"I do not remember, now, who said that society keeps its geniuses on diet. People say that this man is immensely capable, but he cannot earn bread with verses. Our Tsiskovski went to the insurance company; his place was left vacant, and Zavilovski applied. I had some scruples, but he told me that for him this place was a question of bread, and the chance of working. Besides, he pleased me, for he told me at once that he writes in three languages, but speaks well in none of them; and second, that he has not the least conception of mercantile correspondence." "Oh, that is nonsense," answered Pan Stanislav; "he will learn in a week. But will he keep the place long, and will not the correspondence be neglected? Business with a poet!" "If he is not right, we will part. But when he applied, I chose to give the place to him. In three days he is to begin. Meanwhile, I have advanced a month's salary; he needed it." "Was he destitute?" "It seems so. There is an old Zavilovski,--that one who has a daughter, a very wealthy man. I asked our Zavilovski if that was a relative of his; he said not, but blushed, so I think that the old man is his relative. But how it is with us? A balance in nothing. Some deny relationship because they are poor; others, because they are rich. All through some fancy, and because of that rascally pride. But he'll please thee; he pleased my wife." "Who pleased thy wife?" asked Pani Bigiel, coming in. "Zavilovski." "For I read his beautiful verses entitled, 'On the Threshold.' At the same time he looks as if he were hiding something from people." "He is hiding poverty, or rather, poverty was hiding him." "No; he looks as if he had passed through some severe disappointment." "Thou wert able to see in him a romance, and to tell me that he had suffered much. Thou wert offended when I put forth the hypothesis that it might be from worms in childhood, or scald-head. That was not poetical enough for her." Pan Stanislav looked at his watch, and was a little impatient. "Marynia is not coming," said he; "what a loiterer!" But the "loiterer" came at that moment, or rather, drove up. The greeting was not effusive, for she had seen the Bigiels at the railway. Pan Stanislav told his wife that they would stay to dine, to which she agreed willingly, and fell to greeting the children, who rushed into the room in a swarm. Now came Zavilovski, whom Bigiel presented to Pan Stanislav and Marynia. He was a man still young,--about seven or eight and twenty. Pan Stanislav, looking at him, considered that in every case his mien was not that of a man who had suffered much; he was merely ill at ease in a society with which he was more than half unacquainted. He had a nervous face, and a chin projecting prominently, like Wagner's, gladsome gray eyes, and a very delicate forehead, whiter than the rest of his face; on his forehead large veins formed the letter _Y_. He was, besides, rather tall and somewhat awkward.