A trio began. The gentle tones began to rock Ladislaus' agitated soul. His senses gradually fell asleep and his desires were extinguished. His love metamorphosed into a great winged angel who carried his loved one in his arms as if a child, and soared with her in the immeasurable space before an altar composed of the lustre of the evening twilight and the nocturnal lights of stars. The hour was late, when Gronski, Swidwicki, and Ladislaus left Pani Otocka's. On the streets they met few pedestrians, but every few paces, they encountered the military and police patrol, which stopped them and asked for passports. This time Swidwicki did not pretend to be intoxicated, for he fell into a bad humor just because at Pani Otocka's he had to content himself with two glasses of wine. So, showing the policeman the passport, he pointed to his dress-suit and white cravat and asked them surlily whether socialists or bandits dressed in that manner. "If only lightning would smite the one and the other," he said, striking the sidewalk with his cane. "In addition, everything is closed, not only the restaurants in the hotels, but even the pharmacies, in which in an extreme case, vin de coca or alcohol can be procured. The pharmacies are striking! We have lived to see that! The doctors also ought to strike and then the grave-diggers will unwillingly have to strike also. May the devil seize all! At home I have not a single bottle; so throughout the entire night I will not be able to sleep a wink and to-morrow I will be as if taken off the cross--" "Come with us," said Gronski, "perhaps we may find a bottle of something and black coffee." "You have saved not only my life but that of my 'associate,' especially if two bottles are found." "We will seek. But what kind of associate are you speaking of?" "True, you yet know nothing. I will relate it over a glass." It was not far to Gronski's residence, so soon they were seated around a table on which was found a bottle of noble Chambertin and a coffee-percolator with black coffee, steaming in a delicious manner. Swidwicki regained his spirits. "Those ladies," he said, "are real angels, and for the reason that it is there, as if in Paradise, where happiness consists in gazing upon eternal brightness and listening to the archangel choir." Here he addressed Krzycki: "I observed that this suffices for you and Gronski--but for me it is absolutely too little." "Only do not begin to sharpen your tongue on those ladies," replied Gronski, "for I shall order the bottle removed instanter." Swidwicki hugged it with both hands. "I idolize--all three," he exclaimed with comic precipitancy. "Of what kind of associate were you speaking?" Swidwicki swallowed the wine and, closing his eyes, for a while appraised its value. "I have with me from this morning some kind of gallows-bird, for whom the police are looking and, if they find him with me, they will probably hang us both." "You, however, have given him shelter?"