"For it seems that it is nothing, but in life it may appear to be something. Omitting the various cousins, 'Mats' and 'Jacks,' who undoubtedly will be found; there also will be found dissimilar instincts, dissimilar dispositions, and dissimilar tastes. Why, the deuce! I would not want a wife who suddenly might be ruled by an unexpected passion for amber rosaries, for shelling peas, for swingling flax, for picking fruit, or for gathering mushrooms, not to say berries and nuts, and walking barefooted." Here he turned to Gronski. "Shrug your shoulders, but it is so." "That would not shock me," said Swidwicki, "only, if I were to marry Miss Anney, I would just stipulate that she at times should go about barefooted. When I am in the country, nothing affects me so much as the sight of the bare feet of girls. It is true that they often have erysipelas about the ankles, which comes from the prickle of the stubblefields. But I assume that Miss Anney has not got erysipelas." "One cannot talk with you in a dignified manner." "Why?" replied Swidwicki. "Let Krzycki now clip coupons from his dignity but not we. Did you say that he belongs to the National Democrats?" "No, not I. But what connection has that with Miss Anney?" "Oh,--oh, a nobleman--a National Democrat--has found out that his flame has peasant blood in her veins and nevertheless his belly on that account has begun to ache; nevertheless, he is stung by that deminutio capitis." "Who told you that? Besides, it should be permutatio, not deminutio." "Yes! The English wares take on the appearance of a domestic product and fall in value. Justly, justly." "Do you know who could with perfect independence enter into a marriage under such conditions?" asked Dolhanski. "A truly great gentlemen." "But not Polish," exclaimed Swidwicki. "There you are already beginning! Why not Polish?" "Because a Polish gentleman has not sufficient faith in his own blood; he plainly has not sufficient pride to believe that he will elevate a woman to himself and not lower himself to her." Gronski began to laugh: "I did not expect that charge from your lips," he said. "Why? I am an individualist, and in so far as I do not regard myself as a specimen of the basest race, so far do I regard myself as a specimen of the best. According to me one belongs to the aristocracy only through lucky chance; that is, when one brings into the world a suitable profile and corresponding brain. But Dolhanski, for instance, in so far as he has not purchased portraits of ancestors at an auction--and our other gentlemen--judge that blood constitutes that appurtenance. Now granting these premises, I contend that our tories do not know how to be proud of their blood." "At home," said Gronski, "you vent your spleen upon the socialists, and here you wish to vent it upon the aristocracy." "That does not diminish my merits. I have a few pretty remarks for the National Democracy."