hat. The bows, full of politeness, which Pan
Plavitski made to her, and the kind smiles with which she returned
them, showed that between those two reigned intimate relations founded
on mutual adoration. After a while the lady, raising her glasses to
her eyes, began to observe Pan Stanislav, not understanding apparently
who could have come with Pan Plavitski. In the seat behind them one of
the neighbors, taking advantage of the fact that Mass had not begun
yet, was finishing some narrative about hunting, and repeated a number
of times to another neighbor, "My dogs, well--" then both stopped
their conversation, and began to speak to Plavitski and Pani Yamish so
audibly that every word reached the ears of Pan Stanislav. The priest
came out to the altar then.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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