The Plavitskis, like all who are a little above middling country families, had indeed relatives whom they did not greatly recognize; they had also others who did not greatly recognize them. This, however, was done not so much from reasons of pride as involuntarily, by virtue of a certain social selection, through which people seek in society persons who are more or less in the same conditions of life as they themselves are. Great family festivals united such separated relatives temporarily; and Mashko not only found it agreeable to think that at his wedding there would be perfectly well-sounding names, but he foresaw various possible profits. The question would be merely one of cleverness to give people of this kind an idea that it would be well on their part, good and safe, to intrust their business to a man noted for energy, and, more than all, one of their own class, since he is a relative. That would be something like a dower given to a poor cousin. Mashko, taking note of his own qualities, hoped to force himself on them, and in time tower above them. He knew that this man or that would come at first to him for such counsel as he might find in conversation with an acquaintance, or a distant relative, who happened to understand various questions; later on, as the counsels proved good, he would come oftener, and at last put everything into the hands of the counsellor. Helping others in this fashion, he could himself sail out into broad waters, clear Kremen in time, advance to considerable property, throw aside at last legal pursuits, which he did not like, and which he considered only as a means of reaching his object, and fix himself finally in lofty spheres of society as an independent man, and at the same time a representative of superior landed property resting on a firm basis. He had foreseen all this, calculated and counted, before he determined to try for the hand of Panna Plavitski. He had not foreseen, however, one thing; to wit, that he would fall in love to such a degree as he had. For the time this made him angry, for he judged that too strong a feeling was something opposed to the balance which a man of high society should preserve at all times. That balance was one of his illusions. If he had had no need of forcing himself into that society, or had been born in it, he might have permitted himself to love to his heart's satisfaction. In spite of all his keenness, he had not understood that one of the chief privileges of this society, which considers itself privileged, is freedom. For this reason he was not altogether content when his heart melted too much in presence of Marynia. But, on the other hand, the object toward which he strove grew identified the more in him with that personal happiness which was verging almost on intoxication.